Leita Thompson Park

Leita Thompson Running Trail Map

It’s time for a more challenging run! Next up in the Atlanta Trail Running series is The Leita Thompson memorial park in Roswell.

Leita Thompson was an early female banking executive who helped other working women with retirement assistance, disability, housing and social and professional recognition. She bought the 107 acre piece of (then rural) land in Roswell as a “vacation property” from her permanent residence in Atlanta. Eventually she moved here and lived here until her death in 1978.

The park is located on 92 between Roswell and Woodstock. Parking is in the memorial garden area for the start of all the running trails. There are four loop trails here labeled with colors – red, blue, green and yellow. Red and Blue run around the entire park for about 2 miles, with the Red trail taking an extra .25 mile turn at the end. The Yellow loop runs for 1.12 miles around the front of the park, and the short .25-mile Green loop circles the pond in the middle of the park.

When I run here, I typically run the red course and add in the green loop to total a 2.5 mile hill run. These are pretty tough hills and cut-backs – after two loops you will definitely feel the burn! Because you are running under the shade, it makes a great summertime run with about a 10-15 degree difference in temperature under the trees. If you look up in the trees, you will see several bat houses – this must be how they keep the mosquitoes away. All-in-all a great, scenic run that is perfect for you hill workouts.

Even though, there is a trail map at the park, I am unable to find an “official” trail map for the park. I will update this post once I find one.

UPDATE 1/31/2012:  I took a picture of the official trail map from the sign at the trail.

Lieta Thompson Official Running Trail Map

If you happen to have one I would love to hear from you and post it – drop me a line.