Photos are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CiUDu7H8W3LM6eub6

Before The Start:  My 25h race of 2022 was the Cibolo Crossing Stampede 5K held on May 27 at the Cibolo Crossing shopping area, which included the ‘anchor’ patron of the complex, Santikos Theaters.  Santikos company kindly opened the facility to we participants, so we had access to indoor restrooms and water fountains. The place is huge, with movie theaters, a small bowling alley, food areas, and a games area complex.  Start time of 8 a.m.  I arrived around 7:15 am.  Weather was very humid with a temp in the upper 70s, and some dark clouds above, but it never did rain on us.  The sun actually came out while we were on the course.  Since I had picked up my packet the night before, once I arrived at race site I enjoyed chatting with other participants and getting a few pre-start photos. Athlete Guild, a top-notch local area race management company, did the course set up, timing, results. This event supports education scholarships for Cibolo students.

On The Course:  Before the start, National Anthem was well sung by one of the organizers. Since this was “Beach to Bay” marathon weekend – a very popular relay marathon in Corpus Christi, consisting of a course of six legs each – the local area events scheduled for today were fairly small.  For this 5K we had a total of 152 finishers, walkers and runners.  We started just up from the Santikos complex, going along a paved sidewalk area and then onto one of the Cibolo Creek Crossing access roads.  We did a fairly short out-and-back and then proceeded down a hill to another access road, doing an out-and-back on this one also.  We then proceeded up a short incline and went down a road that took us into the parking lot of the “Living Spaces” store. We did a round-about route through here and exited on the other side of the building.  The course then took us up a fairly long hill to a turn-round point.  Then it was back down the hill on the other side of the road, then uphill again as we went toward the finish area. Once we got back near the finish area, we did a u-turn and went back down the first hill we’d gone out on, then up to another turn-round point, and did the last uphill of the course a second time. One up that hill we then went up to a set of cones, did a turn-round here, back onto the road we’d originally started on, and then to the finish.  It is certainly a somewhat challenging course – especially for slow old dogs like me, lol, who are going to be out there a while – but for what Athlete Guild had to work with – and the time constraints they were given; the race had to be done by a certain time – they really did a good job figuring out how to get a 5K course laid out for us. The other nice thing, all these out-and-backs made for a lot of seeing our fellow participants on the course several times and encouraging each other on.  I ended up with a 41:11 chip time, averaging 13:15 per mile, finishing 5^th out of the 7 in my 60 – 69 males age group.

After My Finish:  First thing, get some water and rehydrate and make sure to do a cool-down walk as I did so. I sometimes have a bad habit of just stopping after I finish – you’d think I’d know better after being a runner for 37 years, lol – and then the blood just pools right out of my head and into my legs and I suddenly get very dizzy.  I have got enough to deal with fighting my current bout of prostate cancer, and I don’t think my oncologist would be too thrilled if I ended up having to take an ambulance ride from keeling over, lol. . So this time I made sure to walk around a bit for at least a good 10 minutes or so.  Felt much better after that.  I then enjoyed chatting with friends and fellow participants, supporters, and sponsors, and getting a few post-race photos. Enjoyed some of the post-race goodies available too, including taking home a few ‘donut holes” from the Dunkin Donuts folks that were there, since they also have a store at Cibolo Creek Crossing.   I had them as dessert after lunch…they were good too. 

Epilogue:  Today’s event was a smaller 5K, participant wise, but very well done.  Nice job by Athlete Guild, all the race day volunteers, our MC, and our music and sound guy.  Sponsors and vendors were all very supportive. Santikos area a really nice area to cool down in after running/walking in that humidity.  They also had some staff that were selling cold drinks – including some cold beer, but I did not have any cash at the moment, lol – and there was also a BBQ cooking contest going on there too, so all kinds of grills and wonderful ‘cooking smells’ post-race. Nice quality finisher medal for all finishers and good quality race shirt.  One thing I liked is that when you crossed the finish line, they gave you this scarf-looking thing, which I found out was a ‘cooling towel’.  You wet it down, put it on your neck and it cools you down. I was skeptical but I tried it, and the darn thing really did work for me.  That thing is a keeper!  Mucho thanks to all the people involved that made this one happen for us; all the Cibolo Crossing vendors, Athlete Guild, the many race sponsors, all the volunteers for this one, the local law enforcement officers out there for our safety, our music and sound man and our MC, and anyone else I may not have mentioned here.  Thank you all!