Life in Loraland: Laid Back Fourth

Laid Back Fourth

Fourth of July weekend was pretty uneventful this year. The kids didn’t really want to go see any fireworks. Jackson absolutely didn’t want to go, the noise really upsets him. Clayton asked us on Sunday night around 8pm if we were going after not saying a word all weekend. Sorry buddy, should have spoken up sooner! We grilled and got some sun (like I’m not dark enough already), read some books, watched some TV, did a little shopping. Pretty laid back.

I did make a commitment to run 4 miles each day over the weekend in honor of the 4th! I got my first two days in and then on Monday Hows asks us to come up to Forsyth and walk with him……………….
Soooooo ….Shelby, Jackson and I drive up to the center to meet H and we then drive over to the Big Creek Greenway. The Big Creek Greenway in Forsyth County is a 12-foot wide concrete and boardwalk path that meanders through the woods along the Big Creek. The greenway is a beautiful setting for walking, jogging, dog walking and biking.

Here we are setting out on our walk:

(Photo taken on H’s phone and this is about as good as I can make it in Photoshop! I think the Duke Visor draws the eye away from my Carolina blue shorts)

Our goal was to walk the 6.8 mile path but about 2 miles in Jackson was pretty hot. We had water bottles waiting for us in my car at the end of the walk, but that was still over 4 miles away. So H and Jack walked back to the start where H’s car was and Shelby and I headed out to walk the whole way!

We got to a scenic area and I got Shelby to jog with me for one mile…that was all she could do. She was really overheated. Soooooo ….we walked and talked. Sometimes I would jog ahead and then back to her, it was just a perfect path for a jog! I just wanted to run. But she never could run again so we just walked.

We saw a beautiful heard of cows playing in the Creek, mooing and looking picture postcard perfect. Shelby did a Paula and just had to pee in the weeds. Up ahead of us we came upon an ambulance taking a woman away after (we guessed) she overheated biking. I didn’t think it was that hot, but the lady must have been pushing herself too hard.

H and Jack met us at the other end about 1.5 miles in from where my car was parked. They brought us some water and walked to the end with us. So they got in about 4 miles. I can highly recommend this path for anyone who wants to bike or walk/jog in a beautiful, mostly shaded, wooded area. I could have shaved off some time from our 1 hr. 45 min. walk if I could have run a few of those miles, but it just wasn’t to be today. It really was fun and quite a challenge so I’d love to do this again, maybe when Shelby gets to a point where she can jog a mile, walk a mile. Now that would be fun! I love interval training.

I’m hoping next year someone in my family or one of my friends will get in shape and run the Peachtree Road Race with me. Unfortunately, 2010 was the perfect year to run as the temps were 66 degrees at the start of the race, low humidity ….now that doesn’t usually happen. Wish Susan had wanted to run it this year when I’m healthy and in shape as opposed to last summer when I was too heavy and sedentary!! I’m not going by myself to run that race, half of the fun is the camaraderie of doing it with someone you know. I’ll just keep running my 3 and 4 mile runs around here and try to do some 5K’s this fall…by myself.