DEL.ICIO.USACTIVE ADULT
Goal-setting hiker inspires others to push themselves
63-year-old climbs Stone Mountain multiple times five days a week
For the Journal-Constitution
Monday, March 23, 2009
When Julius C. Lee, 63, moved to the Atlanta area from Detroit 10 years ago, a friend took him to Stone Mountain. “I got hooked. I just loved it. We didn’t have a place like that in Detroit. I was so impressed with Stone Mountain,” said Lee, a married father of five and grandfather of 10 who lives in Lithonia. Now he climbs the giant rock five days a week, making four or five trips up and down the mountain each time.
He said he’s always been athletic. (He’s completed five triathlons and 35 marathons.) “It’s like a lifestyle for me,” said Lee, who is now retired but used to work as executive director of the Centennial Place Family YMCA.
ADRIENNE HUGHES-HARRIS/Special
Julius Lee enjoys climbing Stone Mountain five days a week, hiking five trips up and down the mountain each time.
But even with his fitness background, it’s an impressive regimen. He said it’s 1.4 miles up and 1.4 miles down and his fastest round-trip time is between 29 and 34 minutes. “On rainy days I even go out at times and I’ll do one time up and then I’ll go around the outer perimeter because it’s so slippery,” he said.
On his 56th birthday Lee climbed the mountain 10 times and a few years later, he did 12. Both endeavors took him all day. His next goal? 15.
Not just for sightseers
While many Atlanta-area residents might think of Stone Mountain as just a place to take visiting relatives, many others like Lee use the attraction for their daily exercise.
Naomi Thompson, education supervisor for the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, said she definitely sees a lot regular climbers. And she even sees plenty of people making multiple trips like Lee. “I haven’t heard about anyone trying to set a record,” she said. So if Lee does accomplish his goal of 15 round trips, he might just be making history.
Climbing is a great cardio workout, said Forrest Q. Pecha, director of athletic training services for Emory Sports Medicine. Plus, “By climbing at an incline, it is a greater stress to your muscles and the body will adapt by strengthening the muscles to make the activity easier,” he said. “Balance will also be improved because you will be walking on uneven and varied surfaces throughout the hike or climb.”
And while Lee has been climbing for a long time, Pecha notes that someone who is not accustomed to hiking should expect to feel extremely sore a couple of days after or possibly not even finish the climb.
But don’t give up. According to Pecha, beginners can climb Stone Mountain; they just need to train. After consulting a physician to get cleared for strenuous activity, he said new climbers should practice on smaller hills or even with the incline on a treadmill. “For trekking larger hills and mountains, hiking poles can help, especially when going downhill,” he said.
A climb that never gets old
Lee laughs when people suggest that climbing the same mountain every day could get boring. “I solve the world’s problems when I’m climbing,” he said.
While Lee said he prefers to climb alone, he does enjoy meeting people along the way. He said, “Some people will ask me, ‘How many are you gonna do?’ And when I tell them, they’ll say, ‘You’re encouraging me. I was just gonna do one but now I’m gonna do two.’ That makes me feel much better too, that I’m inspiring other people to want to do it.”