Photos are here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/ASpNxR88wgUxN5ey7

Before The Start  – My 21^st race of 2023 was the Run To Remember 5K held on April 29^th at Comanche Park in San Antonio, Texas.  There was also a 10K. This event raised funds for research to find a cure for Alzheimer’s.  This event was founded by two brothers, Matthew, and Miguel to raise money for a cause that has personally affected their family.  Known as Beards (Matthew) vs Beans (Miguel), these two have a contest to see who can raise the most funds for the cause. The winner then gets to give a challenge to the other brother that must be met.  This is a very popular annual event in the local running community and usually gets a really nice turn-out.  As this event is usually done around Fiesta San Antonio time-frame, it is sometimes a challenge, as lots of people are attending Fiesta events during this time.  Even so, the brothers always manage to get a pretty nice turn-out, and this one was no exception with the results showing 157 finishers for the 5K and 39 finishers for the 10K.  In spite of some crazy weather the night before – rain, hail, wind, lightning, etc. – race day was pretty nice with sunshine, virtually no wind at all and a temp in the mid 50s.

On The Course : The 10K started 15 minutes before the 5K, with we 5Kers starting off at 7:45 a.m. The course was on paved asphalt and then asphalt and concrete trails in the park. Both courses were out-and-back. The trails in Comanche park are very nice ones, with lots of woodsy areas and trees – even a tree that fell down on the course from the storm the night before, so we had to negotiate that, which all of us did safely. We also crossed over a couple of bridges,  and one could see how much the water had risen from the night’s storm, and how fast it was moving.  I seem to have a problem with bridges in my running life – I’ve run off of 5 of them in my 40 years of running, lol; thankfully all pretty low bridges, so no high falls, just simple ‘splash-downs’ into a creek, pond, lake, etc – but I managed to cross these two on the course with no problems; I’m sure the race organizers were grateful for that, lol, no rescuing required. I did my usual 8-min-run/2-min-walk thing – can’t run a whole course nonstop anymore because of my spinal arthritis – and took some on-course photos during my walk breaks.  I was feeling pretty good overall and even managed to run nonstop for most of the last mile.  I surprised my self by doing a negative split for Mile 3, and ended up with a chip time of 40:43, averaging 13:07 per mile and Mile 3 was 12:38, the fastest I’ve moved in a while, since finishing my cancer treatments in December 2022.  I was one happy old dog, lol. I even managed to place 3^rd in my age group.  I finished 1 minute and 10 seconds behind my friend Ted, who was second in our age group; shouldn’t have stopped for that last photo, lol.  It’s all good; I really enjoyed myself. Instead of a medal, we got these memorial coins from Dragon’s Den aka e-Dragon Productions – another really good local race company – that has a number on the back of it that can be used for a registration discount for their events, nice.

 After My Finish: Got some water and did a short cool-down walk.  Then I wandered around chatting with participants, supporters, vendors, etc.  Enjoyed a post-race beer and a sausage wrap. This is also a dog-friendly event, so I soon ran out of dog treats, which I carry when I run. The dogs, however, did not know I had run out, so I got lots of looks from them for more treats, lol.

 Epilogue:   I have done Miguel and Matt’s events almost from the very time it started up. This one is personal to me too, as my wife’s uncle passed away from this disease. He was a great guy who was an orthopedic surgeon and also taught at the medical school of Texas Tech.  I really liked him a lot, as well as his wife – my wife’s aunt – Noreen, a very classy lady. Bud is surely missed by the family.  Miguel and Matt have a great sense of humor too, and carry that into their events. Today’s event’s also included the 0.5 Beer contest, in which participants carried a full stein of beer and whomever succeeded in the least spilling was the winner, lol.  My friend Woody came in second – and then promptly drank the beer, lol.  The second part of their fundraising efforts is a race called The Longest Day 5K, which comes up in June, and that one will decide which brother gets to give the other a challenge. I am already registered for that one too, so see you there if you come out!

Kudos and thanks to all the people involved that made this one happen for we participants: the two brothers of course; Alamo Beer for being the pre-race-day  packet pickup venue ;iaap for the course setup, timing, and results; Dragon’s Den folks for the age group coin awards and for helping out; all the involved sponsors and vendors; our ‘sausage wrap” workers who had to be there really early and had some really tasty Kiolbassa sausage for us post-race; our ‘fruity guy’ Gilbert with all that great fresh fruits he brings to these events; Anthony, our MC, who did his usual great job at it; he MCs several events over the year and, in my opinion, has become the premier guy to get as MC if you have a San Antonio event going on;  and all others involved that I may not have mentioned here.  Thank you all, so much!   Hope to see any or all of you at one of my upcoming events!