Blanchette Wins Peachtree

Defending champion Craig Blanchette of Cheney won the men’s wheelchair division in the Peachtree Road Race on Tuesday.

The women’s wheelchair winner was Jean Driscoll of Champaign, Ill.

South Africa’s Simon Morolong and Joan Nesbit of Chapel Hill, N.C., won the 10-kilometer run.

Morolong won the men’s race in an unofficial time of 27 minutes, 59 seconds. Nesbit was the women’s winner in an unofficial 32:19.

Morolong said he didn’t find it hard to push himself, even though no runners were close at the finish.

“If you don’t trust yourself, you can’t make it,” he said. “I trust myself.”

Nesbit said she had an advantage because she is used to the Southern heat that sapped the runners.

“I feel like I’m becoming heat-acclimated, so it didn’t bother me probably as much as it did other runners,” she said.

Temperatures were in the low 70s with cloudy skies for the 26th annual race, a Fourth of July tradition. About 50,000 runners participated.