Indice dei contenuti per December 2016 in Outside

You notched multiple stage wins this year and took second at the Road National Championship. What are your goals for next season? I’ll be racing for a European team, Liv-Plantur, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. I intend to soak everything up. I’d also really love to win an elite national championship. How does racing in the States compare with Europe? Europe is the standard, and as an American you don’t really get a lot of fans at those races. But the energy at Richmond [the 2015 UCI Road World Championships were in Virginia—only the second time the event has been held in the U.S.] was awesome. It made fans and riders realize what it’s like to race across the pond. I hope it continues to get better.…

AS ATHLETES, 28-year-old Renée Tomlin and 25-year-old Kirsten Kasper are remarkably similar. While track and cross-country teammates at Georgetown University, they endured the same brutal workouts. Two and a half years ago, both began competing in Olympic- and sprintdistance triathlons. They moved to San Diego to train together, and last year they were both named to the U.S. triathlon team. Since then they’ve had comparable results— Tomlin scored a World Cup victory in Hungary this season, and Kasper earned a few medals throughout the year. But there’s one big difference between the two: diet. Kasper fuels with the foods you’d expect a professional athlete to be eating: oatmeal, yogurt, turkey, veggies, and quinoa. “For snacks I’ll eat rice cakes,” she says. By contrast, Tomlin indulges. Many of the foods on…

1 MAKE A PLAN MAKE A PLAN Between cold weather, travel, and family obligations, the holidays can be a tough time to sneak in a workout. And it’s understandable to freak out about missing a week or two of training: your bloodplasma volume starts to decline almost immediately, meaning your heart rate for a given intensity will increase when you return to your regular workouts. But Abbie Smith-Ryan, assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of North Carolina, brings good tidings. “We all need a break, and the holidays sometimes force us to do that,” she says. The key is not to fight it. “If you don’t plan to take a day off, and you’re forced to by family or travel, you’re stressed about it,” she says. “It’s better…

We’ve Got You Covered Does Outside have a personality problem? Over the years, more than a few readers have criticized us for going back to the well one too many times with cover stories on some of the biggest stars in the world of adventure. Namely: Lance Armstrong, Kelly Slater, and Laird Hamilton. For this sin, we are guilty as charged—though perhaps not entirely remorseful. The fact is, one way we distinguish ourselves in a crowded media landscape is by covering a lot of sports that are decidedly not mainstream. It’s rare for the athletes we often spotlight to transcend their fringe territories and become household names. So yes, when they do, we tend to cover them again and again. Recognizable faces generally sell more newsstand copies than the myriad…

plugged-in device lover Sock It to ’Em You heard it here first: socks have ascended the gift hierarchy from vanilla stocking stuffer to one of the season’s most exciting presents. This is especially true for those that are meant to go beyond the pavement. These six offer the same purposefully over-the-top colors and patterns as their metro brethren but are crafted from materials like high-grade merino that fight stink-causing bacteria naturally and last thousands of miles on the trail with only the occasional washing. Add to that so phisticated foot mapping to provide cushion where you need it and venting where you need it more. Plus, they still tuck in nicely among the candy canes and silver dollars. hard-charging stoke seeker hard-charging stoke seeker clean-cut stylish rogue Sweater Weather We’ve…

J U S T before two o’clock in the morning on Thursday, March 3, 2016, the phone rang at Tomás Gómez Membreño’s home in La Esperanza, 70 miles west of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Membreño, a leader of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the country’s most prominent environmental-activist group, groped for the receiver. The organization’s attorney was on the line, and the news he had was grim. “The first thing he said was, ‘Tomasito, are you OK?’ ” recalled Membreño,a short, muscular man in his late thirties wearing cutoff jeans and a green T-shirt emblazoned with the words NO IMPUNIDAD—no impunity. “It scared me, because I knew that something must have happened. I said, ‘Yes, I’m fine. I was asleep.’ He said, ‘They shot…

Storm Chasing WHERE AND HOW TO SKI FRESH SNOW Oh, Canada There are a few reasons why Vail Resorts just shelled out $1 billion for British Columbia’s Whistler Blackcomb. Not only is it North America’s largest resort (8,171 acres), but it’s also consistently among the highest rated in skier polls. Those votes take into account everything from après options to the quality of the grooming, but we’re focused on the 451 inches of snow that falls annually, filling in the couloirs off Whistler’s Peak Express and the steeps hidden behind the Spanky’s Ladder boot-pack on Blackcomb Mountain. About that après, though: it’s pretty great. Go for pitchers of sake margaritas at Sushi Village, or shoot vodka samplers in a Canada Goose parka in Bearfoot Bistro’s Ice Room, which is chilled…

RIDE Rickenbacker Causeway (1)A segregated bike path allows for 40-mile out-andbacks. Ride it alone, or join one of Bells Bicycles’ two weekend group rides. TRAIN Hobie Beach (2–3)So many locals run, bike, and swim at this bayside spot on Virginia Key that it’s unofficially called Tri Beach. Bring your A game: four-time world champion Leanda Cave trains here, too. GO MULTI-SPORT Oleta River State Park (4–5)The 1,043-acre park has 15 miles of trails, a stretch of river for canoeing, and a saltwater lagoon for swim ming. Rent canoes and mountain bikes at BG Oleta River Outdoors. FIND SOME VERT Vista View Park (6)Miami is flat. But you can get a bit of hill training at nearby Vista View, a former landfill that now houses 272 acres of rolling terrain. REFUEL…

Before NOEL SANTILLAN became famous for getting lost, he was just another guy from New Jersey looking for adventure. It was last February, and the then 28-year-old Sam’s Club marketing manager was heading from Iceland’s Keflavík International Airport to the capital city of Reykjavík with the modern traveler’s two essentials: a dream and, most important, a GPS unit. What could go wrong? ¶ The dream had been with him since April 14, 2010, when he watched TV news coverage of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano eruption. Dark haired, clean-cut, with a youthful face and thick eyebrows, he had never traveled beyond the United States and his native Mexico. But something about the fiery gray clouds of tephra and ash captured his imagination. I want to see this through my own eyes, he…

A thin, gray merino V-neck, it’s clearly been well loved over the years, leaving it stretched and pilling. Nothing wrong with that. We’ve all got favorite articles of clothing, right? But I’m worried because this one is hanging from Noakes’s shoulders like a pillowcase on a scarecrow. At least two sizes too big for his lean, six-foot-two frame, it was clearly purchased for someone else: a comfortably fed, late-middle-aged man, a lifelong academic headed into a cozy retirement. Not the intense character who’s delivering an impassioned diatribe across a Cape Town breakfast table, which he not infrequently pounds to emphasize his points. The disconnect is appropriate, because after three days in South Africa, I’ve become convinced that there are two Tim Noakeses. There’s the maverick sports scientist who’s on the…