Covering 6.2 miles in Atlanta in July is an errand for people who are fit, a bit fanatical or both.
“That’s a long way, and it takes a long time for me,” Bill Thorn told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Each year, it seems like it’s farther and farther.”
There may be no better expert on the topic of distance running (or walking) in our humid city at this time of year than Thorn. Beginning in 1970, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race has grown into a Fourth of July staple, and Thorn himself has become an indelible element of this Atlanta institution. Both fit and maniacal, he is the only person to have completed all 53 editions of the world’s largest 10K, with the 54th set for Tuesday.
Over the years, nearly everything about the race changed, even the course itself. It has had a million-plus unique participants and countless volunteers. Sponsors and race directors have changed. Even the prized T-shirts weren’t there at the start. Maybe the only two constants have been the race organizer – the Atlanta Track Club – and Thorn.
On Tuesday morning, however, race spectators will find him riding down Peachtree in a BMW convertible ahead of the men’s elite race serving as the race’s grand marshal. Thorn, a former and highly successful high-school football, track and cross-country coach from Tyrone, decided earlier this week that he’ll let his streak come to an end at 53.
“The Lord allowed me to (run 53 Peachtrees), and I feel strongly that he looked over me as I did it,” said Thorn, 92. “It was just time.”
As his body has aged and his balance and endurance have waned, Thorn is at peace with his decision.
“After I made it, I feel kind of relieved in a way,” he said.
It is a fitting honor for Thorn to be the Peachtree’s first-ever grand marshal, as maybe no one personifies this event more than Thorn. He exemplifies what this event means to so many Georgians who rise before dawn on a national holiday to gather for a celebration of health, family, friendship and country. The determination that drives so many to train for the race and then, year after year, spend their Fourth sweating down Peachtree alongside tens of thousands in pursuit of the finisher’s T-shirt – no one has been more metronomically consistent in that endeavor than Thorn.
Track club executive director Rich Kenah loves that Thorn will be honored at the finish only minutes before the men’s elite winner will be crowned. It speaks to the race’s identity, he said, “and that is, Peachtree is for everyone.”
Consider this: Thorn has spent more than 20% of the nation’s Fourths of July successfully taking on the Peachtree. A sprained ankle and a fight with cancer (in separate years) didn’t detain him from completing the Peachtree, meaning rain or heat had no chance from keeping him from his rounds.
“I guess it was just the drive in me that pushed that, and feeling like I needed to do it,” Thorn said.
The man likes a routine. Thorn has followed the same exercise regimen daily for literally decades, a series of calisthenics including pushups, core exercises, weights, stretching, bounding on a trampoline and finishing with a mile walk (it used to be a longer run) around his neighborhood with the aid of a walker. His training once enabled him to speed through the Peachtree in just under 40 minutes, which would have put him in the fastest 1.1% of finishers in last year’s Peachtree.
“You know if he doesn’t work out on his normal day, you know there’s something wrong,” Thorn’s daughter Cheryl Thrasher said. “Like, really wrong. I wish I was that dedicated to working out and all of that. That is something that is rare and is admirable, but almost obsessive.”
Thrasher, one of Thorn’s and his wife Patty’s four children (along with six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren), laughed at the last part. The Peachtree is only one output of that drive.
The past three years, Thorn has opted to take advantage of the Atlanta Track Club’s virtual option for the Peachtree, completing a course that begins and ends at his home in Tyrone. The past two Peachtrees, with the aid of his walker and the company of friends and family, Thorn has need a little more than three hours to make it the 6.2 miles. Normally, a mile can be walked without much trouble in 20 minutes. Thorn’s pace was closer to 30 minutes per mile.
“The last two years, I’ve been like, I don’t know if he’s going to be able to do it or not,” Thrasher said. “But he did. It’s crazy.”
A funny thing about Thorn, though, is that his Peachtree streak is not that significant to those who know him best. Thorn coached for more than 50 years at five different metro Atlanta high schools, finishing at Landmark Christian School in Fairburn – a school that Thorn himself founded without a school building and little funding. Thorn may be the Peachtree streak guy to many metro Atlantans, but his life’s work has been his investment in thousands of young people.
Thorn led his teams to 37 GHSA state titles, all in cross country and track and field at Landmark Christian, and achieved a 185-88-6 record in football at four different schools. His path to victory was not assembling talented stars, but instead teaching and modeling determination and perseverance, sprinkling in slogans like “When it’s run, run hard,” “Hard work, given time, defeats talent” and “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” His was the style of a man who grew up with humble means during the Great Depression in Pratt City, Alabama.
“He is singularly focused,” said Chuck Cusumano, a close friend. “That’s how he has achieved everything. He’s been given, really, nothing in his life. He has just outworked everybody else.”
When a dinner was held in his honor in April at the Atlanta Airport Marriott and to celebrate the impending publishing of a book chronicling his life, a stream of men and women testified how Thorn had shaped the course of their lives by modeling the virtues of hard work, dedication and Christian faith. (More information about the book, due out this fall, is available at coachbillthorn.com.) Brad Waggoner, who played football for Thorn at Landmark Christian, told the AJC on Thursday that Thorn was tough, demanding and wanted his players’ best.
“He loved his players to death,” said Waggoner, who, aspiring to emulate his mentor, is a high-school coach in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. “He was one of those ones that, you hear about it all the time – you’d run through a wall for that guy. Because he was always going to give you his best. Just his work ethic, all that stuff, it helped make me who I am today. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”
On Tuesday, Thorn may not especially want it, but he’ll receive a most well-earned reward – a day off.
Follow all of Tuesday’s color and competition from the AJC Peachtree Road Race at AJC.COM
Credit: Rebecca Wright
Credit: Rebecca Wright
Credit: compton@ajc.com
Credit: compton@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz
About the Author
