Photos are here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/nWYrzucYcr8HyiAFA
BEFORE MY START: My 28th live race of 2021 was the San Antonio Summer Series 5K held on August 1st at McAllister Park in San Antonio. This was my 2nd race of the weekend, after doing the American Heroes 5K on July 31. Start time of 7:30 a.m. for this one. McAllister Park is only a short drive for me; parts of my neighborhood are actually adjacent to some of the off-road trails in the park. I arrived a little after 7 a.m. at Becken Pavilion, the start/finish area of the 5K, got my packet and then got a few pre-start photos.
ON THE COURSE: The 5K was a loop course on off-road paved trails and one park road, that took in quite a bit of the park. For those familiar with the park, we passed by the nearby police substation; went on the park road that took us close to the youth baseball field, and then turned onto a paved trail that took us behind the baseball field. After that, we were on a paved trail that headed in the direction of the Turkey Roost pavilion, but we turned onto another trail before getting to that pavilion, and that last trail took us back to the finish on the trail that we had originally started on. Nicely thought-out route. Even though we had an early start, this is Texas in summer, so pretty darn humid, already 79 degrees at 7:30 a.m., with a feels-like of 84. I felt pretty good for the most part, although still ended up with my usual 12-somethting minute miles, ending up with a 38:21 finish time. Surprisingly, this was good enough for 1st place in my 60 – 69 age group, so I think all the speedy runners in my age group slept in the morning of this race, lol.
AFTER MY FINISH: Got some water and a banana; just sat a bit while I relaxed, ate, and and rehydrated, ahhh, felt good. Then wandered around chatting with various friends and other participants and getting some “Happy Finisher” photos. Ever notice that more participants are smiling after the finish than before and during?
Epilogue: Put on by e-Dragon Productions – Erik Burciaga and Kristine Burciaga, co-owners and co-Race Directors – a company that is a really good local race management company that puts on several events on over the year. Kristina and Erik do a great job with all of them. This is a well-organized event with a pretty nice course. McAllister Park is a pretty nice activity venue with both paved and natural off-road trails; soccer fields, baseball fields; dog park; and several indoor restroom locations. Nice quality race shirts and unique age-group award medals. Post-race goodies included some fruits; iced-down bottles of water; and an iced-down cloth post-race to help you cool down a bit more. There were also sausage wraps, courtesy of Kiolbassa sausage, nice. The series includes 4 races total and you can register for all 4 at one time, getting a nice discount if you do that, or each one individually. The Summer Series proceeds go to scholarships for local deserving athletes. I participated in this series last year, again this year, and will again in the future. Most certainly would recommend it to others.
MUCHO THANKS TO: All the people that made this one happen for we participants, including e-Dragon Productions; all the volunteers who were out there for us, many of whom are Team Beef members; ; the Park Police officers that were keeping us safe at the two locations where we accessed public park roads; friends Dan The Man and Gilbert Weaver for the post-race fruits and grilling up the sausages; and anyone else involved that I may not have mentioned here. Thank you so much.
Scottydog Reports 