For much of the pandemic, we have assiduously kept our distance from each other, even avoiding family and friends. Crowded events have been out. Solitude has been in. In a way, many of us have run from each other. This weekend in Atlanta, we are running together. Finally.
About 38,000 people are expected to participate this weekend — 8,000 of them virtually — in the 52nd Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race, some from as far away as Israel and Singapore. Postponed and then held virtually last year because of the pandemic, Atlanta’s iconic 10-kilometer race is returning in-person. For many, this is a welcome turning point after months of loneliness, alienation and heartbreak.
This weekend at the race and across Georgia, we are celebrating independence, both our nation’s freedom and our own freedom from many of the COVID-19 restrictions we have lived with for months. We are gathering again with friends and family. We are returning to restaurants, movie theaters and beaches. And we are ditching virtual Zoom meetings to zoom with each other down Peachtree Road.
Jocelyn Wason of Loganville showed up before 6 a.m. to run the race in a red tutu. Giddily, she confessed this was her first time participating in it.
“People have always said this has been a race of community. They are like, ‘Folks are going to be in restaurants yelling for you. … And people will be giving you drinks and all this kind of stuff…’” said Wason, a self-described “turtle runner” who set a modest goal for herself Saturday: to finish. “It is a race of encouragement and like, ‘Come on. Keep going.’”
The pandemic has been especially difficult for Wason, a physical therapist at Emory Decatur Hospital. Some of her intensive care unit patients died from COVID-19. Her 71-year-old mother got sick with the disease, though she survived it. Wason changed her clothes in her garage when she came home from the hospital so she wouldn’t infect her children and husband, who has a pacemaker. And she has scrambled to help her two youngest children keep up with schoolwork after they switched to online learning.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
As Wason waited across from Saks Fifth Avenue for the race to start, a DJ blared Madonna’s “Into the Groove” and Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” A giant American flag swayed over Peachtree Road.
“Come on! Come on! Come on! Let’s go!” the DJ cheered. “If you want to get your dance on, feel free to do that. That is a great way to warm up as well. Work those hips. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! You’ve got it.”
Glancing around in the early morning darkness, Wason soaked up the scene, declaring that some “normalcy” was returning after so many difficult months.
“Look at these people. They are excited about doing this,” said Wason, who wore red, black and green, symbolizing Juneteenth, the federal holiday that celebrates the end of slavery in in the United States. “I love this energy. This is what I honestly came for — to feel this energy of unity.”
Moments later, an airhorn broke the silence. The first wave of runners was off.
Some of the participants and spectators wore masks, partly because of the highly contagious delta variant of coronavirus.
Wendy Harris, who lives in the West End and who has volunteered at the race for more than 15 years, said she is fully vaccinated and wasn’t worried about attending the event. But she wore a mask as an extra precaution.
“We’re still in the pandemic and we’ve got this new variant out as well, so I’m still careful,” she said.
To reduce crowds and fight the spread of COVID-19, race officials are scaling down the event — it typically attracts 60,000 runners and walkers — and they are spreading it out across two days. They are also screening runners for the coronavirus disease and bringing in special dogs trained to sniff out the scent of COVID-19. The normally bustling finish area at Piedmont Park was closed to spectators.
The changes were noticeable Saturday.
“There is a larger crowd usually; it’s a little eerie,” said Dr. Sherman Phillips, an anesthetist from Gwinnett County, who showed up to watch. “The spirit is there, but you can tell that it is just a little different.”
Lorena Castillo and Omar Ceron of Brookhaven ran the race together for the second time.
“I didn’t like that it was split, but I understand why,” Ceron said. “It was very, very empty and the energy was lacking.”
Emphasizing they will return to the race next year, Castillo said: “Usually, they’re giving us beer and shouting and there’s music, but this time it was more quiet. But it was still a good race.” She added the 10K race was “hard last year because it was virtual and I had to give up my number because I had COVID, so my lungs weren’t ready. So this is my first time running six miles since.”
While the event was overhauled for this weekend, its traditionally festive atmosphere hasn’t disappeared. Colorful costumes were common Saturday. One woman from Brookhaven dressed up as Spider-Man. A pair of University of Georgia law school students separately dressed up as a peach and a Christmas tree and enjoyed seeing spectators figure out the meaning of their combination.
With game six of their series with the Milwaukee Bucks scheduled for Saturday night, Atlanta Hawks cheerleaders encouraged runners heading up Cardiac Hill to shout “Let’s go, Hawks!”
Lindsay Cain of Atlanta stood nearby, holding a sign declaring, “Hey! You look hot.”
One runner yelled, “Is that temperature?”
She replied, “You take it however you want!”
“It is nice to see everybody back,” she said, “and the energy is still there.”
The Very Rev. Sam Candler of Atlanta’s Cathedral of St. Philip blessed runners with holy water as they flashed smiles and shouted thanks. He said he was living up to his pandemic principle: no judgment.
The Episcopal cathedral switched to online services for much of the pandemic. It was a difficult move for the house of worship, Candler said, given that it is “all about face-to-face community.” It is necessary, he added, for people to interact in places of worship so those who disagree can “learn to get along” — something he said had been missing over the past year.
“We’ve got to lift up traditions that bring the world together,” said Candler, who started blessing runners more than two decades ago, shortly after he became dean of the church.
Most runners swerved to the side of the road for Candler’s blessings. He particularly enjoyed the funny reactions he got. Some runners pretended to melt after he sprinkled them with holy water, while others yelled, “I need all the help I can get!”
Spectators Darrin Ellis-May and Saye Sutton, friends “joined at the hip” for 17 years, turned to Zoom meetings to stay close during the pandemic. Ellis-May became emotional as she described hugging Sutton’s son during the race for the first time in 18 months.
“It’s brought people together in ways they never expected to be brought together and it’s separated them in ways they never expected,” she said of the outbreak. “It’s been a way for people to evolve like they never would have previously.”
Sheila Rauch, director of mental health research and program evaluation for the Atlanta VA Health Care System, stopped just after passing underneath a huge blue “Finish” banner and reflected on the meaning of running in the event this year. Rauch teared up as she spoke about the toll the pandemic has taken on her family. Her sister is battling lingering symptoms from COVID-19. And her diabetic mother-in-law died during the pandemic, though not from COVID-19.
“It means getting back to normal, I hope, at least a big step toward our new normal,” Rauch, a psychologist and the deputy director of the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program, said about the return of running the race in person. “There is a real sense of freedom — of taking things back from the pandemic that we have all been through.”
