We went to Allatoona Creek Park a couple of weeks ago for a trail run. Running there reminded me how much I love to run on mountain biking trails when they aren’t crowded. This park was definitely worth the trek outside the perimeter here in Atlanta. It is north of Kennesaw Mountain by about 15 minutes.

The Park has copious parking, restrooms, large open fields, and tons of mountain biking trails. Mountain bikes have the right of way here, but hikers and runners are more than welcome. The park hosts numerous mountain biking events and some cross country races for high schoolers in Cobb County. As always with primarily mountain biking trails, we try to get out running early in the morning to get ahead of the crowds.

We only ran a couple of the trails: “Mumbo Jumbo” and “Voodoo” which are labeled as intermediate and advanced mountain bike trails respectively. I loved the work that volunteers and the county have put into these trails. There were copious rock features that had been constructed for bikes to play on, short wooden bridges, and lots of technical turns. The trails were a bit root-filled in some places, but the footing was decent as long as we were paying attention. There were also lots of switchbacks, but it was hard to see people ahead or behind because of the undergrowth.

I would definitely recommend leaving the headphones at home so that you can hear bikes coming. The trails we ran were twisty enough that bikes weren’t flying through and there was plenty of time to step off the trail for them. Just a note to pay attention to the direction of travel for bikes and hikers/runners so you don’t get caught unawares!

I definitely want to go back and see what the other trails have to offer!