Photos are here:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/u17qfE8vxieXEmrq7

Before The Start:    My 47^th 5K of 2022 was Head For The Cure 5K held in San Antonio on Sep 24^th.  This event is held in multiple cities on various dates. Fund raised support medical research for brain cancer and patient programs.  This was the 9^th anniversary of the one held in San Antonio, started in memory and honor of local TV station KSAT-13’s news director Jim Boyle, who died of this disease. Start and finish are at historic Providence Catholic School in San Antonio, located near KSAT-13’s studio headquarters.  KSAT’s David Sears, if I remember  correctly, served as our MC for the event. There were something like 8 or 9 total races on this da around the San Antonio-Austin Corridor, so a pretty nice turn out for this one, with 459 finishers. Start time of 8 a.m.  I arrived about an hour before start time, wearing gray shirt – since gray is the ‘ribbon color’ for brain cancer, if you did not know – and got a few pre-start photos and also had a nice time chatting pre-race with friends and other participants.  As a past cancer survivor myself, and currently undergoing treatment for prostate cancer, I try to do as many cancer-related events as I can in support of anyone who is dealing with this disease.

On The Course:  We started in front of an historic building on the school grounds. The course was out-and-back.  We went down a driveway on the school grounds, made a left turn onto St. Mary’s Street, then made a left turn onto another street – I forget the name of the street; Richmond, I think – went down that street, made a left turn on another street that took us back onto St. Mary’s. We then went back to the school and in front of the school on St. Mary’s, we did a turn-around and proceeded back the way we had come out, finishing on the driveway at the school.  I ended up 5^th in my 60-69 male age group with a chip time of 40:25, doing my usual run/walk thing and taking photos during my walk breaks.  I also stopped at a café we passed right after the turn-round point to give a dog a treat, lol, which probably did not help my finish time at all.  I did, however, run the majority of Mile 2 – Mile 3 nonstop.  Have not done that in quite a while, since before I started my current prostate cancer treatments, with which I am almost done – my last treatment in November, yay! Nonstop for almost that full mile made me feel like I am truly making progress and will be my old-self again once I get through my treatment and over some of these side-effects from the radiation therapy I had.  My speedy friend, Woody, was first in our age group. When he reached Mile 2, I was probably still at Mile 1, lol.  Woody runs a pretty darn good pace. My VERY speedy friend, Jackie, was first overall female, zowie. 

After My Finish:   Got some water and a banana, which hit the spot, and then got a few photos of some other finishers coming in.  After that, I enjoyed wandering around, chatting with friends, and getting several photos of them and other happy finishers, volunteers, supporters, sponsors, etc., and made some new friends. Also enjoyed some post-race food and drink from some of the vendors there, and there was also a vendor of medical supplies that provided blood pressure reading.  Convenient, as I keep a BP log for my cardiologist – I have a pacemaker, so this fit in nicely for me.

Epilogue:  Very well-organized event, with finisher medal for all finishers, really nice quality race shirt, lots of various post-race goodies, and there was even a food truck on-site. With this crazy warm weather we’re having, would have been nice to have a bit of an earlier start, but probably would not have made that much difference, I guess, since it was already in the 70s at 7 a.m.  The one thing I did not get is no water stop on the course; I was curious about that but never found out why this is. For a 5K, water stops are usually at the halfway point, and since the turn-round was right in front of the school, near the start and finish, don’t see why some water couldn’t be put right there at the turn-round near the cones.  Maybe it was a safety issue or something, who knows. Well, it is what it is, so be it.  I’ve done this one several times in the past and will do it again. I try to do as many cancer-related 5Ks as I can, especially being a cancer survivor myself. I would also recommend this one to others.  Good cause, nice course – really flat course, so good one to try and set a PR if one is inclined to do that.  Mucho thanks to all the people that made this one happen for we participant: all the sponsors, KSAT-13, all the many volunteers, the school for allowing the use of the grounds, all the police officers that were out there for our safety, and anyone else involved not mentioned here.  Thank you all!