Waynesboro Y helps TV newsman train for marathon
Ken Slack was pushed to try something wild – trying his hand, or rather his feet, at running a marathon. The Waynesboro Y was a base of training operations for the veteran TV newsman on his quest.
“Doing runs during the week, the Y was my home base. I’d squeeze in a morning run, hit the showers, go to the pool and head out to work,” said Slack, the Shenandoah Valley bureau chief for NBC29 News, who began training in July for the 2010 Outer Banks Marathon.
Slack finished the 26.2-mile run in 4:18:31, and has a mind to making another go at the distance.
“If I can shave off the 18 minutes and get under four hours, that would be cool,” Slack said.
His first distance run came in the 2009 Park-to-Park Half-Marathon that takes runners on a 13.1-mile path from Ridgeview Park in Waynesboro to the Stuarts Draft Park in Augusta County. He signed up for that run at the urging of Waynesboro parks superintendent Dwayne Jones.
“The first time I ran one mile, i thought I was going to keel over,” Slack said of his early training. But he got to the point where he started enjoying it, “which kind of surprised me,” Slack said.
It was after the 2010 Park-to-Park that Jones prodded Slack into trying a full marathon. It took a couple of months for Slack to finally pull the trigger on making a go at 26.2 miles. He put himself on a 16-week training plan that he began in the heat of the summer in July.
The Waynesboro Y played an important role for Slack given his timing.
“Some of the short runs, I would do a run and come in and do a workout and then go into the pool and do several laps so that I was still getting some exercise but wasn’t killing myself out there on 90-degree days,” Slack said.
“The Y was a great resource along the way,” Slack said.
Story by Chris Graham. Chris can be reached at freepress2@ntelos.net.
Experience is the emphasis at 29
Story by Chris Graham
newdominion@ntelos.net
Bureau chief is a sexy job title, but being the bureau chief means you end up doing things like spending the morning at a middle school making sure the station can do live web-streaming of a House of Delegates debate scheduled for the next night.
WVIR-NBC29 veteran Ken Slack eventually got around to doing some reporting work, setting up an interview with Augusta County Board of Supervisors Chairman Larry Howdyshell to discuss county emergency services, and editing an interview with another Board of Supervisors member, Nancy Sorrells, for a report for the news at noon. Read more
The tea party that happened, not the one they told you about
The tax day tea party at Augusta Expoland in Fishersville turned into conspiracyfest lowlighted by a rambling speech about black helicopters and unmanned drones used by the federal government to take down the Twin Towers on 9/11 and additional such nonsense. Read more
Election ’08: Goode backs out of NBC29 debate
Staff Report
NBC29 reported today that Fifth District Congressman Virgil Goode will not participate in a scheduled Oct. 7 debate with Democratic Party challenger Tom Perriello, citing a scheduling conflict. Perriello blasted the Republican for backing out of the debate that had been on the schedule since April in a statement released this afternoon.
“There’s just no excuse for this. We’ve been working with NBC29 and WSET for over six months on scheduling and setting rules for the debate. I call on Congressman Goode to tell his constituents what other event would be more important than a televised debate for the benefit of the voters,” Perriello said. “The truth is: Congressman Goode is just running away from his terrible record on the economy, gas prices, and so many other problems facing middle class families. His constituents deserve the opportunity to hear him defend that record, and hear my vision for bringing jobs and economic relief back to Southside. This is cowardice, not leadership.”
Face made for the ‘Net
Posted by afp on April 25, 2008 · Leave a Comment
freepress2@ntelos.net
I’ve got a face made for radio, er, podcasting.
The good news for you guys – I’m not in HD.
“You have to be really careful about what you’re doing each and every day. Because imperfections show up a lot more in high-definition. It’s a lot less forgiving,” said Neal Bennett, the news director at NBC29 in Charlottesville, which debuted local news in HD this week.
As soon as he said the words, my thoughts immediately turned to the place in my chin that, when the sun is shining just right, resembles the chin of Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus,” but the rest of the time is more reminiscent of the chin of a boxer who’s taken one too many. Read more
Filed under Blogs · Tagged with chris graham, hd, nbc29, Stop the Presses