RadioNut39 wrote:
kc2oso wrote:
This is something I don't see kids these days doing. Playing in the woods. It's rare to even see a kid on the street... The majority of my time as a kid was spent outside in one way or another. Playing in streams, down by the railroad tracks, under bridges, wherever.
Yep....When I was a kid there wasn't much money for anything.
Getting a
new bike was a big deal !
( And my first car was an old 'bug' that I bought for $150 -1971).
We would ride our bikes down to the L.A. River (really just
a concrete storm drain
) under the newly built I-5 freeway
at the intersection of Victory and Burbank Blvds.. We would ride
in it's bed all the way to the south, to
Griffith Park, the
only 'nature' available. Later, when we got a bit older, we would
hike into the "Burbank" (Verdugo) Mts..
Well, that brings back memories. I grew up in Burbank, and was on the cross-country team in high school. We spent a *lot* of time in Griffith Park; a typical workout would look something like this:
- warm-up: run from the school (John Burroughs HS in Burbank) to the nearest Griffith Park entrance. This involved going through the "equestrian district" (where horses were allowed, unlike most of the city), and crossing the LA River on a horse bridge... then following that horse trail into the park. Between 2 and 2.5 miles each way.
- workout: either (A) run 8-12 miles on the footpaths cutting through the park (on a predetermined course), or (B) an hour or so of speed drills up and down a steep hill.
- cool-down: run back to the school.
- final step: an hour in the weight room.
That was our daily routine, six days a week. It was grueling at times (particularly in the summer heat, when a water bottle bouncing against your side was well worth the added weight), but I got to know the park quite well... and any even remotely "wooded" setting was both scarce and welcome in southern California (one of the many reasons I left). I wish I was still in that kind of physical shape
