In the weeks ahead of this year's Peachtree Road Race, I was aware of my course record of 54:38 from 2015. That's five minutes slower than my 10K personal record from September 2017, but in the heat of July, this is always a tough race to run. As the days approached for the race, the forecast temperature in the mid-70s called for caution. I decided that I would try for a 54 minute finish, but knew that might not be realistic. The one thing going for me was that I recently ran the Monday Nighter 10K in 59:33 on an evening that was 15 degrees warmer, so I knew that I was in shape to finish at least within that time, which would be my "C" goal.
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| 5 minutes before wave B start |
Indeed the temperature at the start was 75 deg F, with 85% humidity. As wave B filled with runners in the minutes before the start, I deliberately kept moving back in the wave, doing easy warmups running away from the front of the wave to avoid getting hemmed in by the crowd. Only after the lead group had officially started, and wave C began walking forward, did I settle into my starting position. Once our wave officially started at 7:05 am, I continued to walk until right before I crossed the starting mat.
Mile 1 went close to plan, finishing in 8:30. Along the way, I met up with Tucker Running Club friends Curt Walker and Liz Mann. I had hoped to find them for a pre-race selfie but somehow we missed each other among the other 3000 runners in our wave. David Bloomquist slowed up for me, saying "I want to make sure that I'm in your blog!" David was running with his daughter, and she wasn't waiting for him, so after a moment he dashed on ahead. There were many more bands along the route than I remembered from recent years, perhaps having to do with this being the 50th running of the Peachtree Road Race.
Mile 2 was mostly downhill. Curt had pulled ahead and I just tried to keep him in sight as a pacer. He was running the tangents, whereas I mostly stayed with the second lane, moving over to the left at water stations. I had intended to stay with a 8:30 pace, but found myself running easily at 8:15.
Mile 3 also went by quickly, in 8:15 according to my watch. This part of the course has the steepest drop in the first half of the mile, but then we crossed the Peachtree Creek bridge and headed up Cardiac Hill before crossing the mile 3 marker. I noted that I was just past 26 minutes elapsed when I crossed the 5K timing mat (officially 26:14).
To this point, I was on track for a 54-minute finish, but I didn't do as well on the uphill sections, needing 9:30 to get through mile 4. Beyond that mark, I needed to take a few walk breaks at the water stations. The heat was taking its toll. I lost sight of Curt Walker before the end of mile 4. I wasn't getting enough recovery at each level section before heading to the second big hill. In fact I needed 10:15 for mile 5, crossing I-85 into Midtown Atlanta. And there was still one more big hill ahead!
The one disappointment in today's race is when I reached the top of the third hill, the highest point of the 2nd half of the race, at 12th Street, I couldn't speed up very much. When I made the turn onto 10th Street with exactly one kilometer to go, my watch read 51:30. With a personal course record out of reach, I dialed back my effort, looking around at the crowds lining the street, raising my hands for the cameras on the crane just before crossing Piedmont Road, just enjoying the last minutes of the race. Most other runners passed me in this final kilometer. When the finish line first came into sight, I saw 56:00 on my watch, and started counting down, certain that I would finish in less than 57 minutes. Then shortly before reaching the finish line, we all had to slow down, as the police steered us around an injured runner - fortunateiy she was still upright, leaning on another runner as they crossed the line together - and as I crossed the line myself, saw 57:00 exactly on my watch. My "A" goal for the race was definitely too ambitious for the conditions, with nearly a 5 minute positive split for the race, but at least I finished without mishap, and comfortably beat my "C" goal by more than 2 minutes.
The Atlanta Track Club races are always well-organized, but I think this one was really the best-organized of them all. There was plenty of water to drink and cool down with all along the route. When we turned into Piedmont Park, there was a wooden walkway protecting the grass from tens of thousands of feet - and protecting our shoes from mud. Dozens of volunteers passed out water bottles before we received our commemorative race shirts at the end of the queue. At the back of the meadow, there were ice-cold cooling towels, plenty to go around, even a couple of hours after my finish. There was large barrels of cold clean water spigots throughout the meadow. At the Atlanta Track Club members party, there were still bagels, bananas, cold water and Powerade to spare.
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| Many of the 60,660 finishers in today's race, relaxing on the meadow at Piedmont Park |
Despite the temperatures and humidity, all four major course records were broken this morning. This year the Atlanta Track Club offered the additional motivation of $50,000 bonuses if new course records were set. The first record fell in the men's wheelchair race, followed a few minutes later by the women's wheelchair racers. In fact the first three women to finish today outran the old course record. In the women's elite footrace, there was an exciting competition into the finish line, and again three women outran the old record. And finally in the men's elite footrace, the winner, running by himself for the last couple of miles, also set a new record by a few seconds.
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| Daniel Romanchuk repeated his win from last year, but 28 seconds faster. Marcel Hug won in 2009, and Josh Cassidy in 2010 and 2013. |
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| Manuela Schar's name was misspelled! She also won in 2013. Tatyana McFadden won seven times, 2010-2012 and 2014-2017. Susannah Scaroni won in 2018. |
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| Brigid Kosgei has won every race that she has entered this year! |
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| Rhonex Kipruto missed a 10K world record by 2 seconds last fall. Today's result is the fastest 10K time ever run in the United States. |
