|
AMERICAN MORNING
Annual Road Race Attracts Thousands
Aired July 4, 2003 - 09:54 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, ANCHOR: Well, not many people know that I won the Peachtree Road Race a few years back -- actually, my category, which is dead last. The dead last category.
David Mattingly is there with my runners. Actually, they look like walkers, really.
David, how are you this morning?
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right -- I'm doing fine, Miles. The people here at the end of the race seem to be hurting just a little bit right now.
This is -- what you see of about the last of the runners coming up. You see the flashing lights down there, the cars trailing them. This race has been going on 2.5 hours now. This is the part where most of the runners, most of about 55,000 people who started this race begin to hit the wall.
This is what they call Cardiac Hill. And it is a very steep hill at the end of about -- about three quarters of a mile of nothing but uphill running. So this is the make it or break it point, and this is one of the important places that they come to. This is one of the watering stations.
And it's very empty right now. They've had a lot of business earlier today, as a lot of the runners were coming through here.
Just to give you an idea of some of the numbers in this race, they expect to have had about 120,000 gallons of water consumed in this race, about a half million paper cups used with that water.
And you can see a lot of them are right in the street right now. So even though we have some of the stragglers coming along, that this race is coming to its close, the cleanup hasn't even started yet. You have to wonder how long that is going to take.
But right now, everyone just happy to be in the race. Everyone doing it just for the fun of it. Oh, just lost a lot of water there. More water to fall into the street. Another sign that they're calling it quits here, Miles.
Back to you.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I guess that's pretty much the party's over. Whoa! Look at that, David. Water landslide there.
MATTINGLY: Last call!
O'BRIEN: Wow.
COLLINS: Man.
O'BRIEN: Kind of ugly there. It's kind of ugly. You know, I ran...
MATTINGLY: Before it's too late can I get you guys something to drink?
O'BRIEN: Yes. Please, quickly, get me a glass of water.
MATTINGLY: It's right over here.
O'BRIEN: I remember running near the back. Of course, I wasn't seeded. He's not listening to me.
COLLINS: Near the back? In the back.
MATTINGLY: I can hear you. I can hear you.
O'BRIEN: It was hard to even run in this race. There were 50,000-plus. I've been there a couple of times. Most of them were just chugging along.
But the beauty is, Cardiac Hill there, David has omitted one point. There's a hospital there. And just past that water station, there are nurses lined up with paddles.
MATTINGLY: I can show you that hospital. It's right across the street here. For some reason you can't -- if you can't get enough comfort at the watering station, the hospital's right across the street here.
O'BRIEN: It's nice. Very conveniently located.
COLLINS: If you slip and fall in all of the water, I guess.
O'BRIEN: Yes. All right. David, thanks very much. Sorry I didn't get a chance to run this year.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
|
