Terry Brantley (left), Chris Fox and Mike Dalton on the top of Stone Mountain, about 62 miles in, around 9 p.m. after a torrential downpour. Terry Brantley (left), Chris Fox and Mike Dalton on the top of Stone Mountain at about 62 miles into the 100-mile endurance race around 9 p.m. after a torrential downpour. (Courtesy photo)
Three Atlanta lawyers just found out they were the top finishers in a grueling 100-miile endurance run around the city, starting at the top of Kennesaw Mountain and ending downtown at Centennial Olympic Park. Terry Brantley of Swift, Currie, McGhee & Hiers was one of only 10 contestants to actually finish the Great Southern Endurance Run, along with his distance-running buddies Mike Dalton, an assistant general counsel at Home Depot, and Chris Fox, lead litigation counsel for Assurant, who are both Swift Currie alums. Because of COVID-19, the race organizers scrapped the scheduled May 2 race date. Instead, contestants ran the course on their honor between June 1 to Sept. 30. The trio of lawyers ran their race June 24 in 90-degree heat and a rainstorm, fording creeks and dodging traffic across the city. Running together, the three clocked a winning time of 28 hours and 28 minutes. "You don't sleep. Trying to keep moving is the goal," said Brantley, 48. After climbing to the race starting point at the top of Kennesaw Mountain, the three started their race at 5 a.m. heading down the mountain and southeast to the Braves stadium. After a tour of Buckhead and Piedmont Park, they turned east to scale Stone Mountain—amid a torrential downpour at mile 62—and then southwest through Decatur. "Please delete my number from your phone," Dalton, 49, told his longtime running buddies around 2 a.m. as the trio limped out of downtown Decatur at the 75-mile mark, according to a race recap that Fox, 40, shared with the Daily Report. From there the course took them back west through Brookhaven and south on Peachtree Street to their destination, the Centennial Olympic Park Fountain of Rings, at 9:28 a.m. the next morning. Hundred-mile endurance races aren't ordinarily held during the heat and humidity of an Atlanta summer, Brantley said, but it's all part of the appeal for distance runners. "It makes it harder. You can't be sane and do these things,"' he said.