Piedmont Park's Active Oval

Time: ~60 minutes
Distance: ~13k

My watch is acting a fool again and tells me it is charge when it really isn't. Maybe I should do the update that the Garmin Connect has been suggesting. I ran sans watch with Meagan in Atlanta from our friend Brooke's house to Piedmont Park. I haven't run in the park in years and it was nice to get back on the Active Oval. I have blogged about the AO in the past as it's a great 800m+ loop for workouts or easy runs in the heart of the city. We had a busy day planned and my foot was cooperating so I was content to get in 60 minutes of running and call it a day.

Piedmont Park II

Time: 70:02
Distance: 10 miles

Ran from Brooke's to Piedmont Park again mainly because of the Active Oval. It's just that good. Meagan and I took a slightly different route to the park which was quicker than yesterday's. Clearly we wanted to maximize our time in the park and get off the busier Highland Pkwy street. The streets that ran parallel were a nice change of having to deal with Sunday morning walkers (I believe they were Frederica and Drewy?). Once we got to the park we ventured up to the AO and made a few laps before wandering more through the park. Early in the run we set the over/under on the number of Brooks shoes spotted at 9. The contest started slowly but by the time we left Piedmont Park our tally had grown to 8 and I spotted a GTS about a mile from Brooke's.

The legs felt fine and I'll take running easy until the end of June.

Piedmont Park

Time: 75:02
Distance: 10+ miles

Active Oval in Atlanta's Piedmont Park

Started out at Brooke's condo with Meagan and jumped on the Freedom Trail with Piedmont Park as our destination. The Peachtree Road Race 10k used to end in the park but since the city has been experiencing a drought, city officials decided that 50,000 people on the grass wouldn't be ideal for keeping things green. Our route took us through the Virginia-Highlands neighborhood and down to the park where we discovered the "Active Oval." The AO was a crushed gravel loop that we estimated to being 1000m long. It would be an ideal setting to run 1k repeats or tempo. Meagan will have no excuses for not running 3:00 at the Marine Corps Marathon.

After running a couple loops on the oval we headed back up to the Highlands and finished up with an anal 90 seconds of running around near Brooke's place. Though Piedmont Park is not as big as Central or Golden Gate Park, it has some good loops and is pretty. I enjoyed watching the "bootcamp" participants being forced to run up and down the stone steps all throughout the park.