Diana Matthews of The News Reporter shares last minute Take the Lake updates...
Although Tropical Storm Dorian is expected to affect coastal weather increasingly over the next week, local meteorologist Christopher Cawley predicts mostly sunny weather for Saturday’s Take the Lake events. Saturday temperatures will warm up by afternoon, with the chance of thunderstorms only around 20-30 percent, he said, based on the best data available Wednesday.
Cawley predicts a 50 percent chance of “typical” scattered North Carolina summer thunderstorms Monday, the day of the two water events. He thought there could be “thunder and lightning, then some heavy rain, and then they’ll be done.”
Cawley emphasized that any thunderstorm should be taken seriously.
Stuart Rogers, chair of the organizing committee, recommended that participants check Take the Lake’s Facebook page and takethelake.org for weather updates and other current information over the weekend.
Rogers felt “pretty excited” over the cool temperatures of about 70 degrees F being forecast for early Saturday morning. “All of our Saturday events will be over by noon,” she said.
“Monday is the day I’m a little more concerned about,” said Rogers. “That’s the day of our water events. Folks do need to keep an eye out and watch our website for updates.”
One change already announced is the cancellation of the planned 1-Mile Swim. “It was a new event this year,” Rogers said, “but it didn’t receive the interest and participation we hoped for.”
Not too late
Online registration is still open at takethelake.org for six free events and one certified 5K walk-run costing $25 (t-shirt included). A portion of each 5K registration fee will support trail improvement efforts at Lake Waccamaw State Park.
T-shirts are still available for purchase while supplies last through the weekend.
T-shirts and preregistration packets will be available for pickup at Take the Plate, tonight’s pasta fundraising dinner at Lake Waccamaw United Methodist Church, 506 Lakeshore Dr., from 5:30-7 p.m. Donations for the eat-in/carry-out meal will support the church’s outreach missions in the community. Members of the public are invited to Take the Plate regardless of whether or not they plan to participate in Take the Lake.
Participant packets not picked up tonight will be at the check-in table for each event.
Schedule
The 5K Run/Walk will be the weekend’s first event at 8 a.m. tomorrow, beginning and ending in Elizabeth Brinkley Park. Parking is next to the ballfields on Bald Cypress Circle, accessible from N.C. 214 (Sam Potts Hwy.) Columbia Avenue will be closed between Schley Ave. and Bald Cypress for registration and start/finish sites.
From 8-10:30 a.m. Elizabeth Brinkley Park will be the site of the first-ever Take the Lake Family Celebration, with free games sponsored by the Columbus County Parks and Recreation department.  DJ Terry Basobas of Play That One DJ will provide music and announce events.
“The Family Celebration is going to be really fun,” Rogers said. Culinary students from Boys and Girls Homes will prepare breakfast items for purchase, including breakfast burritos, fruit cups, muffins and sports drinks. Proceeds will benefit the Homes. “Everyone in the community is invited to come enjoy the Family Celebration,” said Rogers.
Rules of the road and water
The 9:30 a.m. Family 1-Mile Fun Run and 10:30 a.m. 10K Family Bike Ride are free. Every bike rider must wear a helmet.
Parents are responsible for the safety of their children at all times. Minors need an adult to sign their waivers at check-in. Pets are not allowed.
Swimmers will assemble at 7:45 a.m. Monday to receive instructions for the traditional 4-Mile Lee J. Greer Labor Day Swim. Depending on conditions, the starting location, either Dale’s Seafood or the dam, will be posted on Facebook early Monday morning.
As always, each swimmer must be escorted by a boat or kayak. State boating laws require everyone in a boat to have access to an appropriate personal flotation device and everyone under 13 must wear vests at all times.
A swimmer may take a break by holding onto a boat that is sitting stationary, but her or she may not receive propulsion toward the finish.
Goggles and swim caps are recommended, and wetsuits are allowed. Swim fins and snorkels are not allowed.
The final event, the free 6-Mile Paddle, will commence at the dam at 12 noon Monday, following the perimeter of the lake to Dale’s Seafood. A clockwise or counterclockwise course will be determined that morning based on wind direction. A shuttle will return paddlers to the dam after their finish.
Participants are urged not to undertake the water challenges unless they have prepared for several weeks. N.C. Wildlife rangers will patrol the lake to enforce the life vest rule. Experienced paddlers and swimmers also recommend bringing a supply of water and snacks, sunscreen, sunglasses, a long-sleeve but cool shirt and a hat.

Stop by Body Shapers Thursday from noon to 6 p.m. to pick-up your bibs and t-shirts. Packets will be available for pick-up at Take the Plate Friday from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Lake Waccamaw United Methodist Church. Eat-in or take-out. Donations appreciated. The fastest way to the start line is to pick up your packet before your event. 

Take the Lake is what we've been thinking about, training and preparing for all summer! Join us for Take the Plate Friday night, Take the Lake "land events" and family celebration Saturday morning at Brinkley Park with music by Terry Basobas and children's games provided by Columbus County Parks & Recreation. The Boys & Girls Homes culinary class will have muffins, biscuits and fruit for sale as a fundraiser for their program. Take the Lake swim and paddle events make a big splash Labor Day Monday. Cheer on family and friends taking on a challenge and check out event dates and times below. It's not too late to register at https://runsignup.com/Race/NC/LakeWaccamaw/TaketheLake

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The JAMAs (John A. McNeill Award) are here! Are you ready to add 2019 to your collection?

Register for events online:
- Avoid the line – register online! at https://runsignup.com/Race/NC/LakeWaccamaw/TaketheLake-- Choose from four free events and two that require registration fees. Find out more about events at takethelake.org. 
-- Register and train for your run, walk, bike ride, paddle or swim.
-- Your fee for the 5K and 1 Mile Swim covers professional event timing, safety and logistics, plus a T-shirt, and a portion of your fee will support trail improvement in Lake Waccamaw State Park.

Training tips:
Check with your doctor before beginning a new exercise program.
Walk, run, ride, swim or paddle regularly, increasing your distance.
Drink water before you get thirsty.
Recruit friends and family members to join you.
Wear sunscreen and bug spray; watch out for fire ants on the roadside.
All adults and children in the bike events must wear helmets. No exceptions!
Every participant in the 4-Mile Swim must have an escort boat; line yours up now.
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In the homestretch:
Setup Events can take online registrations up to 30 minutes before your paid event. Walk-up registration is available for free events.
Saturday, Aug. 31:
8 a.m. 5K certified by USA Track and Field (registration fee)
8-10:30 a.m. Take the Lake Celebration at Elizabeth Brinkley Park goes on during events, featuring children’s games and a breakfast fundraiser.
9 a.m. 5K awards presentation
9:30 a.m. 1-Mile Fun Run (free)
10:30 a.m. 10-K Bike event (free)
Sunday, Sept. 1: Event-free day. Take it easy!
Monday, Sept. 2 (Labor Day):
8 a.m. Traditional Lee J. Greer 4-Mile Swim leaves from Dale’s Seafood or the dam, depending on wind direction (free)
8:30 a.m. 1-Mile Swim starts and finishes at Dale’s (registration fee)
12 noon 6-Mile Paddle from the dam to Dale’s (free)

 By Diana Matthews dianamatthews@nrcolumbus.com
“It’s a year of rebuilding for many,” Take The Lake organizers say, in an epic understatement. It’s also the year for the undecided TTL watcher to become a first-time TTL participant.
For 2019 the Take The Lake committee has taken on Part One of a three-year rebuilding project.
They did it to accommodate the reality that many Lake Waccamaw people and institutions are still facing a long road of recovery from Hurricane Florence. It takes a lot of hard work by dozens of public health and safety officers, town officials, volunteers and Lake Waccamaw State Park rangers, to pull off a full-scale TTL.
“They were there for Lake Waccamaw” in the harrowing aftermath of Hurricane Florence, my friend and magazine editor Stuart Rogers said to me the other day. Now that she is head of the TTL committee, Stuart could not ask those same people to make the level of sacrifice and effort they have on past Labor Day weekends.
That’s why she and her fellow committee members have streamlined their approach: they are holding shorter events and also hiring an outside race coordinator to handle registration and recordkeeping.
The shorter events appealed to me, as I am also in a building mode. So, look out, Lake Waccamaw, here I come: 2019 will be my first year to join the TTL kayak event.
In my once- or twice weekly training outings, I’m up to about three miles, which takes me over an hour in my little, non-speedy beginner’s kayak.
Up till now the TTL Paddle event has been the province of people stronger than I am, who were willing to be on the water for four to six hours, enduring sun, dehydration, fatigue, hideous cramps and whatever weather came their way.
(And a whole lot of weather can come your way on Lake Waccamaw in one afternoon.)
In 2017 I interviewed the amazing Chet Sechrest after his fourth TTL X-Treme. He recommended Gatorade, energy gel packs, sunscreen, a long-sleeved coolshirt, hat and gloves. This year we kayakers, including the super-capable ones like Sechrest and just ordinary folks like me, will cover six miles one way. The TTL committee has figured out logistics for us to get back to our starting place and pack up our crafts at the end.
When it comes to paddling skills, I am trusting what my instructor friend Fish told me in one kayak lesson two years ago. “Slow is steady, and steady is fast.”
Fish taught me to hold the paddle correctly and use one arm to push while pulling with the other and winding my body first one way then the other to create spring power from my core muscles.
Prior to  that one lesson, I didn’t have anything you could call “technique.” I still am no expert, but I think I’m developing a little muscle memory each time I paddle on Lake Waccamaw.
“I can do this,” I tell myself, “even if I’m not the fastest. I know I can do the distance if I build up to it. Besides, just being on the water is a good thing.”
Every time I go paddling, I see something I wouldn’t have seen on foot or in a car. You can see turtles, ducks, schools of fast moving little fishies, and the even faster birds that eat those fishies as you push-pull your way along.
On one of my first outings, I was sitting quietly in a patch of grass near the dam when a great blue heron dove past me and caught a large fish in its talons. I watched it climb back up into the blue sky carrying the weight of its wriggling, dripping dinner.
Sometimes Wow is the only word.
My new goal is to paddle to the sandbar at the outlet of Big Creek and back.
I’ve been on Lake Waccamaw when the surface of the water was still and when it was choppy, with and without rain. I’ve known it to turn from one condition to the other in a hurry, just when I was approaching my turnaround point, so that I had to race the weather back. Sometimes, when the wind turns against me, it feels exactly like I’m paddling uphill.
Whatever conditions I run into — including some that make me reconsider my outing — I tell myself, “It could be raining (or blowing or choppy or hot and muggy) on Labor Day, so I’d better practice and get used to it.”
Saturday I paddled out of a rain shower into a clear area, but with mist ahead; as the sun shone from behind my right shoulder I saw a partial rainbow seeming to beckon me onward.
If you decide in favor of trying one of the weekend’s four challenges for the first time, I wish you well, and I look forward to seeing you there. 

"Thank you" Southeastern Community College for sponsoring Take the Lake AND featuring Take the Lake in Southeastern Community College Presents. View the entire program  here. 

5K route - 8 a.m. start Saturday, August 31 at Elizabeth Brinkley Park 

1 Mile Family Fun Run -  9:30 a.m. start Saturday, August 31 at Elizabeth Brinkley Park 

Laythan and Gracie Stocks stopped by Lake Time Vintiques with their grandmother, Julie Stocks, to check out the youth-sized Take the Lake t-shirts. Marie has youth and adult size shirts available at Lake Time. Body Shapers in Whiteville is helping us with t-shirt sales, too.
T-shirts available online at https://runsignup.com/Race/NC/LakeWaccamaw/TaketheLake.  Thank you to our t-shirt sponsors: Columbus Regional Healthcare System, The John A. McNeill Family, Liberty Healthcare, Lake Waccamaw Lions Club, Hills, Friends of Rube McCray Memorial Library, Council Tool, ATMC, Southeastern Community College, Carolina Sports Medicine, BB&T, International Paper and Joe's Barbeque. 

Stop by Body Shapers in Whiteville and see Jeff & Cindy Faulk and Donnie Hammonds to purchase your 2019 Take the Lake t-shirts. Body Shapers will offer packet pick-up Wednesday, August 28 and Thursday, August 29 from noon to 6 p.m. each day. T-shirts also available for purchase at Lake Time Vintiques (photo coming soon!). Youth to adult size XL are $12 each and 2XL $13 each. Ladies v-neck shirts available (run small, so size-up).  Order t-shirts online and pick them up at packet pick-up at Body Shapers, Take the Plate, or during TTL weekend before your event. Click on this link for online registration: https://runsignup.com/Race/NC/LakeWaccamaw/TaketheLake

Take the Lake would not be possible without our generous sponsors! We are grateful for their support and for providing a fun, family-friendly ​ weekend of fitness challenges for Columbus County. 
​Special "thanks" to Body Shapers and Lake Time Vintiques for help with t-shirt sales and Brett Gore for setting out the lake buoys for the swim events. 

The 11th Annual Take the Lake is Labor Day weekend at Lake Waccamaw. Online registration is open at www.TakeTheLake.org. Here's a look at the 2019 schedule of events.
Events this year take place on Saturday, August 31, and Monday, September 2, with a schedule of shorter events with a 3-year plan to add back the long distance events as Lake Waccamaw recovers from Hurricane Florence and improvements are made to Lake Wacccamaw State Park trail system.
Friday, August 30 at 5:30 p.m. is the annual Take the Plate Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser at Lake Waccamaw United Methodist Church. Eat-in or take-out. Donations accepted
Saturday, August 31 - All events start and finish at Elizabeth Brinkley Park in Lake Waccamaw
*8 a.m. 5K certified by USA Track & Field. Start and finish at Elizabeth Brinkley Park. Registration for this event is $20 thru June.
8 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Take the Lake Celebration at Elizabeth Brinkley Park with children’s games & breakfast fundraiser
9 a.m. 5K awards presentation
9:30 a.m. 1-Mile Fun Run at Elizabeth Brinkley Park - Free
10:30 a.m. 10K Bike at Elizabeth Brinkley Park - Free
Sunday, September 1 Event-free day
Labor Day Monday, September 2
8 a.m. Traditional Lee J. Greer Labor Day 4-Mile Swim. Leaves from Dale’s or the dam depending on wind direction - Free
*8:30 a.m. 1-Mile Swim leaves from Dale’s on a front and back route. Registration for this event is $20 thru June.
Noon 6-Mile Paddle from the dam to Dale’s following the perimeter of the lake. Route will be determined by wind direction - Free
For more information visit www.takethelake.org or on www.facebook.com/takethelake

Editor's note: Grant submitted this article several years ago for a "Take the Lake Corner" series of articles. I really like this book he reviews Younger Next Year and it's point of view and easy way of explaining the importance of a consistent exercise program. It "makes sense" and it "doable." As with any new exercise program, consult your physician before beginning. 
By GRANT EGLEY, Take the Lake Steering committee
The phrase, “You have to age, but you don’t have to get old,” may not make sense to you, but it is the message of Younger Next Year, a New York Times best seller about health and fitness.
The authors, Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D., say that you can’t turn back time, but you can turn back your biological clock. The secret is to adopt a healthy lifestyle, which includes regular exercise early in life and continuing it for the rest of your life.  Do that and you can feel like a 50-year-old when you are 80. The authors’ language is frank, but they want to impress you that your life is at stake.
They say that too many people are dying or becoming disabled at a much too early age. It is not about just living a long life; it is about being healthy and active while living a long life. Vigorous regular exercise, at least brisk walking, is the most important component of an active and healthy lifestyle. They also emphasize that you should not start an exercise program without first checking with a medical doctor.
“Some 70 percent of premature death and aging is lifestyle related. More than 50 percent of all illness and injuries in the last third of your life can be eliminated by changing your lifestyle in the way we suggest,” according to the authors. “Once you pass the age of 50, exercise is no longer optional. You have to exercise or get old. Life is an endurance event. Train for it.”
The book’s take-home message is that most people can be active and productive up to their 80s if they follow a few rules of a healthy lifestyle. Too many people simply do not prepare themselves for a long and healthy life.
 This book is mainly for the age 20-50s crowd because they need to start now and prepare themselves for later years. Those over 50 can also benefit from reading the book, but it is difficult for them to break the harmful habit of many years of a sedentary lifestyle.
Lodge says that vigorous regular exercise is very important because it improves the efficiency of our circulatory system. Losing weight, improving endurance and increasing muscle strength are important benefits of exercise, but maintaining an efficient circulatory system is the main benefit.  Each one of the billions of cells in our body needs to be supplied with oxygen and food, and to have carbon dioxide and waste products removed. Fine capillaries of the circulatory system provide this service. If the service fails, bad things happen. For example, when tiny coronary arteries servicing heart muscle cells are blocked, we have heart attacks. Lodge says, “Hearts don’t fail; coronary arteries do. They get blocked, they clot, and we die.”  Exercise (also proper diet) helps prevent blockage of the circulatory system in general.
 Exercise stimulates blood flow throughout our bodies. With regular aerobic exercise, our bodies build new networks of capillaries that service the cells. Lodge says that at rest, only 20 percent of our blood flows through the muscles, but with exercise that number rises to 80 percent in a trained athlete. We all are not trained athletes, but we should similarly benefit to some degree.
We started life with a body capable of being very active for many years. Science now says that in order to keep this capability, we must continue to be active throughout our lives. The sedentary lifestyles of too many of us lack the activity needed to maintain that capability.  Regular exercise can fill the void created by the sedentary lifestyle. In other words, exercise can help make up for the lack of a healthy lifestyle.
 The above is only a sample of the authors’ statements about the benefits of exercise and a healthy lifestyle. It is not a typical how-to-do-it book. Its main message is to start an active lifestyle early in life and continue it because “your life is at stake.” I urge you to take a look at this book.

Are you ready to Take the Lake? 2019 Registration is OPEN! Use this link to access our new online registration powered by RunSignUp. For the 5K and 1-Mile swim with entry fee, register during June for the "early bird" discount. https://runsignup.com/Race/NC/LakeWaccamaw/TaketheLake

Happy Spring! The Take the Lake Steering committee has been busy making plans for a super fun 2019 Take the Lake event this Labor Day weekend.
We have an updated and refreshed schedule of events we think will be fun for families and dedicated fitness buffs. We hope the schedule accommodates our awesome participants, volunteers, and the LW EMS, LWPD and LWFD, LW City staff and LWSP Rangers that served us so faithfully during Hurricane Florence.
It's a re-building year for many, and the TTL steering committee has a 3-year plan to work our way back to the awesome weekend of fun, fitness challenges and fellowship everyone loves.
Thanks for your support as we introduce in the next two weeks the new and refreshed 2019 Take the Lake. Registration will open June 1, 2019.
Thank you to Tim and Edna Dowless for our new TTL logo design.
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