Photos are here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/qGKHdquv2USeD5X77

Before The Start: My 33rd race of 2022 was the “Y’all Means All 5K” held on June 17 at Lady Bird Johnson Park in San Antonio, Texas. Put on by primary sponsors In The Loop Run Crew, Fleet Feet and Black Laboratory Brewing this is a Pride-Inspired 5K supporting Fiesta Youth that has a goal to “empower youth to build a future where ALL people are accepted, affirmed, and loved as they are.” I dedicated and did this one for my daughter and will be sending her my race shirt and finisher medal. A bit of a late start for this one at 8:30 a.m., especially when Texas is having one heck of a heat wave right now – it’s hot even for Texas, lol – with ‘feels like” temps getting into the low 100s by the afternoon. I arrived with about 40 minutes until start time and got a few pre-start photos.

On The Course: This course was an out-and-back, starting on parks upper road just down from the park pavilion. We did a loop on this road and then went onto the park’s paved off-road trails. As this is a public city park, the park was open to other patrons – walkers, runners, cyclists – who were not participants. From where I was at any given moment, they were pretty nice about it all and the cyclists were really good about calling out when they came up behind me, which was much appreciated so I could move out of their way. It was pretty sunny when we started, but Mother Nature was kind to us; we ended up getting a fairly nice breeze and when I did the back half of the 5K, we had some pretty good cloud cover. The temp at start time was not too bad, 83 degrees with a ‘feels like’ of 87. Since I had another 5K scheduled the day after this one, I just took it pretty easy for this one, doing my usual 8-min-ru.2 minute walk and taking a couple of extra walk breaks to get some on-course photos. I am slow anyway – still dealing with some post-cancer side effects – but I was even slower today, lol, finishing 46:14 chip time, averaging 14:53 per mile; 5th out of the 6 in my 60-69 males age group. The overall winner, by the way finished in 17:51 (5:45 per mile), good grief. I was a tad past Mile 1, lol; can’t imagine running at that pace; sure be hard to take photos along the way, lol.

After My Finish: Got some water and did a short cool-down walk and got a couple of post-race photos. I then went and sat in my nearby parked vehicle for 15 minutes with the A/C going full blast as I drank some Zero Gatorade. Ahhh, felt much refreshed after that. Back to the race venue where I chatted with friends, got some after photos, handed out some treats to the doggies there – this is a dog friendly event – and even won a nice door prize, a $50 Fleet Feet gift certificate, sweet.

Epilogue: This was a nicely done event with a good turnout, considering there were 2 other popular local events on this same day; 296 recorded human finishers for this one and several dogs. It is a nicely done event – except for that late start time in Texas summer, lol; 7 a.m next year, please! – with a very nice quality race shirt, finisher medal to all finisher, lots of vendors, some with some freebie give-aways, a Unicorn balloon that spouted water from its horn to help you cool down, lol, and much more. I would definitely do it again and recommend it to others. Mucho thanks to all that made this one happen for we participants: iaap for course setup, timing and results; all the event sponsors/vendors; the law enforcement officers out there for us; the many race volunteers for the packet pickups, water station on the course, course marshals and everything else they did for us; my friend Anthony Zamora who did his usual fantastic job as Race MC; and a personal thanks to all the participants I interacted with on the course, thank you all, you helped me keep on truckin’ along; and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here. Also, as a personal community announcement to the City of San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department on behalf of all we LBJ park users… Hey! Put in a REAL restroom in this park! What the heck is up with that one darn port-a-potty by the trailhead? Good grief! Thank you; normal race reporting will resume now, lol. Hope to see you at a future event sometime!