I
moved to the Atlanta area in 1979. In
all of those years the latest I ever slept in on the 4th of July was
that very first year: I slept until 5:00 a.m. so I could make it to the north
side of Atlanta from my home in Rex for the start of the Peachtree Road Race, a
10-kilometer run through the heart of Atlanta.
Back then the race had a field of less than 10,000 runners and it wasn’t
hard to find a parking place in Lenox Square, a mere 60-second walk to the
starting line on Peachtree Street.
This
morning the routine was a little different.
I woke up to a 3:45 alarm so I could drink a couple cups of coffee to
get the cobwebs out and loosen up (both inside and out) before getting in the
car at 5:00 and heading north on I-85.
As has been my custom for the past several years, I took the exit that
would take me to Piedmont Park—the coveted finish line where I would park the
car and run to the starting line (to loosen up even more, both inside and out).
This year the congestion—even at 5:45 in the morning--was a little too
much for my liking. There were a lot
more detours than normal on the way to the parking lot, compounded by a
policeman at every intersection to complicate matters even more. On one side-street there was a policeman in a
bright yellow vest spinning out of control, gesticulating wildly with his arms and
shining his flashlight every which way that distracted me so much I drove
straight through a stop sign. It was darn
nice of him to point out my little indiscretion:
Officer
Cuisinart: ‘Did you see that stop sign
you just went through?’
Me
(out loud): ‘I was so focused on watching
you giving me hand signals that I totally missed it. I’m sorry.’ (My thought balloon AKA the unfiltered
version: ‘Apparently not, Einstein.’)
Officer
Cuisinart: ‘Get out of my sight.’
By 6
a.m. I have the car safely parked about a half-mile from the finish line and
begin my five-mile warm up run to the start.
As I run I think about the days of Peachtree’s past:
·
The first one 35 years ago (only my 4th
10K ever and my first one in the state of Georgia) that I ran in 42:03 (OK, I didn’t really remember the time; I
had to look it up. As I said, it was 35
years ago.). Back then the finish
was in the heart of Piedmont Park, and the common misperception for runners
back then was that once they were inside the park it was time to sprint to the
finish—even though there was still more than a mile remaining (a bit too long
for a sprint and yes, I made that mistake more than once.)
·
Consistent 37- and 38-minute finishes when I was
in my 30’s, and holding steady in the 38-minute window into my 40’s and earning
a spot on the Atlanta Track Club Men’s Masters (for runners 40 years and older)
Competitive Team for a decade. I’ll
never forget the days of being in the seeded corral at the start and rubbing
elbows with the human rockets from Kenya and all of the other countries where
the children wear T-shirts with ‘Oh, so you run a mile in under five minutes:
How cute!’ printed on them. While I had
no legitimate business being in the seeded corral (it was easier for a masters
runner to qualify for the seeded corral than it was for runners 39 and younger;
after all age has some privileges) I
really enjoyed having volunteers bringing me
water and wet towels as I stood on Peachtree Street waiting for the race to
start.
·
1996, that magical year when it was 63 degrees
at the start of the race (it’s not unusual for it to be in the mid-70’s with
105%--no, not a misprint—humidity for
the 7:30 a.m. start) and I ran my Peachtree best: 36:56.
·
2004, the year the wheels fell off. I ran Peachtree a mere seven days after putting
my legs through 18 hours of severe torture, punishment and anguish running,
walking and crawling the first 62 miles of the Western States Endurance Run and
convincing the medical staff it wasn’t a good idea to amputate my legs like
they wanted to do. I ran Peachtree in a
(then) personal worst 45:44 and realized on that day my wheels were indeed
starting to fall off. Hmmm…maybe that
medical staff had the right idea after all.
·
2005, the year Peachtree turned into a ‘beer
run.’ My goal was to drink as many free
beers as I could beg, borrow and/or steal along Peachtree Street. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I would
consume a ‘personal best’ of five beers before I reached the finish line. (In the 1990’s I rode a bus to Peachtree with
the local running club and after the race everyone hung out in Piedmont Park until
all of the members had finished. Back
then I was drinking five beers just to rehydrate.)
·
2007, the year Susan Lance and I started at the
very back of the race just to see what it was like. How was it?
Let’s just say it won’t happen again.
However, I will tell you we didn’t cross the starting line until 9 a.m.
(the official race begins at 7:30) and that our official (run) time was just a
couple of seconds more than an hour… and that with all the darting and weaving
Susan and I had to do to maneuver around slower runners we probably ran a
little over eight miles.
Back
to today’s race:
Whatever
changes for the worse there were at the finish area (surely you haven’t
forgotten Officer Cuisinart), there were noticeable changes for the better at
the starting area. There were no lines
at the porta-johns (unheard of, even back in the days when Peachtree featured
‘the world’s longest urinal’—a metal contraption about 50 yards long that
allowed 100 or more runners the option of ‘no waiting’ if all they needed to do
was #1). The walk to the starting corral
was a breeze (compared to the past couple of years when that same walk was akin
to being in the crowd outside of Wal-Mart when its doors open on Black
Friday). Even the volunteers seemed
more pleasant and accommodating than usual, although its entirely possible the
volunteers have always been that way but I noticed it this year because on the
way to the start I saw a lot of runners I’ve known for a very long time and for
the most part they looked a lot older than they used to; gee, I wonder what
happened to them?!
As I
waited for the race to start the announcer mentioned that Meb Keflezighi, this
year’s Boston Marathon winner was at ‘the back of the pack’ with the intention
of passing something like half of the runners in the field for a fundraiser. I couldn’t help but think Susan Lance and I did
the exact same thing seven years ago, except that no one donated any money to
charity for us to do it. We just did it because.
Once
the starter said ‘go’ almost two minutes passed before I actually crossed the
starting line. I started out at a
conservative pace, a pace that allowed me to notice free beer on my left from a
Mexican restaurant about one mile into the race and two miles later free beer
from a local tavern on my right. As I
wanted to get a ‘Time Group A’ seeding next year (requiring a finish of less
than 48 minutes) I couldn’t afford the time to belly up to the bar as I had
done during my ‘beer run’ days.
As I
made my way up Heartbreak Hill (about three miles into the run) I noticed the
medical offices of the neurosurgeon who recommended I take up yoga as a way of
‘curing the ills of Western States’ in my right leg. When I saw him 10 months ago he asked me to
touch my toes. Laughing, I barely
touched the middle of my shins. Today I
can touch the back of my middle knuckle to the floor. In about three more miles I’ll have a gauge
to see if the yoga is helping my running.
(Last year’s Peachtree time?
50:24.)
Heading
up the second hill—and in my opinion the more difficult of the two, this one
leading up to Colony Square I noticed two healthy looking men in their 20’s
stopping to walk and catch their breath.
I couldn’t help but feel proud of myself for keeping the same pace I had
been running for four-and-a-half miles…when a young boy who couldn’t have been
more than 12 years old pulled up alongside me and asked me how far we still had
to run. ‘About a mile-and-a-half,’ I
told him. Well, actually all he heard
was ‘about-a-mile’ because he never hear the ‘and-a-half’ part because he was
50 yards in front of me before I could get the words out of my mouth.
As I
made the final left hand turn to the final downhill leading to the finish line
I felt good about my chances of finishing in less than 48 minutes. If I don’t trip over any speed bumps, street
reflectors or discarded beer cans I should make it with a few seconds to spare.
Thirty-eight. That’s the number of seconds I had to
spare. I crossed the finish line with
47:22 (actually 47:21:89) showing on my chronograph. It’s official: I’ll be in Time Group ‘A’ when
I line up for my 37th Peachtree Road Race, my first at the age of
60. (Note: The standards for sub-seeded
times haven’t changed. In other words,
for me to rub elbows with the Kenyans ever again I have to meet the same
standards set forth for a 40-year old.
Age has lost some of its privilege at Peachtree, but then again I do get a 5% discount on my groceries on
Wednesdays. Also, the yoga appears to be
working.)
Now
for the moment I’ve been waiting for: My ‘Mean Joe Greene’ moment. For those of you who don’t remember (or never
knew to begin with) there was a famous commercial for a certain carbonated
beverage (that happens to be made in Atlanta) starring Mean Joe Greene, a
player on the talented Pittsburgh Steeler teams of the 1970’s. After a game a young boy—about the same age
as the boy who dusted me on the Colony Square hill—handed an obviously
exhausted Greene his bottle of soda on his way to the locker room. Greene gulped it down and started to walk
away, only to turn around and say ‘hey, kid; catch’ while tossing the young boy
his jersey. The young boy—obviously—is
overjoyed (‘Hey, thanks Mean Joe!’).
So
after the race I picked up my Peachtree T-shirt (coveted in certain circles)
and scoured the crowd lining the wire fence around Piedmont Park for just the
right boy for my Mean Joe Greene scenario to play out. I walked a couple hundred yards and found my
intended target: A boy of about 10 or 11 standing between his mom and dad with
his eyes as wide as the coaster my beer is resting on at the moment. Perfect: His mom and dad aren’t running so he
won’t be getting a Peachtree T-Shirt from them, he appeared to be excited about
seeing all the runners who have just run in the
Peachtree Road Race and in all honesty looked a lot like what I imagine my
grandson will look like in another five or six years. I smiled at the boy, tossed him my shirt and
said ‘hey, kid; catch’ albeit not in the same deep, raspy voice of Mean Joe
Greene. I walked a few steps, smiling at
myself at the possibility of making someone’s day when I heard someone running
up behind me and grabbing my left arm.
‘Hey mister, this isn’t my size. Have you got one in a small?’
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