Trio Ready To Race July 4th

Women's Cross Country Charlie Taylor/Sports Communications

Trio Ready To Race July 4th

When the 40th annual Peachtree Road Race starts Saturday, July 4, keep your eyes out for some Georgia State runners.

As always, Georgia State is well represented in the Peachtree ever since that first race in 1970 when Georgia State cross country coach Tim Singleton and a whole bunch of Georgia State staff and students helped get it started with the 110 runners down Peachtree after gathering in the old Sears parking lot in Buckhead. The race course was tougher back then as it veered down West Peachtree and finished by running up some hills into downtown Atlanta.

Panthers have won the Peachtree's past (Wayne Roach in 1974, Gillian Valk in 1972), run fast and often (Bruce LaBudde dozens of races with a best of 14th, Billy Brackin with a top 20 finish) and won prize money in Peachtree's recent races (Andrew Letherby 7th in 2005 and 10th in 2006). Master's runners have kept going like Mike Fitzgerald (Top 10 among master's at age 42 a few years ago, running under 34 minutes).

This year, keep an eye out for Panthers Jenn Feenstra, Janel Blancett and Rabah Syed, among the multiple Georgia State entrants we know of. All three of these runners should be among the top 250 overall finishers in the Peachtree.

Feenstra comes into her fifth Peachtree after being the 17th female finisher in this April's Boston Marathon and she has finished among the top 25 females in previous Peachtree Road Races. The college math professor still lives in Duluth and is taking her running seriously again after an All-America career at Georgia State to go with her 3.96 undergrad and 4.0 master's grade point averages.

Blancett finished her junior season at Georgia State this year by being the CAA cross country athlete of the year with at 2nd place finish in the championship meet and a 15th place finish at the NCAA Regional. This spring in track, she qualified for the NCAA Regionals in the 5,000m and just missed by a few seconds of breaking Feenstra's school record in that distance with a strong race at the Penn Relays. The Chamblee native is a graduate of Lakeside High.

Syed had a strong senior season for the Panthers by earning All-CAA honors with his 9th place finish at the CAA Championship Meet in 24:47. He ran a 33-minute 10k at the NCAA Regionals. Syed is a graduate of Spalding High and native of Griffin, Ga.

The Peachtree Road Race is televised on FOX-TV, with the wheelchair start at 6:45 a.m. and the first runners at 7:30 a.m.

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Players Mentioned

Janel Blancett

Janel Blancett

5' 5"
Senior

Players Mentioned

Janel Blancett

Janel Blancett

5' 5"
Senior