Welcome - time to get in shape, recruit!

The Take the Lake organizational committee announced the theme of the 2011 Take the Lake season recently, setting up a good fight for the upcoming months and summer. Take the Lake will celebrate its third official year as a fitness event on and around Lake Waccamaw in September.

Watch the video slideshow introducing the 2011 Take the Lake theme. Click here

With nearly 900 participants having taken part in 2010, organizers are expecting to easily break the 1,000 mark this Labor Day weekend. Take the Lake began as a pilot event in 

---

2007 and fully in 2008 as expansion of the traditional Labor Day Swim and the decade-old walk around the lake.

The event is not a fundraiser or a race, as organizers have the single goal of improving fitness for Columbus County residents. Taking place over three days, Take the Lake offers four events, called “Personal Endurance Challenges.”

The first challenge, or PEC, is the 15-mile Walk/Run on Saturday morning, followed by the 14-mile paddle and the 15-mile Bike & Hike on Sunday, and the four-mile swim on Monday.

The event is free, and every successful participant will receive a small award commemorating their achievement.

Themes are being adopted, beginning this year, for two purposes. First, they will give each year a fresh and exciting atmosphere, and second, they will help the event target specific groups and members of the community.

The term “take the lake” is borrowed from military jargon. When an army “takes” a hill or fort or city, they surround and capture it.

All of the Take the Lake Personal Endurance Challenges require participants either to walk, run, cycle or paddle around Lake Waccamaw, or to swim completely across it. Having done so, a participant can feel as though he or she has “taken” the lake.

So, it is fitting that the first theme chosen to represent Take the Lake is military, and service to our country will flavor all promotional materials surrounding the event this year.

This will not in any way limit participation to servicemen or veterans, but will, in fact, give everyone the pleasure of celebrating them. Organizers will use this theme in their “fight” for fitness in two ways.

First, they will contact active-duty members of the armed forces from area installations and encourage them to dispatch troops here Labor Day weekend to participate.

They will also work with Sheri Blackmon of Columbus County Veterans Services to encourage the more than 4,000 area veterans to participate.

This two-pronged attack should: (A) empower the active-duty servicemen and women to encourage the veterans, and (B) should find the veterans inspiring servicemen.

Military veterans and their families in rural areas throughout the country, and in Columbus County in particular, are not given the same fitness opportunities as those in metropolitan areas.

We have no V.A. hospital here, and no installation where veterans can easily partake of fitness equipment, programs or training that is available to those near cities. This robs them of a healthful environment where fitness is more a way of life.

The shame of this comes from the well-known fact that the majority of our nation’s fighting force is recruited from small towns.

A goal of Take the Lake this year will be to give our veterans exciting challenges that will motivate them to experience fitness goals they were used to while on active duty, and the rest of Columbus County will be recruited to assist.

Sign up for Take the Lake to show appreciation for the sacrifice veterans gave to preserve our freedoms.

People can walk or cycle, paddle or swim in the name of their favorite veteran, or just to celebrate their freedom to live healthy lifestyles.

Residents of the Lake with homes on the route are encouraged to show their pride on and around Labor Day weekend with flags, banners, streamers, posters and whatever delivers the message that we are proud  of our country and our servicemen.

Several groups will be invited to represent specific service branches, and even host active-duty men and women if the opportunity arises.





Click here for previous blog posts.