Day 1 of the 2-day Peachtree Road Race produces fast times and happy runners

ATLANTA — It’s the return of an Atlanta 4th of July weekend tradition only it’s spread out over the course of two days. The Peachtree Road Race marked it’s in person return with a Saturday start for many runners and the nice morning weather brought out a few fans along with a handful of runners with some interesting outfits.

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The first person to cross the finish line Saturday morning was Alberto Mena. Mena, a former distance runner at Fordham University crossed the 10th Street finish line with an unofficial time of 32:06.

The first woman to finish the race, Jessica Smith of Philadelphia. Smith finished the 6.2 mile course with a time of 36:29.

The Atlanta Track Club said they had roughly 13,000 runners set to take off from the Lenox Mall/Peachtree Road starting line Saturday morning with another 17,000 expected navigate the course on Sunday.

In years past, roughly 50-60,000 runners took part in the race, but with some pandemic related restrictions still in place, the track club decided to limit the participants.

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Peachtree Road was shut down beginning at around 4:30 a.m Saturday to clear things for the runners and the handful of fans who showed up to cheer them on.

Race organizers and Atlanta Police will have the road shut down from Lenox Mall to 10th Street in Midtown again on Sunday for day two of the race.

You can find a full list of road closures on our website.

Channel 2 Action News will have highlights of Saturday and Sunday’s editions of the race throughout the weekend.

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