All the

talk lately is about how much of a soccer area Fayette

County is. That is certainly true, but we are also a

running area too.

That will

be proven next week when the Road Runners Club of America

national convention is conducted in Peachtree City, May

10-13.

It is the

43rd annual convention for the RRCA. The event will be

hosted by the Peachtree City Running Club and the Atlanta

Track Club, as well as the RRCA. There will be workshops,

luncheons, seminars, runs, an auction, an awards banquet

and a trade show. Nearly every topic in the running world

will be covered, including forming a running club,

training, and newsletter and web site development.

The Wyndham

Peachtree Conference Center will be home base during the

convention. It will be the site of the RRCA Expo May 11

and 12, as well as the site of the annual awards banquet

Saturday, May 13. The keynote speaker for this year's

banquet is Katherine Switzer.

Switzer is

best known as the woman who first wore numbers in the

1967 Boston marathon and inadvertently broke the gender

barrier in the formerly all-male race and all-male sport

of running. She was the visionary who created the Avon

Running Circuit 20 years ago. Together with Avon, Switzer

was a driving force to get the women's marathon

recognized as an official event in the 1984 Olympic

Games.

Today,

Switzer is program director of Avon Running, a position

she spearheads full-time, following an 11-year sports

broadcasting, sports promotion and motivational speaking

career. She is the author of three books and has written

articles for several newspapers and magazines. Switzer

has run 35 marathons, won the 1974 New York Marathon, and

in 1975 was ranked sixth in the world and third in the

United States.

She will

receive the Fred Lebow Women's Running Award at the

Saturday evening banquet.

Saturday

will begin with an 8K race on the cart paths of Peachtree

City, showcasing the course that continues to draw

runners from all over the country.

For

information on the convention, phone 703-836-0558 or

visit RRCA on the web at www.rrca.org .