Ridin' My TREK

This afternoon late I went out to Stone Mountain and rode my TREK all around the front and back of the mountain. I rode down around the big parking lot, behind the plantation, up through the picnic area and then around back.

If you ride one loop on the road it is 5 miles, but with adding the extra sections I got 8.4 miles out of one loop. Short ride but relaxing, and still exercise. Averaged between 13 and 14 mph for the ride, not real fast.

I am going to do another easy ride tomorrow and then run a 5K race on Saturday.

Indian Island Loop Trail

Tell you what, I had a really good workout today. Even though it was slow I really felt good and extended my run by over 2 miles. I had originally planned on going 2 easy miles, but once I started I ended up going 4.3 miles.

The Indian Island Loop is one of my favorite runs at Stone Mountain Park. 

The temp was about 80 degrees, but the cloud cover seemed to keep it from seeming so hot. Even though it was pretty humid today the overcast made up for it. 

I took my iPod and listened to Podcasts while I was running. Previously I didn't like to listen to anything while I was running because only radio stations were available. Now I can download Podcasts and load them on my iPod and listen to what I want, when I want.

Listening to my iPod doesn't seem to take away from my enjoyment of running the trails, so I use it quite often now.

Well, back to the trail, I think I mentioned a week or so ago that a storm had come through Stone Mountain Park and taken a lot of trees down. Many of the trees are still across the trail, but the park prison workers are working on cutting the trees up and moving them off of the trail. So until all of the trees are moved I just jump or climb over them depending on their size.

No Hills Today

Had a really slow run at Stone Mountain today. Walked for the first 0.3 mile then alternated running 0.2 and walking 0.1 for the rest of the run for a total of 3.0 miles.

It was almost like a slow interval day, the running portion of the workout I ran between 8:30 and 10:00 minute pace, and the walk portion was a slow walk in the 17:00 minute pace range. That's the advantage to using the Garmin Forerunner 205, it can give you your pace for each interval.

Ran on the roads and trail avoiding all of the hills, I wanted a flat run today. No hills today, it was slow but enjoyable, kind of a rest, recovery, interval day.

ORN: 3.0 miles, R 0.2/W 0.1, 40:39

Sunday Run

I went to Stone Mountain this morning and ran/walked 5.0 miles on the inside loop road. I originally was going to run on the trail, but it was pretty wet and muddy from the rain.

I felt pretty good, maybe because the temp was 74 and it was overcast. Very little humidity compared with the previous week. I averaged 11:09 per mile, not bad considering that I was running 3 minutes and walking 1 minute for the whole run.

It was so cloudy that my GPS wouldn't sync on the satellites, so I used my Nike sdm [triax100 speed and distance watch.

ORN: 5.0 miles, R3/W1, 55:48

Missed Race

Today I was going to run in a race in Winder, GA., the "Summer's End 5000", but I just couldn't get out of bed this morning. I stayed up to late last night working on my upgraded Mac Mini computer, trying to transfer data from my iBook G4 Mac.

It was the wrong day to miss a race, it was rainy, cool and overcast all day. It probably would been ideal weather for a fast race since the temperature was lower than it has been for a couple of weeks. 

As it turns out I haven't run at all today. I think I will get up early tomorrow morning and run the trail at Stone Mountain. 

I have been running short runs on the trail for the past week since it is shady on the trail and the weather has been really hot and sunny.

I'll write tomorrow about my run.

Time to Write Again

It has been awhile since I have written anything so I guess it is
time. Let me see, when last I wrote it was about the Peachtree Road
Race time adjustment.

I have run another Atlanta Track Club race, it was a Grand Prix event
at the Decatur-DeKalb YMCA. Hot and humid 4 mile race, but I had a
good time. I ran a faster pace than I did at Peachtree by about 15
seconds per mile.

I have changed my training program, I am using Hal Higdon's 15K
training program. I decided I need a change for awhile, the program
has cross-training built into it, so I am riding my bicycle on the
cross-training days.

Have had some good training runs on the trail at Stone Mountain. A
storm went through last week and there were lots of trees down across
the trail, turned my runs into an obstacle course. Added variety to
the run, and slowed me down.