Photos are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jfuKiAqMjakG1DLw5

Before The Start: My 20th race of 2021 was the Viva SA 5K held on April 30t at Hemisfair in Downtown San Antonio. There was also a 10K. This was the 10th anniversary of this event which support the Junior League of San Antonio (JLSA) an organization of women committed to promoting voluntarism, developing the potential of women, and improving communities through the effective action and leadership of trained volunteers. It is a chapter of the Junior League of Texas. This was a fairly small event – mainly because there were several other local area races on this day too – with 89 finishers for the 5K and 33 finishers for the 10K. There was also a kid’s 5K. I arrived with about 20 minutes to go to start time, got a few pre-start photos, chatted with friends there, and also treated the doggies as this is a dog-friendly event.

On The Course: The courses were out-and-back. Our start and finish location was right near the renovated ‘safe’ playground area (‘bouncy’ squishy surface mats for safety in case kids fall down and so forth) and restrooms. We had a nice view of the Tower of the Americas. The 10K people got going at 7:30 and then we 5K folks headed onto the course at 7:45. It had been “drizzly rain” on my drive down to the race but stopped before we started. No wind, temp in the 70s and humidity was way up there. We went down part of the Hemisfair bricked pavement, exited with a left turn onto Alamo Street and then did a right turn onto a service road by Marriott Springhill Suites. We did a right turn at the end of that, and proceeded up another small road that took us to Nueva Street. Left turn on Nueva, heading in the direction of the Bexar County Courthouse. A few blocks up from the courthouse, we accessed the San Antonio Riverwalk – the historic King William District was across the river from us – and headed in the direction of the Blue Star area. Turn-round point for the 5K was directly parallel with the Blue Star area – had to go up a small hill to get to the turn-round, the only hill on the course – so I am assuming the 10K folks probably had to go maybe all the way down near Brackenridge School for their turn-round. Then we went back exactly the way we had come out. Per my Garmin, which pretty much matched the official results, I ended up with 3.12 miles completed, 40:28 chip time, averaging 12:54 per mile, and I had negative splits too, nice. I wish finisher #52 out of 89 participants. Used to be faster but these days, dealing with my current treatment for prostate cancer, I am just happy I can still run at all. Nice touch: as I turned into Hemisfair to head for the finish line, the Race Director was right there, and she kindly ran in with me; I thought that was very nice of her, and appreciated the company. For a few minutes after I finished, I got a few photos of some of my fellow runners coming into the finish.

After My Finish: First, get some water in me, it was very humid out there. Did that, ate a protein bar, relaxed for a few minutes, chatting with my very talented friend – and fellow cancer survivor – Deborah, and then it was off to wander around getting some ‘happy finisher” photos – ever notice more people are smiling after they are done than before and during? Thus, I call them ‘happy finisher” photos, lol – and their supporters/friends, and also my new friends, the doggies I treated at the event. They were so happy to see me, lol, since I still had some treats left. Awards were for first overall in each event, including the kids race.

Epilogue: Small event but very nicely done, and a really nice course; scenic with the Tower of the Americas and the Riverwalk views. Finisher medals to all, which were put into race packets, and really good quality tech tee race shirt, with a nice design on it. There were also a lot of goodies offered both before and after the event, including different kinds of coffee – my coffee fiend and friend, Woody, would have been in 7th Coffee Heaven, lol – and Freetail Brewing Company had a variety of various beers; I enjoyed one of their Pale Blonde beers and it was really good. There were also various food offerings and vendors/sponsors with other items. I’ve done this one a few times in the past and will do it again in the future. I certainly would recommend it to others. Viva SA! Good luck and much success to JLSA. Thanks so much to them for having this event and also much thanks to all the volunteers, sponsors, police officers and course marshals on the course for our safety, and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here. Thank you all!