Photos are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VvgkLhLJxpuwGrgQA

BEFORE MY START:  My 45th race of 2021 was the Project Healing Heroes 5K on Saturday, Nov 13^th in Cibolo, Texas, 8:30 a.m. start time. From the Everyday Fellowship Christian Church.  This event is put on by Project Healing Heroes, which has a mission of helping veterans, service members, first responders, and their families resolve trauma through awareness, resilience, and support.  The organization has qualified counselors who are also veterans and have been through what their clients have, so they have a first-hand knowledge of what their clients are dealing with. Retired Lt Col. David Tharp is the founder and CEO. Race start time of 8:30 a.m.  I almost did not make it to the start since I am “directionally challenged” lol.  I drove right by the start area – duhhhh – and then had to turn around and go back to find the place. I got there at 8:15 a.m.  Thankfully I had picked up my packet the day before, so already had my race bib.  Took a few quick pre-race photos and then it was time to start.

ON THE COURSE:   I was the very last one to cross the start line, as about 2 minutes before the start time, my prostate started acting up – darn prostate cancer! – and I had to make a quick trip to the port-a-potty.  Then back to the start line – everyone else had started – and made sure to go through the timing things at the start to get my chip going. Then I was running on the course and pretty soon caught up to a few people at the back of the back.  I made pretty good progress and passed several people. The course waw out-and-back in through a really nice, and pretty flat streets neighborhood. The only ‘hill’ was just a pretty small incline going up to the turn-round point. I ended up with a finish time of 38:29, averaging 12:25 per mile, and I had negative splits: 12:47, 12:23, 12:22.  I am pretty consistent with my paces, lol, slow-and-slower. I’d had a radiation therapy treatment on Friday, the day before this event, so was happy with the results, and happy that I can even still run.  As this was a small event, age groups were kind of spaced out – mine was males 50-and-up  – so did not get any award, but that’s okay, I usually don’t expect to get one anyway. All good.

AFTER MY FINISH: Got some water and had a nutrition bar and just relaxed a bit.  Then chatted with other participants, watched the awards ceremony – the top 3 in my 50+ males all finished in the 20s – and got a few more photos. This also is a dog-friendly event, so I handed out some treats too.  There were actually quite a few dogs at the event, had to go back to my car and get more treats, lol.  

Epilogue:  First time for me doing this event. Enjoyed doing something ‘new’ for me.  Nice course, lots of friendly people, lots of vendors on site giving away free stuff, such as pens, coozies, etc, and lots of these were veteran support organizations, so lots of resources for families in need.  Local police officers, firefighters and EMTs were at the event too. The Cibolo mayor even ran this event – and placed!  The goodie bag was nice, chock-full of various things – one of my cats took the frisbee as her new toy, lol – and a nice quality race shirt.  A very enjoyable morning.  Definitely would do this event again and would recommend it to others.