Outdoors

New River Trail State Park attracted more than one million visitors and had nearly 6 percent more attendance than in 2011.
The trail that passes through Carroll and Grayson counties and Galax followed the trend that allowed Virginia State Parks to set a new attendance record in 2012.
State parks attracted 8.366 million visitors, an increase of 7 percent. The new record is a 4 percent increase over the previous attendance record of 8.065 million visitors, set in 2010.

FRIES — On Saturday, the Town of Fries will welcome more than 150 visitors who are set to participate in the 5th Annual Fries 50K on a course recently certified by USA Track and Field.
The New River Trail course is the first and only USATF-certified 50K course in Virginia.
This year, for the first time, runners’ finish times will be recorded as official 50K finish times, and they will also receive a 26.2 marathon split time that can be used to qualify for larger races such as the Boston Marathon.

In her 20s, when Teresa Roberts worked at a dental office, her co-workers talked her into joining a marathon — even though she had never competed or even trained for doing such a thing.
“Being the type of person I was, I agreed to do it,” said Roberts, noting that the marathon was only a week away.
“Although I finished the 10K in 63 minutes, I couldn’t walk after the marathon, and I declared I would never run again,” she said, of how sore and miserable she felt after taking on the challenge.