I love running out at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. The trails are some of the best I’ve seen around Atlanta, and there are plenty of miles of them.

It’s also nice to live so close. Sara and I are about 2 miles from the trail, so we can just go straight out the door whenever we want to head over there.

On the way to the trail, I pass by this church. Honestly, I haven’t been by that sign once without laughing a little. Creflo A. and Taffi L. Dollar. Those are some amazing names.

Once you get on the trail, though, you pretty much forget you’re anywhere near metro Atlanta.

The trail varies from gravel to roots and rocks to narrow singletrack. It’s really pretty most of the time. In fact, every once in a while you’ll startle a deer or two out in the forest.

It’s pretty cool to see some of the old earthworks from the Civil War as well. You can see where soldiers dug in and prepared for battles. There are always some great views of Kennesaw Mountain, too.

I’m pretty lucky to live so close to such an awesome set of trails, and I’m really glad I can do most of my long runs on these instead of dodging cars and breathing exhaust. I get a huge boost when I run through a beautiful clearing like this:

and I don’t know of any roads around here that come close to being half as nice as this.

I took all of these photos on my run on Sunday. My legs were a big stiff from the 5k I ran Saturday night, but it felt good to get out and stretch them.

In other news, be sure to check out Running and Rambling‘s shoe giveaway today: http://www.runningandrambling.com/2010/12/vivobarefoot-work-shoe-giveaway-and.html