Citizen of the Week: Evan Lovelace Keeps Peachtree City Moving Forward

For Evan Lovelace, running has never been only about how fast he can get from the starting line to the finish.

It is about what happens along the way — the people you meet, the goals you discover you can accomplish, and even the hard miles that teach you something about handling the harder things life eventually puts in your path.

That philosophy helps explain why Lovelace, 53, has become one of the people working behind the scenes to keep Peachtree City running — quite literally.

Lovelace is serving his second year as president of the Peachtree City Running Club, a group with about 235 to 240 paid household memberships representing an estimated 450 to 500 people. He is also a member of the Rotary Club of Peachtree City and co-director of the Peachtree City Rotary Half Marathon and 5K.

For Lovelace, though, the Running Club’s real mission is bigger than running.

“We are really a service organization that runs, and a running organization that serves,” he said.

It started with a little runner

Lovelace’s own running story began when he was just a few years old with a children’s book called “The Little Runner of the Longhouse,” about a Native American child called Little Runner.

“It piqued my imagination,” Lovelace said.

Not long afterward, he remembers running perhaps 50 to 100 yards with his father.

“It was enough, you know, to feed that hunger and that interest to run,” he said. “I just love to run, move my body in the way it felt running.”

He competed in track in seventh and eighth grades, although he describes himself as “dismal” at it. In high school, better coaching helped him develop as a mile and two-mile runner, along with some cross country.

Running remained part of his life, but Lovelace didn’t become involved with the Peachtree City Running Club until 2022, after returning to the area. He had previously lived in Fayetteville and had run the Peachtree City Classic several times.

Once he joined the club, however, he quickly found a place where two important parts of his life intersected.

“I just jumped in, found my people, you know, running and serving,” he said.

A club built around service

The Peachtree City Running Club dates to 1981, the same year it launched what became the Peachtree City Classic. This year’s Classic is scheduled for Oct. 17.

The club has evolved from its roots in the running boom of the early 1980s, when marathoners were central to its membership, Lovelace said. Today, its goal is to welcome people across a much wider range of ability — runners, walk-runners, and walkers included.

The club hosts three regular weekly running groups, monthly meetings and social runs, and a free summer track series.

That track series has grown dramatically. Lovelace said participation climbed from roughly 300 to 400 people several years ago to more than 1,000 unique participants over the five-week series this summer.

The club also uses money raised through Peachtree City Classic sponsorships to support student scholarships, school running clubs, and other community needs. Its members volunteer at other charitable races, including Miles for Midwest, the All American races organized by local American Legion veterans, Race for the Orphans in Newnan, and school fundraisers.

“We do have fun, and we run, and we serve,” Lovelace said.

That service-minded approach fits a philosophy Lovelace developed long before he became president of a running club.

Why he leads

Lovelace said some of the people who most influenced him when he was young were teachers, coaches, pastors, and others willing to sacrifice their own time to help somebody else move forward.

“What I saw in those people was sacrifice, sacrificing their time, making it a priority, a choice for giving to others and helping others move forward in life and get better, learn,” he said.

He originally planned to enter ministry himself. Lovelace attended what was then Atlanta Christian College, now Point University, where he studied biblical studies and preaching. He served in churches for several years, including in an associate and youth pastor role.

His career eventually shifted into leadership and supply chain management, where he spent about 18 years. He and his wife later started a consulting business, and today Lovelace works primarily in residential real estate with Keller Williams Atlanta Partners in Peachtree City, while still doing some coaching and training through the consulting business.

He and his wife have been married for eight and a half years and live in Sharpsburg. Lovelace has a son who is about to turn 29 and works in admissions at Georgia Southern University. The household also includes Lolly, an Aussiedoodle, and Dougal, a rescue cocker spaniel.

But even as his career has changed, Lovelace said the impulse to lead by serving has remained.

“How can I help make sure that we are achieving our mission?” he said.

The value of doing something hard

Ask Lovelace why he cares so much about getting other people moving, and the answer begins with what running does for him personally.

When he gets into the rhythm of running, he said, “I feel the most alive.”

“It’s where my mind and my spirit, my heart, my body all seem to like line up and be in sync,” Lovelace said.

He sees versions of that experience in other people — someone improving their health, reaching a goal, running a first race, or accomplishing something they had doubted they could do.

And he believes those accomplishments can carry over into the rest of a person’s life.

“We live in a world that more and more and more, it’s actually — we have so many conveniences and so much good technology,” Lovelace said. “A person can live and never have to go outside and never have to put forth any more effort than they want to.”

Running offers something very different.

At races, Lovelace watches people leave the starting line and eventually cross the finish. Some are experienced competitors chasing faster times. Others are running or walking their first race.

What matters to him is that they chose a challenge and completed it.

“The chance that that’s going to ripple into another part of their lives is pretty big,” Lovelace said.

Then comes the part of his philosophy that goes beyond running.

“Suffering in our lives can make running seem easier, actually, but also suffering in running by choice can help us overcome the disappointments and the suffering and the challenges that life is inevitably going to bring,” he said. “I’ve seen that play out in the character of people. I’ve seen it play out in my own growth. And I just want to help other people experience the same thing.”

For Lovelace, perhaps that is what all those miles are really about: moving forward, one foot at a time, alongside other people doing the same.

The Peachtree City Running Club welcomes runners, walk-runners, and walkers of varying experience levels. Information about weekly group runs, monthly events, membership, and the Oct. 17 Peachtree City Classic is available at ptcrc.com.