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Published Thursday, July 03, 2008 in Local

Photo by Bob Fraley

The Merriman family will be running Friday’s Peachtree Road Race together for the first time. Robin Merriman, seated center, is participating in his 30th event and will be joined by oldest daughter Amelia, 12, seated left, and wife Leslie, seated right. Making their Peachtree Road Race debuts will be his 10-year old niece Alyssa Blalock, standing left, and 10-year-old daughter Lily, standing right.

Local runners get ready for 'World's largest 10K race'

By Chris Goltermann

The Times-Herald

If the story sounds familiar, well, after almost 40 years and tens of thousands of participants later, it's probably been done before at the Peachtree Road Race.

But the 39th annual event on the morning of Friday's Fourth of July holiday will still be extra special for the Merriman family.

As he prepares for his 30th run though the streets of Atlanta, Friday morning, Robin Merriman will have four special supporters by his side in their matching T-shirts and running shoes. His youngest daughter, Lily, turned 10 this year -- the minimum age requirement to participate -- and will join eldest daughter Amelia, 12, and wife Leslie to celebrate Robin's 30th run as one of the Peachtree's longest supporters -- and survivors. Even his 10-year-old niece, Alyssa Blalock, is joining in with the extended running family, in her first Peachtree experience as well.

Robin, a fourth-grade teacher at Ruth Hill Elementary School, is among a host of locals who will again brave the sweltering Georgia heat this holiday. The Atlanta Track Club hosted event has become known as "The World's Largest 10K Race," with over 55,000 participants divided into nine starting groups expected. Starting groups two through nine are for undocumented times. The Merrimans will be in group two, following the main pack of runners. Groups are then dispersed at equal time frames to spread the field through the course.

For many, the event and its annual T-shirt design has become as much a part of the Fourth as parades, cookouts and fireworks displays. Even some avid runner can understand that among 100,000-plus moving feet, the Peachtree can be less about achieving best times, and more about enjoying the view from the road. At least Merriman thinks so, despite having participated in eight marathons including the famed Boston, as well as triathlon events.

"As much as I was active, I didn't like plain old running. Running for running's sake was punishment to me," he said. "But I got hooked on it. It's a chance to run in a fun race."

Merriman, an active tennis player, got his start by just following the group, only to find the sport taking him in his own unique direction.

"My first was in '79 and I ran with a couple of tennis buddies who had been running in it. My plan was I was just going to hang out with them. But I got caught up with it," he said. "That shirt, more and more became an elite thing."

Unlike many of his previous 29 runs, Merriman expects to be with family near the back for this year's trip down Peachtree Street. This year's event will be the first without the traditional finish line at Piedmont Park due to drought restrictions preventing festivals over 50,000 by the city of Atlanta. The race finish will be at the intersection of Juniper and Ponce deLeon avenues in Midtown and runners will then walk three blocks to the Atlanta Civic center to pick up their prized T-shirts.

More than 20 of the shirts of them now make up a quilt that Merriman's family presented to him shortly following his 25th run at the Peachtree. He's already keeping track of the next 25 to come his way to possibly add a second quilt in the future.

"This one will be a bit different, running with the whole family," he said.. "But we'll all be together for it, which will be nice."

Ironically, the family will already have its own set of red Peachtree shirts, indicating the number of year's run, from "Daughter" and "Mommy's" second to "Daddy's 30th."

Amelia "wants to start a streak like her Daddy," wrote Leslie in an e-mail to the Times-Herald.

Like so many other sports, running is highly addictive to some, even gratifying -- as odd as it may sound -- to others. Six-mile jaunts become routine workouts. Shoes go from $30 bargin-bin specials to specialty brands like Brooks, ASICS and Saucony. And if you follow such patterns, you've likely been bitten by the running 'bug.'

Former Northgate High standout Brett Dettmering, now a community coach for Chris Kimes with the Vikings varsity cross-country team, enters his ninth Peachtree having been as close to the front of the pack as a local runner can get for many of them. Battling an injury in 2007, Dettmering, 25, finished a respectable 116th overall as the second top-local finisher in just under 36 minutes, behind 32-year-old Eric Boykin of Newnan, who finished 112th.

"It's like a reunion," said Dettmering, who uses the event as much to reunite with former teammates from Berry College. He originally entered the Peachtree following his high school graduation after coaches suggested that it would be a good way to get to know the team. In the end, Dettmering was introduced to an much larger fraternity of runners.

"When you're up front, you pretty much know everyone around you and they know you," he said. "We have a thing between the current Berry team and the Berry alumni. Which of us runs faster times. Last year, the alumni won."

Now training for the Chicago Marathon in October, Dettmering's view could change as much as the course route has for Friday. This year, he mailed his entry on a Tuesday, two days after they appear in the Atlanta newspapers and got the ungracious response "PEACHTREE CLOSED" when it was returned in the mail a few days later.

It's a familiar story to those who have hunted for a race number in the Peachtree. As of late Thursday, more than a handful in the top groups were up for bid on eBay, fetching prices as high as $65 a pop.

Dettmering, who attended Berry College and now lives and works in Atlanta, is hoping to join a few of his colleagues as a race escort for the lead females. Escorts are shuttled to the halfway point of the race and used to pace the field.

"I'd probably be looking at a sub 16-minute time if I do that," he said. "I'm about 95-percent sure that they'll have a spot open."

If not, no problem. Dettmering says he'll do what many Peachtree runners and participants have done -- jump into the back of the pack and follow the flow to the finish.

"I was kinda upset about it, especially since I've been in the top-100," he said. "But it's OK. I just want to be a part of it in some way."

Just don't forget that T-shirt...