Raleigh Galloway

Thank you, Jeff! 🇺🇸

On July 4, 1970, 150 runners lined up in the parking lot of an old Sears store at the corner of Peachtree and Roswell Road in Atlanta.

The finish was 6.2 miles away at Central City Park, now called Woodruff Park. There were no finisher's shirts. Carling Brewery had put up sponsorship money. The Atlanta Track Club had organized the whole thing on a shoestring.

110 runners crossed the line. Today they are known as the Original 110.

The winner was a 25-year-old distance runner named Jeff Galloway. He would go on to become one of the most influential coaches in American running, credited with popularizing the run-walk method that has moved millions of first-time marathoners to the finish line.

Fifty-six years later, the Peachtree Road Race caps registration at 60,000. It is the largest 10K in the world. On Saturday it runs for the 57th time, on the same date it began, on the same day America turns 250.

Every mass-participation race in the world traces some part of its DNA back to Atlanta on that morning.