Photos are here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/yFURN3tZKx8dzR6z9

Before The Start:   On Saturday, October 7^th, 2023, I did my 56^th race of the year, Battle of Hilotes 5K, held at Tuscany Venue in San Antonio.  This was Race 3 of 4 in the Scallywompus “Alamo Beer” series of races.  Participants can register for all 4 at one time – and get a nice registration discount, which is what I did – or each race can be registered for individually.   Scallywompus, a top-notch event organizer company that organizes several  excellent quality events over the year.  This event included a half-marathon, a 10K a 5K, and a  Ruck Walk. The Half-Marathon and Ruck folks went first, if I remember correctly, followed by the 10K folks and then the 5K folks.  There was also a competitive 5K Walk, which started the same time as the 5K.  I arrived just shortly before the half-marathon folks left. I’d already picked up my race packet the day before, so had time to wander around, chatting with friends and handing out treats to the doggies there, as this is a dog-friendly event, and getting some pre-start photos.

 On the Course:  All the courses were out-and-back. We started and finished at Tuscany Venue, an event center for various functions such as weddings, various types of parties, and much more.  It located just off the I-10 highway frontage road near the Shoppes of La Cantera. It’s a pretty nice place with lots of room for lots of people, which is a good thing because the total number of finishers for all these events was 670.   All the courses went from the grounds of Tuscany Venue, out onto the road in front of the place, and then down a small hill – which we had to climb back up to get to the finish on the way back – and then turned onto one of the paved trails of the now-renovated San Antonio Greenways system of trails. We then headed east, in the direction of The Rim, which was across the I-10 highway.  Thankfully, we did not go that far, at least the 5K and 10k folks did not; don’t know about the half  and Ruck folks. The course is fairly flat with a few long inclines to go up and down on the out-and-back, but nothing you can really call a hill, at least on the 5K; the 10K folks had longer to go than us, so they might have had a hill or two.  Once we made our turn-rounds, we headed back to the start/finish the way we had come out.  The weather behaved itself very nicely for us with a temp in the 60s and a pretty mild breeze. I did my usual run/walk thing, running 8 minutes, walking 2 minutes, and taking photos during my walk breaks.  When I got to the 5K turn-round, I headed toward the finish and shortly after the turn-round, my watch beeped for walk break; however, I was feeling pretty good, so decided I was just going to see if I good run nonstop to the finish and kept on going.  I ended up making my goal, nonstop to the finish and feeling pretty good. I have not done that in quite a while; last time was before I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2021 and had to undergo several radiation treatments and then some injection treatments after that to get rid of my testosterone to kill all the cancer cells off.  Makes running kind of tough, you sometimes get a lack of energy – and the post-cancer side effects are not fun either, lol; but I adjusted, learning all the things I needed to do to keep running and even managed to do at least one 5K every weekend after each week of my radiation treatments.  My biggest supporter was my wife, Gail, who was there for me through all of this, with encouragement, words-of-wisdom on my “blah” days, and lots of love.  Her faith in me really kept me going. Today, I was feeling pretty darn good, so just went for it…and made it to the finish nonstop for that last 1.5 miles, that was a great feeling, making me feel like I am really finally seeing real progress to maybe one day getting back to where I was in my pre-cancer days. I was one happy doggie, lol. I ended with a chip time of 40:30, averaging 13:02 per mile – an improvement as these days I usually do 14-something minute miles – was 6^th  out of 10 in my 65 – 69 males age group. 

After My Finish:  Whenever I do a 5K – and I do a lot of them over the year – I always get a lot of encouragement on the course from friends  and other participants doing the race, too. They see me coming, wearing my “I BEAT CANCER! NEVER GIVE UP!” shirt and give me a thumbs-up or a shout-out, or some kind of encouragement and it really does help mentally. So after I finish, I usually hang by the finish line for a bit and get photos of some of these people coming in, so I can cheer them on too, and then wander around chatting with other participants and supporters, volunteers, etc., and get more photos. It’s the least I can do for all of you out there who have done this for me – you know who you are – posting all these photos on my blog, so you can have them if you want them.  I am not the greatest photographer, lol, with my old-fashioned push-button Canon camera, but hey, it’s free photos, lol. Post-race I also enjoyed some of the many many treats and goodies a Scallywompus event always has.  The Scallywompus motto is “Come for the race. Stay for the Party.  They are not kidding either. Post-race Kiolbassa sausages, bloody mary’s, tequila, force water, various fresh fruits – my friend, Gilbert, btw, has the best of those – and much more. I would certainly do this one again and definitely recommend Scallywompus races to others.

Epilogue:   Love the Scallywompus events and love the owner too, lol.  Scallywompus owner Bart is also a fellow-cancer survivor, treated around the same time I was, and we chatted a lot through all that, and he was SO darn helpful in keeping me focused to get through it all. I will never forget him for that, the time he took with me to have our frank chats about it all.  Also, Race Director Tony, who also gave me so much help along my journey.  These are two class-act guys; even if I was not a runner, for that alone, what they did for me, I’d support Scallywompus always.  If you’ve never done a Scallywompus event, give it a try, you just might really enjoy it. Five-year age group awards up to 4 places deep; separate awards for the walker division, so walkers are not competing against runners; really nice – and large too – finisher medals for participants, along with a nice quality race shirt, and even the race bibs often have very unique design.  Also, of course, that after-party done with a LOT of goodies and a whole lot of fun; today, for example there was a post-race dance contest – I dance like Elaine in Seinfeld, lol, so I just avoided that.  Mucho thanks to all who made this one happen for us: primary sponsor Alamo Beer – and packet pickups for this series of races was at the Alamo Beer Brewery – and all the  other supporting sponsors; all the many many volunteers out there for us; Race Director Tony and our MC Anthony who both did their usual great job;  Tuscany Venue for use of their grounds and facilities; I assume there may have been some kind of fee for that, but even so, nice of them to open up everything for us; Kiolbassa for the tasty sausages; and all the other sponsors and vendors who were there for us, with lots of post-race things. Thank you all!