The Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta at 50: Reflections on a running career

In April 1970, I ran in the Boston Marathon. It was a humbling experience. As I approached the halfway point in Wellesley, feeling like “Rocky” as we ran through a chute of cheering coeds, I heard someone say that Englishman Ron Hill had run the race in something like 2 hours and 10 minutes. An Atlanta television station made arrangements with its Boston affiliate to film every step I took in the race, thinking that I might be the only Atlanta resident to participate. It was a rainy 38°F day. My time was slow (3 hours, 45 minutes), and the cameramen were bored. Later, Atlanta’s TV 5 gave me a copy of the film on a long movie reel. I never looked at it.

Several months later, I heard that Atlanta was starting a new race, a 10-km event to be held on July 4th. Still in good shape from the Boston experience, I entered the race, joined by 109 fellow runners. I wore New Balance shoes, with red and white leather tops and black soles so corrugated that one could practically climb telephone poles in them. I noted that the Peachtree course was a smaller version of Boston’s, downhill for the first part with hills two-thirds of the way through. I found Boston’s “Heartbreak Hill” overrated compared to the hills I had trained on in Atlanta’s Morningside neighborhood.

There were hardly any spectators along the Atlanta route, quite a contrast from Boston, where up to a million people watched the race, offering pieces of oranges, cups of water, or just the touch of their hand. We finished at Atlanta’s Equitable building with a small fountain in front, a tempting place to soak one’s tired feet. A few brief speeches were made. The winners got trophies. No commemorative T-shirts were given out.

I began running in medical school. Having been in competitive athletics through college, I suddenly had very little spare time, attending classes from 8 am to 5 pm and usually studying from 6 pm to midnight. I noted a cinder quarter-mile track across the street from Northwestem Medical School (Figure 1). I would help deal with the pressures of anatomy classes by running a mile on that track, which became the place where I broke the world record for the 1-mile run.

Figure 1.

The cinder track near Northwestern Medical School. Photo by Jim Prisching, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

It happened this way. To keep my mind from unpleasant thoughts of upcoming examinations, I would stage imaginary 1-mile races. One day I noticed that the only other person on the track was Tom O’Hara from Loyola University (Figure 2), who held the record in the indoor mile. Studying him with sidelong glances, I made my move coming around the far turn and edged him at the invisible tape, whereupon I threw up my arms in victory and collapsed in a heap. O’Hara looked at me with a curious expression and kept going. I did not have the heart to tell him that in my mind I had just broken his record.

Figure 2.

Tom O’Hara.

Years later the Peachtree Road Race became a holiday tradition for our family (Figure 3). I missed one, early in the 1970s, when I had a bad cold and the weather report had threats of rain. I showed uncharacteristic good sense, heeding my wife’s advice to skip the race, rest, and recover my health. I missed the next race because my brother Art and I decided to take our sons on a canoe trip down the Red River near the Wisconsin town where we grew up. I am glad I took the occasion to be with Art because in 2003 I again missed the race to attend his funeral.

Figure 3.

The author with some family members in the 50th Peachtree Road Race.

In 1986, I was scheduled to be in Moscow over July 4th, serving as a physician for Ted Turner’s Goodwill Games. I had a race number, but I gave it away. I could have used it when communist bureaucracy over my visa delayed our departure, and I wound up viewing the Peachtree event as a spectator.

I watched the 2001 race from my Piedmont Hospital bed while recovering from hip replacement surgery. My surgeon prefers that I walk instead of run but conceded that I could walk the Peachtree Road Race. I always look forward to that day.

In reflecting upon prior July 4th races, 1977 was probably the most memorable. It featured Olympic champions Frank Shorter and Lasse Viren, a much larger group of runners than in previous years, the growing lure of the coveted T-shirt, and brutal heat and humidity. The medical director, a rather casual affiliation then, was advised to bring along a little ice chest in case anyone needed it. That year at least 55 runners were taken to the hospital via ambulance with various degrees of heat-related illnesses. The Central City Park region where I finished looked like a Civil War battlefield, with runners strung about in various states of consciousness. I tried to help a few but had no equipment or aids at my disposal.

The medical care has markedly improved since then, under former director Dr. Joe Wilson Jr. and his associate Dr. Perry Julien. The care is now a model for other races to emulate. When I became the chief medical officer for the 1996 Olympic Games, I chose Joe and Perry to oversee the medical care of the long-distance events to ensure their safety for the competitors. The time required to earn a T-shirt was softened after the 1977 Peachtree, a wise move because too many runners were accelerating toward the finish line to get in under the 55-minute requirement, only to develop heat exhaustion or even heat stroke. Some runners who finished near me in 1977 would hand their number to the person next to them, sensing that they were going to pass out, with their last words usually being “please get my T-shirt for me.”

About 30 of the original 110 Peachtree Road racers participated in the 50th event (Figure 4), including 89-year-old Bill Thorn (Figure 5), the only person to do all of them. The original men’s winner, Jeff Galloway, participated but Gayle Barron, women’s original champion, was unable to compete due to some back issues (Figure 6).

Figure 4.

The author (arrow) with the original Peachtree Road Racers 50 years later. Photo by Steve Thrasher.

Figure 5.

Bill Thorn, age 89. The only runner to complete all 50 races.

Figure 6.

Original Peachtree Road Race men’s and women’s winners Jeff Galloway (left) and Gayle Barron (right).

Does long-term running (like the 40 years I did) increase one’s chances of orthopedic problems? Several uncontrolled studies suggest not,^1–3 but I wonder, because most of my runner friends are now limited by back, hip, and knee problems. If I had it to do over again, I would have mixed in more cross-training. Some raise concern that intensive long-term exercise may have some adverse cardiac effects, including enhanced coronary artery calcification, myocardial fibrosis, and arrhythmias.⁴ However, longitudinal studies⁵ suggest a relationship with high cardiorespiratory fitness and longevity, along with lower future health care costs.⁶

I still have a strong affinity for running. As Sir Roger Bannister (Figure 7) once wrote:

Figure 7.

Sir Roger Bannister. Photo by author.

As a child I ran barefoot along damp, fresh sand by the seashore. The air there had a special quality. … The sound of breakers shut out all others, and I was startled, almost frightened by the tremendous excitement a few steps could create. It was an intense moment of discovery of a source of power and beauty that one previously hardly dreamt existed.⁷

The beauty of running is that one does not have to be endowed with exceptional athletic skill to enjoy it. Montaigne, the son of an athletic man “who remained agile into extremely old age,” was so uncoordinated that “in dancing, tennis, or wrestling I was never able to acquire more than a very slight and ordinary competence; in swimming, vaulting, and leaping none at all. My hands are so awkward that what I write is illegible even to me.” However, Montaigne was a runner: “I have seldom met anyone who did not excel me in any but running, at which I was moderately good.” He also recognized the “close connection between the mind and the body, whose fortunes affect one another.”⁸

Four hundred years later, my wife and I can attest to this basic truth (Figure 8).

Figure 8.

My wife Marilyn and I nearing the finish of the 50th Peachtree Road Race. Photo by Tina Cantwell.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Chantavia Ruff for preparing the article and Stacie Waddell for preparing the figures.