Original title: Virgin Hot At Peachtree.
And apparently so was everybody else. Track & Field News August 1980. – JDW
Atlanta, July 4 –
No one, at least none of the other twenty-five thousand (25,000) other runners present, could keep Craig Virgin from his appointed rounds at the Peachtree Road Race.
Ignoring the eighty(80) degree heat, ninety (90) percent humidity and, seemingly, common sense, Virgin streaked over the rolling ten-kilometer (10K) course in 28:39, leaving closest challenger George Malley not very close at 29:20.
Competition for third place was – if you’ll pardon the expression – a little more heated; Peter Pfitzinger’s 29:24 leading the 29:25s of Kyle Heffner, Sosthenes Bitok and Benji Durden. (The latter seen below the next month in Falmouth.)
Patti Lyons-Catalano, a woman of inestimable tenacity and an ever-growing surname, overcame the conditions and five thousand (5000) other women to register an extraordinary time of 32:49. Just two seconds slower than the unofficial American road best of Margaret Groos.
Lyons was frankly shocked by her time, “because I wasn’t really running for time.” Her closest challenger, Boston champion Jacqueline Gareau, crumpled in a heap five hundred yards (500y) from the finish and was unable to complete the race.
Carol Urish earned second (34:32) with Cathy Twomey third at 35:02.
Virgin was disappointed not to have set a record, but he was clearly pleased to have defended his title. “It was the same pace as last year but that wasn’t necessarily on purpose,” he said. “I wasn’t really sure I was running fast enough. I tried to make the first three miles as fast as I could and still have something left. And let me tell you, it was getting hotter every minute out there.”
That comment might well give some insight into Virgin’s haste. Some two-hundred-and-fifty (250) participants were overcome by the conditions and at least thirty (30) were treated at hospitals. One man suffered cardiac arrest and was declared “clinically dead.” His heart was restarted fifteen (15) minutes later.
Just how important can a t-shirt be?
The rest of the month’s report. Pretty much.