Photos are here:   https://photos.app.goo.gl/owrMsU4SSWoUD16b6

Before The Start:  My 12^th race of 2023 was the Alamo Donut Dash 5K held on March 4^th at  Lion Field, a small park just off of Broadway street in San Antonio, TX.  There was also a 10K.  This  Alamo Donut Dash is a very popular local event as you ca tell from the number of finishers: 835 for the 5K and 402 for the 10K, so over 1200 finishers.  Lion Field is a pretty small area with limited parking in the surrounding area. Usually you can park in Brackenridge Park, right across the street, but some of the park roads were part of the course, so most of the roads were blocked off. The Doseum Museum was right across the street from Lion Field, so I went and chatted with one of the employees, bought 4 Doseum tickets and told him to just donate them to any kids that came in. This made me a Doseum customer, so they provided my vehicle info to their security folks so I would not be ticketed or towed; very convenient.  I arrived about an hour before the 5K start time of 7:45 – the 10K started at 7:30 a.m – and wandered around chatting with friends,  runners, walkers, vendors,  etc. and getting some pre-start photos. 

On The Course:  At packet pickup the night before race day, me and a few  other participants had our doubts about the course for this many participants, with Lion Field being a pretty small area.  However, once on the course, I found  that Athlete Guild, a top-notch local area race management company, had actually done pretty well in laying out the course, given what they had to work with.  We started on a grassy part of Lion Field then went onto a paved path that went behind the field’s main building, We turned left on Mulberry Street – and had a very wide road to run or walk on – and then turned into Brackenridge Park, crossing over the park’s train railroad tracks.  This wide road took us down near the park train station area.  Right before the end of this road, we went onto one of the park’s off-road trails, looping around this for a short bit, and then coming out onto another park road.  This road took us in the direction of  Broadway.  We did not actually go all the way out to Broadway; we turned left at an intersection, and then went down a road that took us toward the Witte Museum and past the parking garage in the park. At the end of this road, we did a turn-round and went back up the way we had come, on the other side of the road. This took us back to Mulberry, where we had first hit the road.  WE crossed over Mulberry and went back on the paved trail we had come out on.  We followed this trail down past the Brackenridge Golf Course.  The 10K folks continued on for their longer route, while the 5K folks made a turn-round just past the golf course entrance, and then back the way we had come, finally turning into the area we had come out during the start, and this took us back to the finish. In the 5K males, 65-69, I ended up finishing 2^nd in my age group with a chip time of 41:18.  The guy who was first in my age group finished 31 seconds ahead of me. I was quite pleased with this time, and I had a negative split for Mile 3, making me feel pretty good that I am slowly but surely coming back from my 15 months of prostate cancer treatment that I finished in November 2022.   I did not check the results after I finished because I figured there would be some really speedy 20-somehing minute milers out there for this event; and, darn the luck, I forgot to pick up my finisher medal.  Darn old-man brain. 😉

After My Finish:   The food line was really really REALLY long, so thankfully I had brought my own protein bar to munch on post-race, as I wandered around again after my finish, once again chatting with friends, sponsors, vendors, supporters, etc., and getting some after-photos.  I was also very popular with the dogs there, as I always have dog treats with me when I run – hence my name Scotty Dogg – how I register for my races; A friend of mine  way back when nicknamed me this when she found out I carry these treats, even on training runs, so I just started using it as my running name; and the rest, as they say, is history; that’s how all my running community friends know me now.

Epilogue: As noted, this is a very popular event, as is the associated half and marathon that are done on the Sunday after the 5K and 10K.  The packet pickup on Friday for the 5K and 10K had really long lines – took me about 3 minutes to finally get to the table to get my goodie bag. Back in the day when I did this before, it really was done near The Alamo, but with ongoing construction there – and the road closures probably cost a fortune – it was moved this year to Lion Field.  I kind of felt sorry for the race organizers, this must have been at times a planning nightmare for them. However, it all did come out pretty good for we 5K and 10K participants. The only thing I would suggest is maybe have packet  pickup over a couple of days instead of just one, but other than that, everything on race day did seem to go pretty smoothly from the view I had of it.  Nice ‘donut’ finisher medals – as mentioned, I forgot to get mine, duhh – and a nice quality race tee.  I would do this one again and would recommend it to others.  I hope someday – when and if the Alamo Renovation folks ever get their act together – this will be moved back downtown and we do get to pass by The Alamo again. Until then, it is what it is, and what it was for this one was, as mentioned, pretty well done, given what the organizers had to work with. MUCHO thanks to all the organizers, sponsors, vendor, volunteers, EMTs there, law enforcement out on the roads part of the course for us, and anyone else involved that made this one happen for we participants.  Thank you all!