Last July I decided not to run in the AJC Peachtree Road Race. I had run the 10K race the last 12 times (including the virtual version) and I decided it wouldn't matter to me if I ran it or not.
But then I discovered I had major FOMO after I saw the cool race shirt from the Atlanta Track Club's new sponsor, Adidas.
Had I run last year, the time I submitted -- a 45:09 PR from the 2021 Peachtree Road Race -- would only have been good for Wave B of the storied race. Last year you needed to be sub-45 to get into the first wave.
I knew I definitely wanted to be in the race this year and with that I needed a race time, since you typically could only submit a race time from the past year with your Peachtree registration. A little more than a week ago, I ran in the Jan. 1 Resolution Run 5K, finishing in 23:11. It was my first Peachtree Qualifying time since July 4, 2021. It wasn't good enough for Wave A but at least I had a time that I could submit.
Tonight, it turns out, I will be able to continue my Peachtree Road Race Wave A streak, thanks to the track club's generous seeding benefit for its members -- and the fact that the track club is allowing runners to submit race times that go all the way back to 2021 -- when I ran my PR. The announcement was made during the track club's annual Town Hall meeting. (The track club also announced then this year's member gift is an Adidas hat).
The track club is trying to encourage as many people as possible to become members, using its most famous road race as a carrot (or a stick?). In the picture above, to get into Wave A as a non-member (that's the chart on the right, the track club has a typo that lists both charts for "Members") you would have to run a 10K under 44:59 (7:14/mile pace).
But members such as myself only have to run under 47:59 (7:43/mile pace). Additionally, while the race's waves go all the way down to Wave Y (for runners submitting no proof of a previous race time), a track club member submitting no time will run no lower than Wave M.
It's cool seeing the wave standards before the race -- in the past the track club would post the standards on their website after the race, causing you to guess. I think that was in part because they tried to keep each wave with a uniform number of people in the past, something they are abandoning this year.
This is just one major change coming to the race -- last fall, the track club announced it was getting rid of the registration lottery and will take runners signing up on a first-come, first-served basis. Track club members get early registration starting March 8. Tonight they said the race, which had a pre-pandemic capacity of 60,000 people, will be capped at 52,000 this year. (They did say cryptically that registration will end when they reach 52,000 people unless the registree is a track club member).
I can coast this year with my 2021 time but I still have work to do -- my 23:11 from the Resolution Run would most likely be good for Wave B next year, and I'll likely keep looking around for a faster time, with a goal of beating 22:59 in a 5K to get me into Wave A.
