Cloudland Canyon :: Jim's Run

Having Fun with My Marathon Training

Posted by Jim on February 23, 2012

Yesterday I took a day off from running, but still wanted to find a way to exercise my legs. So, I headed up the mountain with my best friend (and German Shepard/Lab mix) Tessa. We went to Cloudland Canyon State Park on Lookout Mountain here in the northwest corner of Georgia. After taking care of some volunteer things I needed to do at the park office, Tessa and I headed for the waterfalls. Cloudland Canyon has multiple waterfalls, a few that can only be seen during the rainy season, like now. I have hiked all the trails in the park with the exception of the complete waterfall trail with it’s 600 steps. So down we went into the canyon and pass three of the most beautiful falls in this region.

Getting down the trail along the canyon cliff side means following a path of staircases, board walks and dirt paths. At each waterfall, I stopped to enjoy the beauty while Tessa took a brief dip in the ice cold water. At one stop she nearly pulled me in with her as she jumped from a large rock we were standing on. I was just glad I didn’t have her leash wrapped around my wrist as I often do.

Once at the bottom, we rested for a few minutes. Then turned around and prepared to tackle the trail and 600 stairs going up. Tessa was more excited about the challenge than I was. But off we went. Just to be sure the stair count was as I was told, I counted each of the steps on our way up. Yep, 600 steps and maybe a couple extra. The entire hike was just over an hour and my thighs were feeling the workout. Back in the truck, Tessa took a nap while I made the 20 minute drive back home.

It was nice to take a running break and still get a good leg workout. Today I could still feel a little bit left of my effort as I completed a 4.5 mile run at the church trail. It was a moderately paced run for me, made even a little more pleasurable by the audiobook, Steve Jobs. I’ve been listening to the biography during my runs this past week.

Bear Creek Trail Maintenance

Posted by Jim on November 19, 2011

Yesterday was a rest day (of sorts) so I made plans to join fellow Friends of Cloudland Canyon State Park for a trail maintenance day. We just recently opened up an additional 9 miles of trail in the northeast portion of the park, but there was still a fair amount of trail maintenance that needed to be done. Greg Foster, our trail maintenance guru, lead the way as five of us put in nearly 50 hours of work today. In the above photo Greg and I are taking a refreshing dip in Bear Creek, a required crossing to get to the far end of the trail. It was about 36 degrees at the time, so yeah, the water was a bit chilly.

After the 10 mile run on Thursday and 9+ miles of hiking and brush clearing yesterday, I had no trouble sleeping last night. I can’t remember the last time I slept longer than 12 hours. But it felt nice. Today I’m off to the park to help with our fall hayrides. Come by if you’ve got the time. It is beautiful this time of year.

Categories A Little Off Topic, Trail Runs and Hikes
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Training Run: November 8, 2011

Posted by Jim on November 8, 2011

Today was a long run, so I filled a couple water bottles and headed up to Cloudland Canyon State Park on Lookout Mountain to run my 8.5 miles. I started near the Interpretive Center and ran out the road on the West Rim. It was an out and back run with a variety of hills and flats that I finished in just under 2 hours. To stay within my long run heart rate zone, I had to stop running on a few of the steeper hills. This is the hilliest course I have ran yet.

My knees were a bit tight, but not quite sore after 5+ miles. I think the walk breaks help (still running 8 mins., then walking 2), but I’m expecting to have some knee pain on runs over 10 miles. That’s really not so bad considering that 10 years ago I was feeling knee pain on any run over 6 miles. Oh well, we will see.

The run was beautiful. Leaves are changing and falling everywhere. The wildlife was out as I saw several squirrels, a chipmunk, what I am pretty sure was a raccoon, and several deer. This wasn’t a trail run, but the road was quiet with very little traffic. I love the park and will probably do a lot more runs here before my marathon.

By the way, I want to mention that the amazing photo that I used for this post was taken by MoultrieCreek on June 20, 2008 at the park. Her photo (in even more amazing clarity) is on her flickr.com site. Thank you MoultrieCreek for sharing this photo through Creative Commons licensing.

Photo Credit: MoultrieCreek

Categories Training
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First Trail Run

Posted by Jim on October 30, 2011

Today I headed up Lookout Mountain to run the Back Country Trail at Cloudland Canyon State Park. This is my training run on a dirt trail, but based on today’s run there will be several more. It was absolutely beautiful. The leaves are changing, the weather was about 60F and the running trail was awesome. I had a hard time seeing roots and rocks because of the leaves on the trail, but I survived without incident. The trail is a 2 mile loop with a big drop and climb in the back. My uphill runs looked more like a power walk. I look forward to getting in shape so I can really tackle these hills. Two laps and 50 minutes later I met Shelley (my wife) and we hiked the short trail to the catfish pond. That is where I took the above photo. The red maple on the right is even more amazing in person.

Categories Trail Runs and Hikes, Training
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Training Update: October 10 – Present

Posted by Jim on October 29, 2011

Since I started my marathon training a few weeks ago, I thought I’d update you on what I’ve done so far. Keep in mind that I started running again only a couple weeks ago and I am at least 40 pounds over weight.

October 1 – Decided to do something about being out of shape. Okay, I’m in shape…but that shape is round. So I started paying more attention to what I eat and thinking about an exercise plan. I weighted myself in the morning at 261.50 pounds (I use a doctor’s scale).

Note: I like to weight myself everyday and average my weight for the week. I know, this is not recommended by the weight loss gurus, but it works for me. I don’t have a problem with getting discouraged. I like to know how food and exercise affect my body every day. So each morning I step on the scale to see how I’m doing.

October 10 – Okay, I’ve given it a lot of thought and decided that it’s time to finally achieve the goal I set twenty-eight years ago…to run a marathon. The weather is beautiful, so off to the 3/8 mile running track at our local church. 39 minutes later I finished my first run of 3 miles. I ran 5 minutes and walked 5 minutes until I finished. It felt great to get out and run again.

October 12 – Today I decided to try running on the crushed rock path at a local park. The running surface and the couple moderate hills on this one kilometer (.62 miles) course slowed me down a bit. I ran 3.1 miles in 43 minutes. This time my run/walk ratio was 6:4 (6 minutes running and 4 walking).

October 14 – Three miles has felt great so far. I’m not in as bad of shape as I expected. My volunteer work doing trail maintenance at Cloudland Canyon State Park (and my time on the park’s disc golf course) seem to have helped me some. So I chose to run 4 miles today. My 11:36 pace was about a minute faster per mile than my 3 mile run on Monday. Run/walk was 6:4. Felt great!

October 16 – Back to the park to run. Finished my 5K (3.1 miles) about 3 minutes sooner than my October 12 run. But I felt like I was pushing it a bit after the first 10 minutes.

October 17 – Week two and I started with a 3 mile run at the church. This time I changed my run/walk ratio to 7:3. The 3 minutes of walking seemed to be just right. Again, my pace improved. I expect this to happen a lot for the first few weeks as my body starts to get adjusted to running again.

October 19 – It’s a cold and breezy 48 (F) degrees. I threw on a technical shirt, a cotton tee and my warmup jacket and pants. I also wore some cotton gloves and a winter headband. Felt wonderful as I finished my 4 mile run in 45 minutes.

October 21 – Time for my long, slow run. I added a mile to my longest run last week and finished my 5 miles in just under an hour. It was a cool, but comfortable 62 (F) degrees.

October 23 – My Sunday run was 3.1 miles on the slow park path. I forgot my watch, but I estimate it was about a 40 minute run. My run/walk ratio was 8:2 today.

October 24 – On this beautiful sunny and 72F day, I ran a good pace (for me) of 10:47 for my 3.8 mile run. Some minor pain in my right ankle, but nothing bad.

October 26 – Three miles at the park in just over 38 minutes. I like to mix up my running paths like this. The hills and soft surface at the park are rather enjoyable. Still running/walking an 8:2 ratio.

October 28 – Today…I’ve not gone to bed yet. My long run was a 10K (6.2 miles). I ran a very slow pace to finish in 1 hour, 23 minutes. I’m not worried about the time on these long runs. Right now I am building a base and time is not important. Thighs were a little sore the last mile. That let’s me know I’m getting in shape.