This weekend, I took my kids to Stone Mountain park near Atlanta, Georgia. I warned my coach that I wouldn’t be able to get in a bike ride or a workout session. However, I figured that I would get a workout just walking around, participating in some of the park activities, and climbing the huge granite rock that is known as Stone Mountain.
Stone Mountain with hiking trail marked (Click to enlarge)
Well, it turns out that the workout wasn’t nearly as long as I thought. Walking at a brisk pace I reached the top in 15 minutes and 30 seconds. I’m certain I could have made it up faster, but I wasn’t sure how long of a hike it would be. I paced myself so that I wouldn’t bonk before the top. Turns out I had a little left in the tank.
That isn’t to say that it wasn’t a tough climb. At times it got pretty steep — enough for me to think twice about wanting to ride my mountain bike down it (not to mention UP it) — but I never had to put my hand down. Also, there were some rocky sections where you kind of had to do some free running to get over it. The terrain was manageable and as I reached the top I turned to find my 10 year-old son not too far behind me.
The main reason I say it was a good workout was that I had my heart rate up over 180 bpm for six of those nearly 16 minutes. I peaked at 186 bpm for nearly 2 minutes. When I’m on the bike with that heart rate, I know I’m burning matches!
The problem is that this was a day when I was supposed to put in three ours of riding. As it turns out, I got in about an hour and a half of hiking. I averaged 135 bpm for that period. I guess you could say I came up a bit short.
On the other hand, I don’t feel slighted at all. 1) I was with my family and I had a blast hiking to the top and about the rock with the Beautiful Redhead and the Things Three. 2) It was fun to use my Garmin to map out the trail to the top of the rock. I’m determined not to get down on myself if LIFE happens to get in the way of the bicycle this year. This was one of those times.
As for the Garmin data for the hike… it took me 15 minutes 28 seconds to cover the .97 mile from the trail head to the top of the rock. The average grade was 12.8 %. The trail started at 1034 feet and reached the peak at 1711 feet – that is a gain of 669 feet. For me, the average heart rate on the climb was 170 bpm with a peak at 187 bpm.
Someday I’d like to go back better dressed for a “run” to the top. I’d like to see how fast I could make it up there. I’m sure I could knock a minute or more off the climb.
Stone Mountain is a pretty cool place for an active person. Yes, there are the tourist trap portions, but you also have a lot of hiking you can do. We just scratched the surface of the trails. Also, for us cyclists, there are plenty of roads within the park available for us. Even on the cold days I was there this past weekend, I saw numerous cyclists out and about — individuals and groups.
For now it is back to the trainer.
