Music. This is episode 155 of the Lost Trailrunner podcast. Hope you enjoy. joy. Music. Well, I'm out at Snow Mountain today, walking again. I haven't been able to run for over two weeks because of the, I guess it was COVID that I got, and I just haven't, had the energy to run, so I'm doing my best just trying to walk 45 minutes, and that seems to work okay. I tried to run, well, I did run on, I think it was last Saturday, I was going to run 4.3 miles and I managed to
get 2.8 in before I just couldn't do it anymore. And I was really slow. It was terrible. So I just kind of, I'm going to walk until I can get better. The biggest disappointment is today is July 3rd. Tomorrow's Peachtree. And I was... I'm on the sidewalk at Stone Mountain walking by the road and hear cars go by. Anyway, tomorrow is Peachtree and it would have been my 46th Peachtree. And registered and everything, and I volunteered for Group A start.
I don't know where all these cars came from. There's nobody out here. But anyway, I had to call the volunteer coordinator and leave him a message and tell him I just couldn't do it because I haven't recovered enough to be able to get down there at 4 o'clock in the morning. And i think the race starts like around 7 35 for group a and then run peach tree.
And after my run on saturday which i only made it 2.8 miles before i just had to quit it I figured I can't even go 10k without falling apart and with having to be up that early in the morning and get down there to do everything I'd just be beat before I even started running so I had to leave him a message the coordinator a message and tell him I couldn't do the volunteer here as well as I can't run Peachtree which would have been my 46th so it's my first.
Did not start Peachtree I did miss one year because I didn't register in time and it closed out on me back in like 1983 or 1984 but. I've never missed a start when I've registered, and I've done 45 of them, and this would have been my 46th, so I'm really disappointed that I'm not going to be able to do it.
I did, not only did I leave him the coordinator of voicemail telling him I couldn't do it, but I sent him an email, and I told him if he would put me down as a volunteer for next year, and hopefully i'll be able to do it i'll be a year older and maybe i'll still i'll still be healthy so i plan on doing it next year even though i'm not able to do it this year so my plan is since I haven't been able to run for like over two weeks I mean I have if you want to call it a run it it's borderline run
but enough to tell me that I'm not gonna be in shape to be able to do Peachtree I decided I'm just gonna have to start from scratch and just start it like a 5k, program couch to 5k, go back up. Now here comes the train. Music. Between the trains and the cars, I have enough background noise, don't I? Oh well. Anyway, I'm doing a 45 minute walk today. I can't believe how many cars are out here. So, I've still got this cough too. That just, if I'm not talking, I don't cough.
So trying to do this recording just aggravates I guess and makes me cough some. I walked yesterday and my Garmin I set it for 45 minutes and 2.2 miles and I got over 2.2 in 45 minutes so I was doing better than I thought I was going to do. But I'm really, really, really disappointed that I'm not going to be able to volunteer tomorrow morning and run the race from group A because my time, you know, if you do, you put in a time of a race that you finished and then they seed you based on your time.
And I would have been in group H that's how far back I would have been but being a volunteer of group A I would have been able to start with group A which would have been great but as it turns out I'm not gonna start at all and I'll just have to watch it on TV so past couple of days I've been watching the Tour de France and tomorrow morning I guess I'll watch Peachtree. Well I've gone, I don't know how far I've gone, half a mile.
I walked a half a mile. I parked up by the old game ranch in the parking lot by the old game ranch and I'm walking down towards the carving on the mountain which is probably a little over six tenths of a mile so then I'm gonna walk over towards where the yellow daisy festival takes place and the and the Stone Mountain Highland Games take place and walk through the woods over there there's a paved trail where they
set up tents for those events and so I'll just walk through the woods over there on that paved trail. If I have enough time, cause I'm just going out 22 and a half minutes and turn around coming back. The only thing is this first six tenths of a mile was all downhill. So that means going back, it's all uphill, which is no big deal.
I mean, my heart rate will go up higher, that's all. And I just, I just, you know, when you can't run, it just really gets to you when you've been, I've been running since like 1972, right? And I've been consistent all those years in this past couple of weeks.
Not being able to run and just having no energy whatsoever so ever and just feeling like crap just it's depressing so it's like I'm gonna have to start all over like when I first started running I had Kenneth Cooper's aerobics book and I was getting aerobic points I would you know get so many points for doing a mile in a certain amount of time and And I used to add those up and I always tried to get 30 points a week. I think I'll get that book back out and see if I need to start over from there.
I mean, I did that book in 1972. Of course, I kept it up for many years, trying to get a minimum of 30 points a week. And then I also had Bill Bowerman's book Jogging which was another good book back in those days to get started running I think I might drag both of those books out and just pretend like I've never ever run before and start over I mean I'm 82 I might as well start running right that's if I get over the stupid and I get enough energy that I can move.
I guess, walking-wise, yesterday I averaged for, what was it, maybe 2.4 miles. I averaged about 19.05 pace, which is about normal for me, anywhere from 18 to 20. And so far today, right now, looking at my watch, it says 19.25. My heart rate's at 75 going downhill. hill so that's not bad but I figure I'm just gonna like I said start from scratch do it all over and that'll give me something to talk about on my podcast right it's like I have a brand new podcast.
Because everything else is down the drain well I'm down by the carving it I'm by what's called, crossroads village now where they got a lot of attractions you know you've got some restaurants I don't know if they ever open them or not because I'm not too impressed with crossroads village they've got a 4d theater and a couple other things and the train stations down here for catching the train but to me I,
don't know how much they charge to get in but to me it just feels overpriced for what they've got. I mean, compared to someplace like Disney or Universal Studios, of course, it's cheap because there's not much here compared to there.
I mean, if you were dividing this thing up by how much you pay at someplace like Disney to go to one of the parks, which is probably pretty high right now, maybe $140, $150, maybe higher than that, but compared to pay say 20 to get in here that's probably a better value going to disney because to me there's not that much available here and in the times i've gone through there a lot of the places you know they charge you to get in and then they want to charge you for something else.
So I'm just not impressed, let me put it that way. Probably the best of values out here at the park at Stone Mountain are the two golf courses. That's what I'd think.
We're getting your money's worth okay now I'm headed down paved trail that goes down under a tunnel under the road and comes up over in the area where the yellow daisy festival is you know when I come out here to walk well not out here anywhere to walk let me put it this way I get this idea, maybe I ought to run a little bit, and then when I start, it's like, oh, this is not getting it, I'm, I don't know when I'm going to get where I feel comfortable running again, we'll see, hopefully soon.
Hopefully walking 45 minutes during the day keep me from getting totally out of shape I'm not I'm not in running shape but at least I can walk decently walking underneath this tunnel now I don't know if you can hear an echo or not they put put lights in here. Didn't used to have them. I guess that's for night time. Of course, half of them are burnt out because they didn't take care of them. Okay, now I'm coming over towards the Yellow Daisy Festival area.
A long time ago, over here where I'm walking and on the left hand side, there used to be tennis courts. And in 96, when they had the Olympics in Atlanta, they tore the tennis courts out of Stone Mountain and they built a...
Tennis complex just outside the park, and it was really nice, it was a professional tennis complex, and after the Olympics they just let it go to crap, they didn't use it for anything, and eventually it just got torn down, so now there's no tennis courts out here, and there's no tennis courts outside the gate either, so it's a smart move on their part. I don't know why they never used that tennis complex. Maybe it was just built in the wrong place and nobody would come to it. I don't know.
But it seemed to me like with all the courts they had and the stadium they had and all that, they could draw people if they had, you know, events but they didn't so it doesn't exist anymore which is like so much that takes place out in this area they just don't go for it you know okay I'm heading across this little road and then into the yellow daisy festival trails trails. Service entrance do not block. Oh, I've already gone 21 minutes.
So what I'll probably do, this is, there's a little loop here. I can go around this little loop, come back out and head back up so I can get back towards the car when before my 45 minutes is up. I hope you don't mind me rambling on like I normally do. None of my podcasts are ever structured in any way. I don't script them. I don't, you know, it's just stream of, I don't know, stream of consciousness, is that what they call it? Where you just ramble on whatever comes across your mind.
And it's about, I don't know what temperature is out here. Let me look on my watch. it's 91 degrees but it's not too bad kind of well I'm in the woods right now on this trail so it's kind of shady but there's a cloud cover too so it's not just Sun beating down on you.
Saturday when I ran, I think it was Saturday, I don't think it was Sunday, one of those two days anyway, when I did the 2.8 miles, it was like 92 degrees, 92 degrees out, and the weather thing said it felt like 100, and of course the sun was beating down, and that was probably one reason I I felt lousy on top of not being fully recovered from being ill, but I mean, it just wore me out.
I was, it was going to be a test to run a 4.3 miles to see how I would do in Peachtree because in my mind, I was still planning on going through that whole volunteer and then run the race. And I figured, well, I could run the race and maybe even if I ran it slow, I could still do it. But after I ran that weekend, I just went, are you kidding me? I could barely make 2.8 miles and I'm going to do a 10K? And I think the temperature on the 4th is supposed to get up to right around 90, 91, you know.
It won't be that early in the morning, but still, it's going to be, by the time they start the race, it's probably going to be close to 80 already. So... Looked at all those factors after that attempted run of mine and just said, I can't do it, man. I really, and the thing is, I just, it just grated on me because I've run that race so many times and I'm registered, you know, and they had number pickup yesterday and today.
And I knew if I went down and picked up my number I would try it anyway and then I'd be miserable, so I just looked at it I said well in order for me to go down to the World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta and pick up my number I'm going to have to pay $15 to park right, just to pick up my number and then if I come home and change my mind I've wasted 15 bucks for nothing so I went through all this stuff in my mind and I go well if you're smart what you'll do is just fight the bullet.
Not go down and pick up your number. Save 15 bucks. This will also mean you can't run the race because you didn't pick up your number.
Can't at the last minute go well I'll go ahead and try it and then just be miserable you know so then I thought well maybe I would just volunteer and not run and then I go well you know if I go down there and I get to the start line I'm gonna want to run right and the thing the thing about volunteering is they close Peachtree Street down at like 4 30 in the morning so they want you to be down there to park your car at the volunteer parking before 4 15 so that
means I'd have to leave my house at three in the morning so that means I'd have to get up about 2 30 or something to get out of the house at three and then I'd get down there at four then you have to check in the volunteer thing at 5 then at 5 30 i think you start putting the ropes up to keep people in their groups and then the race doesn't start until 7 30 so that's 5 30 6 that's another two hours so looking at all that time i go go, okay,
I got all that time on my feet before the race even starts. Then I'm supposed to run the race. And then after the race, then I've got to figure out how to get back to Phipps Plaza where my car's parked. So I just, knowing how I feel in my fitness level right now, Now, it was just not a good idea. So, I guess I'll quit rambling on about this and just say I'll see you later. And make a podcast out of this thing and send it out to you. So, see you later. Bye. Music.
Hey, thanks for listening to today's podcast. We'll be here next time. Keep the emails coming in and be sure to subscribe. Music. Bye.