Sunday's weather may have been bone chilling, but it didn't stop local runners and college football fans hoping to score free tickets to Monday's National Championship game from hitting the streets in the Atlanta Track Club's Extra Yard 5K.
More than 2,000 people packed on any extra layer they could find — including Alabama sweatshirts, Georgia skull caps and assorted scarves and jackets from other SEC schools — to brave wind chills that dipped in the teens during the 3.1 mile trek. Though the course — which wound around such Atlanta destinations as the Georgia Aquarium, Centennial Olympic Park and the College Football Hall of Fame — was blessed with sunlight, the cooler-than-normal temperatures added extra motivation to get to the finish line.
“We didn’t do a leisurely walk today,” said Atlantan Nicole Watson, who was walking in the event with her friend Geri Armstrong, also of Atlanta. “We were trying to get to the finish line.”
Credit: John Amis
Credit: John Amis
The 5K joined a myriad of downtown activities planned to entertain the more than 100,000 visitors expected to descend on Atlanta for the college football championship battle between the Georgia Bulldogs and Alabama's Crimson Tide. The line up has included concerts in Centennial Park, a chance to take a picture with the Rose Bowl championship trophy at the Georgia World Congress Center and a "Taste of the Championship" food tasting at the aquarium.
Rob Mullett, an Atlantan and former Olympian, won the 5K’s men’s division, while Bridget Lyons, a former University of Georgia runner who recently qualified for the Olympic Trials, took the women’s trophy.
Credit: John Amis
Credit: John Amis
Coming in first had an added benefit for the pair: they each won free tickets to the game.
“I’m taking my girlfriend,” said Mullett, who also won the Atlanta Track Club’s Thanksgiving 5K this past November. “She’s been scrambling all morning to get her shift changed at work, but she’s real happy. It’s going to break one of my friend’s heart, but I have to take her.”
Lyons, a Georgia graduate, said she was a little surprised she did so well in the race. She had competed in a half-marathon just over a month ago and did not train as hard for the “Extra Yard.”
Nonetheless, she is excited about winning and plans to take her fiance to the championship game.
Credit: John Amis
Credit: John Amis
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go to a national championship,” she said.
Brian Sydow may also have to make such a choice. The Johns Creek father of three won two of the raffled tickets.
"My wife's going to probably want to go, and I have a lot of friends," said Sydow, who is supporting Georgia in the match.
“I have never won anything like this,” said Sydow, who finished in the master class of the race. “This is incredible.”
Credit: John Amis
Credit: John Amis
Georgia graduate Steven Singler was not satisfied with his run Sunday, but said it was worth it to have even a slim chance of winning free seats to the game. He did not win.
“We’ll go to a friend’s house to watch, which is what we usually do,” he said.
Kimberly Rogers, who ran the race with Singler, was more sanguine.
“If you finish and don’t have to go to the hospital, that is a good race,” she said laughing. “That’s my definition of success.”
Alabama fan Felicia Simmons, who tries to run five or six 5K’s a year, said she ran and walked Sunday because of the unusually cold temperatures.
“I walked all the hills, but I ran everything else,” said Simmons, who is originally from Mississippi and has followed Alabama coach Nick Saban’s career. “I layered this time so I was OK.”
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