Running Around Charlotte

This is a time of year we LOVE — the cold finally breaks, but the heat hasn’t overtaken us. Of course it’s a great time to run, but it’s also a great time to enjoy patio dining at our favorite restaurant or brewery! And that means, we’d better get running or we’ll start packing on a few pounds. It doesn’t have to be that way though — Matt Dengler of RxRD Nutrition is here to help keep...

A road race is a great way to raise money and awareness for a cause. We love that proceeds from the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon go to Hemby Children’s Hospital. Our next guest on Running Around Charlotte is not only an active runner and coach in the community, but he is the event director for a 5k with a great name — called “Get Your Rear in Gear.” The name makes a lot more sense when y...

We always love talking to our ambassadors, especially about how they got into running. We also love that so many of our ambassadors aren’t lifelong marathoners, but regular folks who picked up running as adults and found a whole new way to grow from it. Ambassador Emily Richardson is like that — she started running her sophomore year at Michigan State and has grown with it ever since, even s...

If you are part of Charlotte’s huge running community, or have just wanted to be, you’ve probably tapped into the wealth of information at runCLTrun. It’s not a club, but a digital platform to get people connected — a hub for gathering information, finding out how, when, or where to train or race, and has answers to a multitude of other questions runners often have. Now its creator Lisa Land...

Let’s talk for a minute about WHY we run. Of course, it’s great exercise. If we run in groups — we meet people, encourage each other, and get motivated to live our best, healthiest lives. That’s also the philosophy behind the group Black Girls RUN, whose goal it is to get African American women off the couch and connected to each other by running. We’re DELIGHTED to have two ambassadors from...

Most of you have heard of Girls on the Run, that awesome learn-to-embrace-running (and yourself) program that started here in Charlotte and is now an international program. You may or may not know there is a similar program for boys — started by a Girls on the Run coach — that is celebrating 13 years as an organization. It’s called Let Me Run, and has more than 50 chapters around the c...

There are a lot of challenges to getting out for your run — we know them all! Time, work energy, weather, family … you name it, they can all get in the way. Our next guest on Running Around Charlotte also has a few things pulling at her schedule, but she’s met the challenge and even took 3rd place at our 2019 half marathon! Meet our busy mom, Anne Fechtel.

To say this year was a weird one, would be an understatement. But if you’re a runner — you already know that. So you probably know that presents some challenges to us at the Novant Health Charlotte Marathon. How do you get people involved in this great event while keeping them safe? What can we do to make race day special, even for runners who want to run virtually? We knew we needed to find...

Running is a great way to stay healthy — and a great way to know if something just isn’t right. That’s exactly what happened to marathoner Tom Perri, who has run marathons in all 50 states — more than once! — and some ultras too. But in 2018, Tom sensed something wasn’t quite right and a visit to his doctor confirmed it. He had prostate cancer. And guess what else — the res...

We all have good reasons to run…. And some days, we tell ourselves we have plenty of good reasons not to. Work, school, kids, fewer daylight hours… our list goes on and on. Our next guest on Running Around Charlotte has all of those excuses, and still makes time to get out and get a few miles in before the sun comes up. Kerri Vardon is a busy marketing accounts manager and mom of 2 young kids, who...

In a year with very few in-person marathons, one elites-only event allowed Charlotte’s Olympic Trials qualifier Paula Pridgen to hit the road with other runners. Only 50 men and 50 women were invited to take part in the Marathon Project on a closed course in Chandler, Arizona, in December. Pridgen has, of course, run a few marathons in her time, but this one was a little different — and Prid...

Hopefully, we’ve all gotten off to a good start with our New Year’s Resolutions, right? The top resolutions, most of us know, have to do with diet and exercise — but for runners, there’s even better news. If you’re trying to burn fat, running is the best exercise because runners burn more calories per minute than other sports like swimming or riding a bike. As a result, dedicated runners are...

We’ve heard it already a few times this year — one way to help you follow through on your New Year’s Resolutions is accountability! You have to set your goals, check off the steps, and measure progress along the way. Working out with a buddy also reminds you that you’d better not skip a day! Well, local public radio station WFAE is helping you with your resolution to get active by giving you...

We love running, but we also know our sport comes with occasional aches and pains. Our next guest on Running Around Charlotte helps both people and animals recover from the inevitable soreness that come with training. Stephanie Pope can help. She started her business of Red Light Therapy because of her lifelong love of horses. After studying Animal Sciences, with a specialty in Equines, at the Uni...

Two things can really make a runner want to smile – finishing a race, and a good dentist! (Get it?) Our next guest on the Running Around Charlotte podcast can relate to both of these things – she is a marathon and ultra-marathon runner, and also voted one of Charlotte’s Top Dentists from Charlotte Magazine for several years in a row! That makes us smile, too. Dr. Heather Dowlin is part of the Flyi...

We know a lot of our listeners are hard-core runners. You love the marathons, training on long runs, and you wear out a lot of shoes. Our next guest on Running Around Charlotte has a slightly different point of view, as she calls it, because she fully admits to running at the back of the pack. Mandy Carter calls herself an “average runner” who started running later in life – she has 2 kids, a law...

If you’re a runner – or even if you’re not – chances are you’ve been around one of our next guest’s projects. There are 230 of them, encompassing more than 21,000 acres across the county. From greenways to playgrounds to pavilions to pickleball – Mecklenburg County Park and Rec has your recreation needs covered! Bert Lynn joins us today – he’s the Capital Planning Division Director – and will fill...

Happy New Year everyone, and why not kick it off with some new goals for 2021? Everyone has them.. and number one on the list of most popular is always, “Eat better and exercise more.” And of course we all want to lose that extra 10 or 20 pounds that made itself even better known this year, right? So how do we do that? We have just the guy to answer that question. Matt Dengler is a registered diet...

We don’t have to explain a runner’s relationship with food – we all have one. Marc Jacksina’s relationship with food goes several steps further, though, as an award-winning chef of some of the Charlotte area’s top restaurants. It can be a stressful business, but he’s overcome that, too – and some other major obstacles in life – by running. We’re excited to welcome Marc to today’s Running Around Ch...

Now that there’s a chill in the air and winter is at hand, we get to see a popular feature come back to Charlotte’s Whitewater Center for the whole family to enjoy. The installation “Lights” takes you on a tour full of unusual and artistic lights on one of the Whitewater Center’s wooded trails. The trails are popular with runners year-round, and the lights were an eve...

We were delighted to see how many runners got excited about the Novant Health virtual Charlotte Marathon and turned in some good runs in November. Usually joining us on that day is Dr. Keith Anderson, our marathon Medical Director, but he’s been busy nonetheless organizing some Ironman races. Dr. Anderson is a physician specializing in Family Sports Medicine at the Novant Health Cotswold Medical C...

Running sometimes has us nursing our sore legs, but our next guest has the workouts and the after-care down pat. Meet Novant Health Charlotte Marathon Ambassador Deanna Nichole — a Nurse, Marine, Mom of two Marines, Cross Fitter, and of course, runner. And she is bringing us that energy on today’s Running Around Charlotte!

It is always an honor and a pleasure to have an elite marathoner with us on Running Around Charlotte, and today is that day – as we welcome Charlotte’s ONLY female Olympic Trials Marathon Qualifier to our podcast. Paula Pridgen picked up running at a late age, by most standards… AFTER college. She has now run in not only Olympic Trials, but Boston and New York, and the upcoming e...

We know a marathon is a long run. We know training for a marathon involves a LOT of long runs. But in this era of canceled races, one man came up with a solution that went beyond virtual… to REALLY go the distance. Joshua Miller turned his annual St. Jude Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon — which was canceled — into a 410-mile trek through the North Carolina mountains on his way...

IThe Turkey Trot is one of Charlotte runners’ oldest Thanksgiving Traditions. For the past 31 years, up to 10-thousand runners have gathered behind SouthPark Mall on Thanksgiving Morning to run a 5k or Fun Run with the whole family. Well, we know we can’t do that this year — but the 32nd Annual Turkey Trot is still alive and well… in your neighborhood, or along your favorit...