This is the last road race of a trilogy of races I set out to complete this year! Sparked by the idea of running some classic road races in the US known to have the largest participation of runners outside of the marathons and half marathons distances (also most of which I have already run before). The Peachtree 10K in Atlanta, Georgia is the largest 10k in the world (largest in series too) and is also the oldest of the series. In 2023 it held it´s 54th edition with 37,318 finishers. The two others I ran were BolderBoulder 10k in Colorado and Bloomsday 12k in Washington.

All three races were great and unique experiences which I am happy I was able to run and I had a blast on each adventure I planned around these races. BolderBoulder 10k is definitely a hard race experience to beat! This made running Peachtree 10k after that hard for me to get as excited about knowing it would be tough to top the experience I had in Colorado running BolderBoulder. Bloomsday I actually really enjoyed for it´s uniqueness (12k, etc) and local small town feel yet grandeur size. Not sure if I could rank Bloomsday vs Peachtree but I know BolderBoulder stood out above them all.

You should know that the Peachtree Road Race is not the oldest road race in the US, that claim is actually for a Turkey Trot in Buffalo, NY dating to 1896 (beating the Boston Marathon by only 5 months! ha) and the oldest in the world is in Carnwath, Scotland still going strong since 1508 (except during the plague/wars)…at over 500 years old is the Red Hose. There is an even older race that took place in Verona, Italy but it stopped in 2013…this one started originally way back in 1208. Just, interesting tid bits I found that seemed worthy of sharing.

Peachtree is run on the 4th of July…aka independence day here in the USA so there was a lot of red, white and blue everywhere. Race starts at 7 am and there are many waves although not as crazy as Bolder Boulder! I was in wave B, therefore my start was 7:05 (wave B and C went together). For Peachtree I again submitted a previous race time in order to be placed in this earlier wave and I was glad because I again had plenty of space while other waves were cramped full of runners. Getting into your wave was way more closed off compared to BolderBoulder where you can walk into your wave seconds before with ease, here you needed to enter through a gate and that gate closed before the start time (also similar to Bloomsday).

Unlike my previous races, BolderBoulder or Bloomsday, you can not sign up day of for Peachtree, in fact you must be signed up a week or two prior at the latest! Therefore all those attending the expo the days before were already registered. This was my least favorite expo of the three races. The space was huge to accommodate attendance but there didn´t seem to be many exciting vendors or much activity going on. My favorite expo was at Bolder Boulder because it was after the race and it was buzzing. Packet pick up for BolderBoulder was either by mail, at a local store days prior or on race day morning. Bloomsday I also enjoyed more as it was full of energy and brands, didn´t feel huge but it tooj up plenty of space and it kind of had a very small town race vibe to it.

Peachtree is a point to point race making it feel similar to Boston Marathon in that it starts outside the city and runs into the city…aka you need to get to the start but then end up in an entirely different location at the finish. The other two races make almost a full loop in the city. Piedmont Park is where the race ends and I stayed nearby in the Midtown neighborhood in Atlanta. You can stay up in Buckhead or elsewhere but I´d suggest being close to the Red line of the Marta (subway). Most runners take Marta in the morning to get to Lenox Square (a huge mall) up in Buckhead where the race starts. In fact the Marta opens early this day so that runners can do this and at the expo they sell the commuter cards so that the process is seamless on race morning (tap on and off). Staying in Midtown was great as I had a few stations along the Red line to choose from in order to get to the start and I could walk back when I finished.

Race Day

On race morning my alarm went off at 5 am. I woke up, dressed, ate a bit and then headed down to the lobby of my hotel. As soon as the elevator door opened the race began for me. I was immediately greeted by another runner! Finally I find the runners at my hotel lol! We chatted on the way down then met his friend in the lobby.

Together we walked up to the Marta station and were quickly joined by more runners joining the street in all directions. This aggregate of runners continued at the Marta station, then the whole Marta subway car, then finally as we arrived there were runners everywhere! It felt like the NYC marathon where the runner crowd got bigger and bigger the closer to the start you got. It was fun to see at the Marta station all the runners lining the platform and hilarious to see at other stops the few airport goers at this hour trying to find space among thousands of runners. ha

The three of us from the hotel continued sharing the morning until about 15 minutes before race start. Both had run the race plenty of times and were giving me tips. One was out from Maryland for 24 hours just for the race while the other drove 2 hours or so from North Carolina…and like me had been in the area for a few extra days. Turns out one of the guys runs a 10k in 32 minutes, I chuckled and said, ‘wait are you pro?’. He wouldn’t admit that his time was clearly a professional 10k time but then we dropped him off at the elite warm up area…ha ha He finished like 60th in a stacked field of athletes because the prize money was decent (10K for winner) but he actually now competes in the masters field (over 40) and in that field he finished 3rd! 

Once I learned he was pro I was glad I got all the tips for the race from him! 

Once we dropped him off we walked around the front of the startline which literally looked like they took the one at the expo and plopped it over the 6 lane road! ha Though they did add a huge US flag behind the startline which draped down off a crane for all to see….so very Independence Day of the race! This would be the second super American race this year, being as BolderBoulder was on Memorial Day…it was red, white and blue all over again!

Race morning was cloudy and humid and I had decided before the start that even though I did not train much for speed in the last 3 weeks that I was going to go all out and see what happened. Who knows maybe I could run that 40 minute 10k I have always dreamed. My other incentive was that the guys reminded me that the race celebrates the 500 fastest women and 500 fastest men of the race with an official cup every year. I was told to get it as soon as I finished because your ranking might change as more runners finish. The guy from the elevator said one year he went to get his cup and he was number 499…ha ha if he had waited longer he might not have been top lol. This is when it pays to have an earlier wave start! I´m sure the race accounts for this but still crazy to know you can be top for a only second which might just be enough lol. I figured getting the cup would be no problem for me since I generally finish top 10 percent at races but still I didn´t want to miss the ranking so I decided to push hard.

The first three miles is a steady downhill, in fact the first mile I didn´t even realize it was, it felt flat but then the downhill becomes more obvious. After the downhill for three or so miles you hit Cardiac Hill which is then followed by a series of rolling hills almost until the finish. I didn´t realize until after the race that Cardiac Hill has the perfect name…right there near the top of it is a hospital…lol a Vascular specialized hospital in fact….then everything made sense! Guaranteed the last 3 miles will be slower with the inclines so you can go as fast as possible on the first 3 miles or try to keep a reasonable pace…I stuck with reasonable…I had just climbed mountains for a few days…so I thought hills shouldn´t be much of an issue for me….they weren´t but eventually the humidity made breathing up these hills at fast paces a bit tougher. A few times on the hills I slowed down some and instead worked on controlling my breathing.

About half a mile out I looked at my watch and realized I was almost at 40 minutes…so I kind of stopped pushing as hard given the goal was out. That was until the huge downhill to the finish at least…when I made a mad dash for it. I knew 40 minutes was not possible but the downhill incentivized me to at least push one last time…well and maybe a girl who speed up and passed me for a second (she then slowed down…odd). I was letting loose on this last down hill so much it was really hard to stop myself and catch my breath once I passed the finish.

The girl speeding by only to slow down wasn´t the only odd thing in this race…turns out the lead woman for the elites did something even crazier! She was the defending champion and as she approached the finish, with it in sight, she followed the motorcycle leading her as it turned off from the course. Yes, the finishline was in sight, she has run the course before yet she turned off about 200m from the finishline and lost the lead. There were two other women close behind her and they kept going while she turned back and sprinter harder to cross the finish as to not lose 3rd place. So crazy to see her lose the $10,000 prize money that way! The men also had a tight race, where the person in 3rd overtook the other two and grabbed the prize money last second…hence why you don´t slow down until after the line (exactly why I always told the kids I coached to finish strong)! Watch the video here!

In the end I ran 41:49 which is the fastest I have run a 10k in years and slightly off my personal record by maybe 30 seconds. Mind you I usually don´t run 10k races very often as I prefer the longer distances but it was great to see where I was at in a shorter faster distance. Totally got the cup as the time landed me at #207 out of the fastest females, top 10 in my age group and #697 overall among the slightly less than 38,000 runners!

In other news after I had walked back, cheered on some runners along the way, showered, ate and was chilling in the hotel room I got a race generated text that the race was canceled! Only 30 before the course was set to close, at 10:30 am, it got canceled early due to a lightning storm close to the course. Runners were told to leave and about 500 runners were ushered off the course due to safely. They never got to finish… I guess this was a first for the race…interesting since the daily summer monsoons seemed so typical in Georgia at this time of year! Although it also caught me off guard because it seemed so early in the day for one compared to what I´d experienced the previous few days.

Days before the race I was out hiking and a storm came through, I stepped out of the car to go read a sign, lightning flashed overhead and as a took one step from the car the thunder rattled everything. Nope, I literally spun right around and jumped back into the car. Holy $h”!, lightning can be very dangerous and it was literally above me! When out running I don´t mess with lightning, you get out of the situation asap and over the years of doing running events the rule has always been we run no matter the weather EXCEPT if there is lightning nearby…CANCEL! At the hour I started running at Peachtree we had no rain but runners at waves further back mentioned some rain falling so it must have caught up with the race near the finishline.

Days Before

Each of the three races has a different story, I like stories ha ha, so for this race it was arriving days earlier, renting a car and heading into the mountains in the Northeast corner of the state. The Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. I camped and hiked for 4 days up there. Stayed in DeSoto Falls Campground (if you do this select a site away from the road as it is loud!). I did 4 hikes plus 5 waterfalls and toured the tiny German style town of Helen (so much traffic!). Over those 4 days I touched two parts of the Appalachian Trail (AT), a measly 7 miles of it, went to the top of 3 mountains, walked some 30 miles and gained 10,000 vertical feet. This was my first time on the AT and I would say prepare for lots of rocks, roots and elevation gain! By the way Georgia is the Southern starting point of the AT which has 78 miles of the 2,198 miles of the total trail touching 14 states 464,500 feet of gain (slightly less than the Pacific Crest Trail on the West Coast with 2,650 miles and 489,418 feet of gain).

Needless to say after all the hiking and the race I chilled at the pool (once the storm passed of course) for many hours and then walked over to the Botanical Gardens. Below are some photos of my time in the mountains of Georgia.

Register for Atlanta´s Peachtree 10K (GA)

Read about Bolder Boulder 10k Race (CO)

Read about Bloomsday 12k Race (WA)

More information on the Appalachian Trail

Pacific Crest Trail Information