Brecon Beacons N.P., Chattanooga, Cody, Muir Woods, San Diego, Stowe + Townsend
Plus: the 'Burning Man of Running,' what Norman Maclean taught us about how to live, and why I love John Mulaney
Yesterday morning, little T and I ventured out for a bike ride along the paved urban trail here in Atlanta known as the Beltine, which (when it’s completed) will stretch all the way around the city, connecting neighborhoods and districts that for decades have been as disconnected from one another as islands out on the sea, distant and alone.
Today, though, the Beltline project — which got its start twenty years ago, and first opened up to the public a little over a decade ago — has brought those places together in ways few of us imagined possible when I first moved here in the mid-1990s. Back then, getting around by car was basically the only way to get around Atlanta, as public transit here is pretty limited (especially compared to other major U.S. cities).
When T and I rode our bikes along the trails yesterday, though, we saw the city in a way we don’t get to out in the burbs where we live. Everyone was out; we wove our bikes in and out of people young and old, themselves running and biking and skating while others gathered for coffee and breakfast at the many shops, cafes and restaurants on the Beltline.
I thought about my stepdaughter, who’s halfway through college and thinking of places she might want to move for work when she graduates. This is the place to be, I thought as T and I rode, especially if you’re young and ambitious and want to soak up all life has to offer.
People working out at fitness studios, people walking and talking through their problems and anxieties (which I picked up on instantly, as I remember walking and talking through my own problems and anxieties with my friends when I was that age too) — it’s all here, all out in the open, everyone is sharing the life we’re living together.
You may remember once that I called Atlanta a kind of “new Philadelphia,” which I meant in the sense that it’s the place in America where democracy is being born anew. I realize, of course, how exaggerated and maybe overstated that may sound; it’s also true:
When I first got into running back in the mid- to late 1990s, I trained with a group that was raising money for the Arthritis Foundation, toward the goal of running a marathon in Bermuda. We ran all our mid-week runs on our own, but each Sunday morning we’d get together for a long run.
If you know Atlanta, you know how far away Peachtree Industrial Boulevard is from downtown. Well, we would park in the old flea markets there and run through Brookhaven, Buckhead, Midtown and into downtown, where we’d run around the state capitol building, and then back in reverse through all the neighborhoods we’d just been through.
Along the way, we’d run past the Margaret Mitchell House — where the author of Gone With the Wind, a novel beloved by generations of white southerners, lived and wrote — and through what was then the seedy bar and pub district of Midtown, past homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk.
We’d run through the Sweet Auburn district, where you can visit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s family home and see his final resting place. And past Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached, including his famous sermons “The American Dream” and “The Drum Major Instinct.”
We’d run past where Elton John lives in a swanky Buckhead high-rise, past the huge mansions novelist Tom Wolfe said were “the real Buckhead” in his 1998 novel A Man in Full, and then later past homeless shelters and prostitutes still walking along the street on Ponce de Leon.
And at the time, I was totally oblivious to it all — I really did run right past it, as if I had blinders on.
Like you, no doubt, I’m not oblivious to what’s going on in the nation right now. I see the conflict, and I respond to it on the inside too. I don’t write about it (much) here, but I’m as affected by it as you are. I get despondent, I get sad, I get down about it. All of it.
But then I remember that wonderful line from the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society: “these are the things we stay alive for.” What T and I saw yesterday on our bike ride are the things we stay alive for — people exercising, people flirting, people talking about the night before, people having fun, out enjoying the springtime sun.
This, this is what makes all the effort and the work and the aching and the dreaming we do worthwhile — to be among each other in harmony, you know?
It was rejuvenating and renewing in a way I didn’t expect, and just a thought I wanted to share with you this Easter Sunday.
I hope you’ve had a wonderful week and have gotten some great runs in — as always, keep in touch and let me know how your running/life is going.
Your friend,
— Terrell
🏃♀️ To run
🌊 America’s Finest City Half Marathon. The rolling green hills of Point Loma, which lies near the starting line of this gorgeously scenic race, today make up Fort Rosencrans National Cemetery, which overlooks the the Pacific Ocean and San Diego Bay, and became a U.S. military cemetery back in 1934. It’s home to many monuments and gravestones that honor thousands of soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice, and also is the final resting place of many Medal of Honor recipients. You’ll run through all of this in the race’s first mile and a half, as you run from Cabrillo National Monument into the city, all the way to the finish line in Balboa Park. Set for Sunday, August 17.
🏞️ Muir Woods Trail Run. Challenging hills, paired with stunning views of both the Stinson Beach coastline and the immense, dramatic trees and landscapes of Muir Woods National Monument and Mount Tamalpais State Park, await runners at this small race — the entrant list is limited to 300 runners. You’ll need to be ready to run some big hills here; the course rises some 1,800 feet in the first three miles, as runners climb through the old-growth redwood forests of Muir Woods and march up (and down) both rock and wooden staircases. Waterfalls, creeks and streams abound inside the park along the trails, and runners will have plenty of scenery to take their minds off the difficulty of the race as they’re heading up and down the trails. Set for Saturday, July 12.