LAWRENCEVILLE-- — For one runner, the AJC Peachtree Road Race is not just a race; it’s a life event. It’s one he’s participated in for more than 20 years.
Frank Lewis is 78 years old. He trains all year long for this one race, but last year on his 20th anniversary, he almost didn’t run.
His wife died six days before the race.
Through his grief and pain-- and a burned race bib—the community rallied around him to help him put one foot in front of the other and finish the race.
Frank Lewis loves everything about running down Peachtree Road.
“I enjoy dancing in the sprays, selecting something patriotic to wear,” he said.
He knows every hill.
“Listening to the people who keep telling me ‘Oh this is the last hill, this is the last hill.’ But I know the course, and I know this is not the last hill. I enjoy that,” he said.
He’s had 20 years to memorize every turn.
“That turn at 10th Street, when I know it’s downhill from here into the park tells me ‘You did it again, Frank. You did it again,’” Lewis said.
Last year he was ready to do it all over again, until a tragedy took away his breath and his will.
“On June 28, six days before the race, I came home and found our house burned down. My neighbor Mike met me as I was walking up to the house and said ‘She’s gone, Frank.’ I said Gigi? He said, ‘She’s gone.’”
Gigi was his wife of 49 years. She died in the fire that also took his home.
“At that time I wasn’t thinking Peachtree Road Race. I was numb,” Lewis said.
Gigi had been sick; she suffered seizures and an autoimmune disease that made them hard to control.
“Illness was taking her away. We were prepared for losing her, we just weren’t prepared for the tragedy,” Lewis said.
In the days immediately after, as Frank was dealing with his new reality, contacting insurance and Social Security, his friends were calling the Atlanta Track Club/.
“People who know me well know that on July 4th I run the Peachtree Road Race and they were determined that I was going to run that race,” he said.
There was only one problem.
“The bib that I needed to run with was burnt up,” he said.
So were his 20 years of t-shirts now tattered and torn, recovered by a good friend who knew how much they meant. When the Atlanta Track Club got word of Frank’s story, they told him to come to the Expo.
“They treated us like celebrities! Suddenly I became a special runner and they had that bib number, and I went to the race,” he said.
Wearing the stars and stripes and a big ol’ smile, Frank ran away from his nightmare for at least a few miles that day.
“That was catharsis for me just to be there running at that time rather than sitting at home feeling sorry for myself and trying to watch it on television,” he explained. “Not only that, but it was my 20th Peachtree Road Race! So I had to run it.”
This year, he’ll be running in Heat T. He’s been training three days a week, but he doesn’t train at his new apartment complex. Instead, he drives about two miles away to his old neighborhood where he runs past old friends and his old house.
“The neighbors treat me like a rockstar when they see me running here,” Lewis said.
The neighborhood loop is exactly one kilometer with ups and downs just like the race he plans to finish for a 21st time.
It has become an old tradition with new meaning, and lucky for him, a brand new t-shirt.
Frank was born in Antigua, lived in London a little while and went to school here in the United States. He didn’t start running until he lived here in the states and says he could barely run a half mile.
This year he’s running solo, but he is already planning for next year. His daughter is training to run with him.