Summer is in full swing, and every chance for sunlight is precious for those who spend much of their day indoors. However, the sunny season often comes with a busier social calendar and less time for exercise. You can ditch those old gym routines and soak in the sun while breaking a sweat with a range of outdoor activities for all ages.
Visit Fairfield County
Pickerington Ponds
Music and Movement
This new 2025 summer program organized by the City of Pickerington’s Parks & Recreation Department will welcome preschoolers to Sycamore Creek Park’s Hilltop Shelter June 2-23 for music lessons.
The series will be led by instructor Chloe Bennett and involves the children learning about and experimenting with various instruments while being encouraged to dance, sing, play and move to the music.
“They’ll go over a new instrument and the history of it and famous composers who used the instrument, and they’ll learn how to play it and sing songs and play some games as they learn,” Recreation Coordinator John Dennis says.
Classes will be held during golden hour from 5:30-6 p.m. for ages 3 and 4 and from 6:15-6:45 p.m. for ages 5 and 6, allowing the children to socialize and spend time outdoors.
The four-week program costs $46 and parents must accompany children ages 3 and 4 to their lessons. Parents of children ages 5 and 6 can enjoy a relaxing stroll in the park while their children play.
Pickerington Ponds
A community hub for park-goers, bikers, joggers and dog-walkers, Pickerington Ponds is a peaceful place to exercise while enjoying the park’s unique wildlife.
This space is home to marshes, swamps, uplands and of course, ponds, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Park Manager Shelly Richardson.
"It's a wide range of habitats where you have grassland, water access and then woodland, so we get a big diversity of birds coming through," Park Manager Shell Richardson says.
Visitors looking to clock some cardio can explore the 8-mile multi-use trail or the 4-mile unestablished trail for hiking or running. Those seeking a more serene pastime can enjoy premiere bird watching at one of the best spots to do so in central Ohio, where more than 250 bird species have been spotted.
Pickerington Ponds also sees little off-trail activity and has few road crossings, Richardson says, making it ideal for bikers or runners traveling between parks or towns.
Disc golf clinics
Columbus is home to a large community of disc golfers, a sport involving plastic discs being thrown into metal nets on an outdoor course.
The Columbus Flyers Disc Golf Club is a local nonprofit organization seeking to promote the sport by designing disc golf courses throughout Columbus and central Ohio. The club organizes tournaments and events and strives to connect with local communities.
According to Dennis, Pickerington’s local disc golf course is constantly swarming with players, so the Parks & Recreation Department decided to create a new opportunity.
“We met with one of the local members of the Columbus Flyers and we asked if they would be interested in doing a clinic,” Dennis says. “We figured it’d be a good idea to teach people how to throw and understand the basic rules of the game.”
The department’s disc golf clinics cost $25 and take place June 18-19 for beginners and June 25-26 for extra throwing practice. The clinics are led by members of the Columbus Flyers and designed for people who are unfamiliar with the sport and want to learn.
The youth clinic, ages 10-17, will meet at Soccer Field 3 at Sycamore Creek Park from 5:30-7 p.m., and adults 18 and older will meet at the same location from 7:15-8:15 p.m.
Laura Coholich
Goat yoga
Pickerington residents can enjoy goat yoga classes this summer while supporting a local business with a visit to Hidden Acres Legacy Farm. Classes are offered through June 14, but yoga-lovers can also book private lessons any time afterward on Hidden Acres Legacy Farm’s website.
All goat yoga classes are led by local certified instructors, taking participants through various exercises while five rambunctious baby goats snuggle, climb and play alongside them.
Laura Coholich
“We have people who come strictly for the yoga and people who come strictly for the goats, and we absolutely welcome a variety of both,” says Laura Coholich, owner of Hidden Acres Legacy Farm. “It’s in an outdoor setting located on our farm near our pond so you really get to engage with nature while also engaging with the goats.”
Sessions are an hour long and the difficulty level is decided by the participant, Coholich says. Though they’re geared toward beginners, class instructors can provide individual accommodations for more rigorous techniques.
“This is just really a family-friendly, fun opportunity for you to have genuine laughter and low-level fitness,” Coholich says.
Self-defense classes
Pickerington Parks and Recreation has partnered with seventh-level Kung Fu black belt Don Prozy in the past to organize Kung Fu classes for residents, and two of his summer 2025 courses feature new lessons.
For the first time, Prozy will be teaching a self-defense series tailored specifically towards women’s safety. Through these classes, which run from June 1-22 and June 29-July 20, participants will learn basic strikes, kicks and holds from a trained professional.
Men’s classes are also available on the same dates. The men’s series will include self-defense guidance as well as MMA-style techniques and lessons in punches, knees, footwork and elbows. Men of all martial arts backgrounds and advancement can participate. Participants will meet at the basketball courts at Sycamore Creek Park, the women’s group meeting from 6-6:45 p.m. and the men’s group meeting from 7-7:45 p.m. Both series cost $87 for Pickerington residents.
F3 Columbus
F3 Columbus is a volunteer-based organization with a mission to grow and serve free fitness groups for men for the invigoration of community leadership, F3 member Jay Kerr says.
In Pickerington, F3 meets every Monday and Thursday, rain or shine, at 5:30 a.m. in the Victory Park parking lot. Workouts are peer-led by volunteer leaders, and men of all ages and fitness levels are encouraged to attend.
Kerr says F3 is perfect for men who want to get back into shape, as workouts are designed to encourage participants while simultaneously pushing them to do better. However, F3 is about more than just intense fitness journeys as fellowship is an equally important part of F3’s principles.
“Usually, the harder the thing, the stronger the bonds of friendship are,” Kerr says. “You end up forming strong friendships from it and positive friendships too, so this is a very positive group that’s there to support each other.”
The organization also raises money for charities by holding various events.
“This past fall we raised $20,000 for Her Song, which is a Tim Tebow foundation that helps victims of sex trafficking,” Kerr says.
Kerr says F3 spurred communities of women to form FIA, a similar organization catering to women’s fitness. FIA also offers free workout classes in Columbus and other communities surrounding Pickerington.
Frances Denman is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
