Monday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution JC Peachtree Road Race field included three Georgia Tech graduates whose running habits once were more inclined to low-to-the-ground bursts of five yards than upright treks covering 10,000 meters. Running separately, former Yellow Jackets offensive linemen Sean Bedford, Trey Braun and Will Jackson all crossed the finish line on 10th Street, less than two miles from where they once cleared paths for Tech running backs at Bobby Dodd Stadium.
Braun, who is training for a marathon in 2017, was the winner of the bunch, finishing in 52 minutes, 43 seconds. Slimmed down to about 255 pounds from 297 when he finished his career in November, Braun was in the top 20 percentile of his men's 25-29 age group. It was his first Peachtree, his second 10K and a personal best.
“I think it was definitely one of the best ways to see Atlanta,” said Braun, who recently began work for AT&T in technology operations. “You go really far. You start at Lenox (Square) and you end right near Georgia Tech. It’s just a really interesting way to see your city.”
Bedford’s time was 56:39. Jackson, who had never run farther than a 5K before Monday, had a goal to finish in 75 minutes and completed the course in 70.
“That was a different kind of cardio,” Jackson said. “That was savage.”
Braun aims to run the 2017 Rome Marathon with his father-in-law David DiSalvo, with whom he ran Monday. His next challenge is the Atlanta Track Club’s half-marathon on Thanksgiving Day. He wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that three men who were once bulked up might now classify themselves as distance runners, although Jackson suggested that his first 10K may also have been his last.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s pretty impressive. We definitely care about the post-football state of our bodies.”
At least three more former Tech football players also earned their finisher’s T-shirts — former quarterback Tim Byerly, former wide receiver Kevin Cone and Cone’s father Ronny, a former Tech running back.
It was the first time Byerly had ever run more than three miles, and he did so less than a year after tearing his ACL during the 2015 season.
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