Presented by The Smoky Mountain News, the fourth annual Gateway to the Smokies half-marathon and four-miler will be held at 8 a.m. Saturday, April 6, at 285 North Main St. in Waynesville. 

Winter hikes, winter lights, frosty runs and outdoor ice skating will offer ample opportunity for chilly fun in celebration of the N.C. Smokies Ice Fest Weekend Jan. 26-28. 

After 17 years, one of the most beloved triathlons in the southeast has crossed the finish line.

The new year always comes with its slew of resolutions, intentions, goals and other optimistic planning for the coming cycle around the sun. With the clamor comes the loud chatter by those who despise the idea of the whole concept, alternatively espousing the idea that every day is an opportunity to begin anew, or that there is no need to give in to the capitalist aesthetic that is constantly bettering oneself. 

As of yesterday, Monday, Nov. 28, I’ve run 2,525 days in a row. I hadn’t checked in on “the streak” in a while, but was curious at where it stood after coming across a 2021 article for Outside magazine, titled “The Minds and Habits of Master Streakers.”

I am standing in my warm, dimly lit living room clutching a hot mug, scowling at the frostbitten ground outside, blanketed with air that has yet to feel the sun's warmth, when my black cat pounces onto the rocking chair on the porch. She jolts me out of my reverie and I spill coffee on socks that don’t match. She balances precariously on the top rung of the chair as it rocks back and forth with the sudden momentum of her scrawny body. Yellow-green eyes find me through the glass and a pointed meow reminds me of what I should have already known — she is hungry and cold. 

Monday afternoon. Plattsburgh, New York. Grabbing a few things for my intended hike up near Tupper Lake, in the depths of the Adirondack Mountains, I walked out the door of my parents’ farmhouse just as my mother asked where I was going.

“Not your first, not your last, enjoy your now, now will go fast."  — Alexi Pappas

Just east of Hot Springs, I pulled off U.S. 70 and turned into the small, muddy parking lot. Emerging from the truck, I threw on the rest of my trail running gear. Heading northbound on the Appalachian Trail, the destination was the Rich Mountain Tower. 

It was somewhere around the the second mile of my New Year’s Eve jog that I realized that day marked exactly five years since I began my running streak.