Posted on 07/05/2007 6:32:14 PM PDT by fkabuckeyesrule
ATLANTA, July 4 — At 6 a.m. his time, as the sun spread over the pancake-flat desert around him, William G. Halicks, a Navy captain stationed in Hillah, Iraq, measured the temperature at 95 degrees. It was hot, certainly, but with only a light breeze, the chances of having a throat-choking dust storm seemed low.
For Captain Halicks, that meant it was a fine day for a foot race.
He was runner No. 1 in the 2007 Peachtree Road Race, which organizers call the largest 10K run in the world, and which for most runners takes place in Atlanta.
Participants in the Peachtree, which has been run each Fourth of July since 1970, are known to be fanatically loyal to the event.
Seventy thousand people applied for 55,000 spots in 2007.
Captain Halicks, who is 56 and had run the Peachtree 12 times, was not about to let a little snag like a deployment to Iraq keep him from competing, or from getting his T-shirt.
“It’s hard to overstate the significance of the T-shirt,” he said by telephone after the race. “It really has become something of a cultlike status symbol in the Southeast.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I'm surprised the Treason Times would write this article.
I ran this race.
How cool is that! 100 U.s. soldiers running an organized 10k race out of Atlanta amidst the quagmire of Iraq.............
I wonder how he finished.
I surprised the NY Times didn’t bash them for running in a 6 mile circle.
I ran this race yesterday for the 10th time. It doesn’t matter how you finish. All that matters is that you finish.
That is a wonderful support-the-troops attitude. Kudos to all involved.
Cool. I used to run these races all the time. I got hooked on them at a very young age when my dad used to run them. I started out following him on my bicycle at about age 9. By age 11 I was running beside him. We ran 5 or 6 of them a year. 16 years later, I had to give them up due to knee problems. I could still run if I could force myself to do it in moderation. But I can’t do that. Running is a drug to me. I used to dream about running.
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