Celebrating ‘Atlanta’s finest day’ – AJC Peachtree Road Race on July 4

What a year of milestones for the Atlanta Track Club and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race!

The Atlanta Track Club turned 60 years old this year, and the Peachtree Road Race celebrated its 55th year running.

Those definitely are important dates. But what’s equally significant is the evolution of both the Atlanta Track Club and the AJC-Peachtree Road Race — where the mission has been expanded to include walking in addition to running as a way to create a healthier Atlanta.

Rich Kenah, CEO of the Atlanta Track Club since February 2014, sat down with me for an interview on July 6, two days after the 2024 Peachtree Road Race, to look back personally and professionally on what the event means for Atlanta and its participants.

“I have a new-found love and appreciation for the sport because I now recognize that its beauty is not necessarily about the person who crosses the finish line first. It’s about the people who cross the finish line together,” Kenah said. “It’s about the shared experience.”

Kenah grew up in New Jersey — “the Born to Run” state. He ran the 800 meters in the 2000 Olympics and raced professionally around the world. Kenah said he has been transformed by moving to Atlanta more than 10 years ago.

“I arrived in Atlanta as a high-strung competitive retired Olympic runner,” Kenah said. “A decade into being the race director, I recognize that the fast runners are just a fraction of what the Peachtree is about. The Peachtree is a one-of-a-kind phenomenon that allows all of Atlanta to move together in one direction on one day, and that day is the fourth of July.”

Today, Kenah oversees the world’s largest 10K race. At its peak in 2019 — its 50th year — the Peachtree Road Race had 60,000 participants. Covid forced the race to go virtual in 2020. In 2021, it had more than 36,000 participants over two days. Since then, it has been rebuilding. There were more than 50,000 people who registered to run, included 2,000 who registered to participate virtually.

“We had 43,378 finishers,” Kenah said. “The event is measured by number of finishers. We still qualify as the largest 10K in the world. The Bolder Boulder Memorial Day race had 42,000 finishers. They have long been the second largest [10K event].”

Kenah said the Atlanta Track Club has historically run a modest budget surplus. But because of Covid and having to rebuild the number of registrations to historic levels, the Club has run significant budget deficits for the past couple of years.

“We expect to be back to a modest but healthy surplus in 2024,” Kenah said. “The Peachtree allows us to deliver year-round free programming to the community.”

For most people, the Peachtree Road Race is the Atlanta Track Club and vice versa. But digging deeper, there is much more to the organization — both historically and currently.

“We were formed in 1964 around competitive high school track and field and cross-country events,” Kenah said. “Over time, we grew as a competitive running-centric organization.” 

The Peachtree Road Race became the Club’s signature event, and the race helped the Atlanta Track Club grow “exponentially” over the years. More than two million people have run the Peachtree since its inception in 1970.

“When I arrived in 2014, the Peachtree accounted for nearly 70 percent of our revenue,” Kenah said. “It’s now about 40 percent. We’ve had an intentional effort to diversify our revenue and to hold events and programs year-round.”

The Atlanta Track Club now puts on 35 to 40 events a year including various races, the half-marathon and the marathon. 

“My first 10 years have been focused on building an organization for the next 50 years, Kenah said. “The next 10 years is about reaching new people who want to find ways to become healthier.”

Kenah is also working on building a $100 million indoor track-and-field facility to help promote running to more Atlantans. “With an indoor track-and-field facility, we can go from impacting 125,000 participants at our events to being able to reach 400,000 Atlantans,” Kenah said.

And it’s not just about running. Take the Peachtree. At one time, runners looked down on people who walked the race more than they ran. But that’s no longer the case.

“We added walking to our mission statement. We want to get Atlanta healthier through running and walking. Our vision is that 20 years from now we will be one of the healthiest cities,” Kenah said. “Historically, we have not been out there advocating for better sidewalks. But we quietly have been supporting safe places to exercise.”

Interestingly enough, Kenah has never run the actual Peachtree Road Race.

But he definitely has put in his time. For the 2024 race, Kenah’s “day” began on July 3 at 11:45 at the starting line near Lenox Square in Buckhead. About an hour later, he drove a car for the medical team to near the finish at Piedmont Park.

“I ran the race backwards from the finish line to the start,” Kenah said. “Then I went home, took a shower and went back to the starting line at 2:30 a.m. until 8:20 a.m. to see the last couple of waves take off. Then, I got an escort to take me to Piedmont Park at 8:40 a.m.”

The Atlanta Track Club, with 32 full-time employees, ramps up for the Peachtree – with six more contract works, six interns, 200 volunteer crew chiefs who lead a total of 3,000 volunteers. Two of those volunteers were Kenah’s twins (a boy and a girl), who came home to help at the event.

The 2024 race had another major change – its broadcast partner. For the past 15 years, the race has been broadcast on WXIA. But this year, the Atlanta Track Club solidified its relationship with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a partnership that dates back to 1975.

“The AJC is woven into the fabric of this event,” Kenah said. “After last year’s Peachtree, I sat with (AJC Publisher) Andrew Morse and learned about his interest and his mandate to elevate the AJC. During the conversation, I asked him whether the AJC would be willing to make a deeper commitment to the event, including broadcasting the event.”

Kenah believes the AJC collaboration will position the race to “remain relevant for the next generation,” calling it a “strategic decision. The ajc.com broadcast had “more resources, producers, directors and cameras” than the last 10 years combined, and it offered real-time updates.

“We want this to be more than just a party. We want this party to have an impact on Atlanta,” said Kenah, who believes the Peachtree is the most racially diverse road race in the world. “Our goal is to make Atlanta healthier and safer. One of our employees calls it Atlanta’s finest day.”

Note to readers:

As someone who has lived within a couple of blocks from the finish line for decades, my annual Peachtree Road Race tradition is to get up in time to see the wheelchair winners and spend the morning watching the river of humanity flow along 10^th Street on its way to Piedmont Park. From time to time, I’ll see a familiar face run by. It’s an opportunity to reminisce about how I’ve enjoyed the event over the years — a barometer of my life, enjoying the finish line with my late parents, my children and friends. A favorite memory is being with the late Congressman John Lewis in the AJC VIP area at the finish line, where he and my son bonded as they cheered on the runners. This year, I had the opportunity to chat with Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum, who was checking out the situation at the Rainbow Crosswalk with his fiancé Richard Castellanos. “This is Atlanta at its best,” Schierbaum observed. 

Click here for Delaney Tarr’s photo display of the 2024 Peachtree Road Race.

For Kelly Jordan’s retrospective of the 2023 Peachtree Road Race, click here.