I've been wanting to do this for a while but had never had the running legs or motivation to do so -- to run the entire length of the Atlanta to Stone Mountain PATH trail.
Not the entire 18-mile distance in a row. In segments, like how I did half of the Ouachita Trail in Arkansas.
The other day while I was out doing laundry, I did the Candler Park-Clifton Road segment, leading up to today.
My goal was to start on McClendon and work my way to Avondale Station in Decatur (it's Milepost 8.86). Here's a map of the section.
When I started, I was not very happy. It was about 42 degrees and I was pretty cold in my CFLST, SST (Carolina, dk blue) and shorts. My legs didn't really work well since I was pretty tired.
I thought I was going to turn around. But I trudged up the hill. I didn't find Park Place on the map so I made my way to Ridgecrest and then went out to Dekalb Avenue, where the PATH continues as a separate bike road.
It was pretty nice. You pass places like Thinking Man's Tavern and the PATH brings you right into Decatur. It was nice that the trail goes right next to the Dairy Queen and Chick-fil-A is only a few blocks away.
When I reached Avondale MARTA station I turned around and headed back. I veered off course a little to use the CFA restrooms and realized that Big Peach Running Co. is right across the street. I had never been there before, so that was pretty exciting for me.
On the way back, I had no problems at all and even though I had been running about 7 miles at that point, the L1 hill from my old Middlebear course wasn't any problem at all.
I'm looking forward to a hopefully fun diversion exploring the rest of the trail!
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