Photos are here:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/PSZ4vja7zvwMVZ5C8

Before the start.  My 6^th race of 2024 was the San Antonio Rodeo & Stock Show Stampede 5K held on Saturday, February 3^rd in downtown San Antonio.  This event is the precursor event for the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, held this year from February 8 to February 25^th.  This is a very popular annual event, marked by a total of 449 finishers, both walkers and runners, which raises funds for student scholarships.  The course start and finish was at Milam Park at the intersection of Houston Street and Santa Rosa.  With a 5K start time of 9:30 a.m., it was nice to sleep in a bit. After some very stormy weather on Friday night and into the early Saturday morning hours, Mother Nature kindly cleared all that out and we had a nice sunny day for the event, with a temp of around 54 degrees at start time and hardly any wind at all.  I arrived with about 45 minutes until start time and wandered around chatting with friends, other participants, supporters, volunteers, etc., and got a few pre-start photos.  This is also a dog-friendly event, so I made some new 4-legged friends fast after handing out dog-treats.  The course set up and timing was done by iaapweb, a top-notch San Antonio family-business race management company that stays very busy doing this for many events in several Texas locations.  I am privileged to have several members of the Iniquez family as friends, including Top Guy, Jose, who knows I do these race reports – trying to be accurate but sometimes miss the mark, lol – so he told me before the start that because of the way the “authorities” wanted the race routed, the total distance was 3.2 miles, not 3.14; which was fine with me, not like I usually win anything anyway, lol, but also nice to know for my report.

On the course: No delays with iaap, they start things right on time, so at 9:30 a.m., off we went.  We went straight up Houston Street heading east in the direction of The Alamo. Houston is a street with a mixed surface of cobblestones and pavement with a slight slant on it. My friend Rick had run a bit of the course ahead of time and advised me to stay to the left on Houston, as the rain the night before had pooled some water on the right side of the road, so that is what I did and also tried to keep on the most level parts of it. I did my usual thing of 8-minute run/2-minute walk and took photos during my walk break.  By the time we started, there were several people gathering for a parade that would occur after the 5K, so we had lots of people cheering us on along Houston Street. The course took in a lot of the west/south downtown area, including going across two iron bridges with nice views of the San Antonio Riverwalk and a nice view of the historic Pioneer Flour Mill as we went through a part of the King William District.  In King William we went onto the Riverwalk going South, then crossing a bridge to the other side, and then went on that side back toward Nueva Street. After leaving the Riverwalk, we then made our way back to Houston Street, making a left turn, which took us back to the start/finish area. I was feeling pretty good the whole way and ran just about all of the last mile nonstop, finishing with a chip time of 42:27, , 17^th out of 25 in my 60-69 males age group, averaging 13:16 per mile, and my last mile was a negative split of 12:08, SWEET, the fastest I have run since early 2021.  For those of you who may not know, I dealt with prostate cancer treatment  from Sep 2021 to December 2022, – and still managed to do races even during my treatment time – and am still dealing with some of the side effects, so my normal pre-cancer times of 10-11 minute miles went crashing away, down to 13 to 15 minutes per mile for quite a while; so, seeing that 12:08 split made me feel so good, as I think I have finally turned the corner and am finally on the path to getting back to my old running self; still have a ways to go yet, but I am progressing. Also, my friend Oscar made me laugh out loud as I finished. A very speedy runner, Oscar finished in 27 minutes and change, and then he went out ‘directing traffic’ to all the other participants as he stood there cheering everyone in.  When he saw me coming in, he got all the waiting crowd cheering “Scotty! Scotty! Scotty!” and just cracked me up.  Oscar really is a character, lol, and also a great guy.

After My Finish: Got some water and did a short cool-down walk and then it was off to chat with friends/participants/supporters, hand out some more dog treats, and get some photos of what I call the “Happy Finishers” since more people seem to be smiling after they are finished than before and during, lol.  People ask me sometimes how I remember all these names. Well, actually  I don’t. I am terrible at remembering names – I’d make a lousy school teacher, lol – so when I take my photos, I usually try to get in the person’s bib number, so I can look the name up in the results, if I have to. So, if you are participating in a race I’m doing, and I take your photo, be kind to an old man, lol, and show me your race bib. Thank you, thank you very much.

  
Epilogue:  I love this event and have done it several times in the past years. It is always very well done and a lot of fun, with Rodeo Clowns wandering among the participants and being very entertaining; there is a Longhorn “cattle drive’ post-race as well as a parade of horse riders, that include police horses/riders, Texas A&M Cavaliers group, and more.  Pre-race goodies were some breakfast burritos of various flavors from Los Palapos (I may have spelled that wrong, sorry), and post-race items included sausage wraps, Miller Lite beer, water, and many other kinds of items. The race goody bag was chock-full of stuff including a one-day pass for access to the fair-grounds; a very nice quality long-sleeved shirt; and all kinds of other various little sundries, coupons, etc.  Mucho thanks to all the folks that made this one happen for we participants, e.g., all the many sponsors; volunteers; stock show and rodeo personnel; all the law enforcement and medical folks out there for our safety; iaap for course setup, timing, and results, and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here. Thank you all!  See you next year, the Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.  Next up for me: My birthday race on Feb 10, doing the Cupid’s Chase 5K at O.P. Schnabel Park. It is put on by Community Options, an organization that helps people with disabilities – or as my wife says “differabilities” – including children, which I can relate to; I was a March of Dimes baby, born with dislocated hips and this has given me a couple of ‘differabilities’ as I’ve gotten older, so I always try to do these types of races. See you there if you come out!