Photos are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/UtKtZjcF3JfbMNWE8

Before The Start: My 16^th race of 2023 was the Shamrock Shuffle 5K, a St. Patrick’s Day-themed event held on March 16^th at Lady Bird Johnson Park in San Antonio. There was also a kid’s run prior to the start of the 5K..  Put on by local running store/race management company iRun Texas, this event started around 8:20 a.m.   Weather forecasters were predicting possible stormy weather, but our area got lucky, with the storms pretty much moving east and north of us.  Considering what might have happened, we actually had some pretty nice weather, with a temp of hovering between 62 and 64 degrees, lots of overcast skies, and just some occasional off-and-on sprinkling on us.  Considering there were quite a few other events done on this day in areas along the San Antonio-Austin Corridor, this one had a really nice turn-out, with 328 finishers for the 5K. Timing and results were done by Split Second Timing, an iRun associated company, with the results posted on the RunSignUp website. I arrived around 7: 30 a.m. – nice to sleep in a tad, as I only live 3 miles from LBJ Park – and got a few pre-start photos as I wandered around chatting with friends, volunteers, and other participants.

On The Course:  Out-and-back course starting from the main park area.  We did a loop around the park’s traffic circle and then headed onto the park’s paved concrete trails that are part of the San Antonio Greenways Trail System.  The course was mostly flat with just a couple of short inclines, nothing you can really call a hill; we went down one from the parking lot to get to the trails; then down one and up another one on the way to Mile 1, and then did that in reverse on the way back to the finish.  The course took us by the Los Patios shopping area as we went to our turn-round, which was a frontage road for highway Loop 410; we turned around at the frontage road and went back to the finish the way we had come out, completing the course by going once more around the traffic circle on the way to the finish line.  I did my usual 8-min-run/2-min-walk thing and took photos during my walk breaks.  After making the turn-round, I pretty much ran non-stop to the finish, with just a quick stop for a couple more photos, and then got back at it.  Out of the 5 males in my 70 – 99 age group, I was really surprised to learn I had placed first with a chip time of  40 minutes, 54 seconds, averaging 12:52 per mile, and my last mile was done in 12:42, nice.   I am still dealing with some side effects from my prostate cancer treatments that I had, 2021 to 2022, so my recent race results from my last 3 events make me feel that I have finally turned the corner and am slowly but surely getting back to my pre-cancer running self.  I still have a ways to go, but positive progress is always good to see.

After My Finish: I got a few photos of others coming into the finish and then enjoyed some post-race treats, chatting post-race with others there, and getting some post-race photos. The park has a very nice pavilion area, so we had a covered roof to stand/sit under, as we still had some spotty off-and-on precipitation, but it was not even really enough to get you wet at all, so lucky in that regard.  Awards ceremony was nicely done by Garrett, the new owner of iRun a really nice guy, doing a splendid job. Keeping with the theme of the event, the age group awards were all live shamrock plants put into some soil in a small ceramic container.  As a side note on this: if you were a placer and got one, don’t let your pets get hold of it; shamrock plants are not cat-and-dog-friendly and will make them sick if they ingest it, so put it safely somewhere out of their reach.   They are really nice-looking small plants, though. 

Epilogue: Very nicely done event by iRun, well organized and, from what I saw at any given time, everything went great. This is an event with a very friendly atmosphere, pretty nice quality race shirt, finisher medals for all finishers, and race-themed age group awards. There were a few vendors on hand for this one, including a sports massage vendor, but  did not notice if they were giving post-race massages.  I would definitely do this one again, and would recommend it to others. Mucho thanks to all the people that made this one happen for we participants, including iRun; Second Split Timing; all the race day volunteers, and all the sponsors; our MC, Mark Purnell, doing his usual great job; and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here.  Thank you all.