Photos are here:     https://photos.app.goo.gl/Kh3HXGsEWcgPqQY27   

Before the Start:  My 57^th race of 2024 was the Paint The Parkway Pink 5K held on October 12^th .  Put on by the Thrivewell Cancer Foundation, this is an event I try to do every year in support of all the ladies who have had breast cancer, are fighting breast cancer, and in memory of all those lost to breast cancer. I have several friends who have dealt with this, and also friends who have succumbed.  All of us probably know someone who has dealt with this diseases.  This year the location changed to the San Antonio Police Training Academy, just off the frontage road of 410 North.  This is a new location for the event, and a very nice location it is too.  This was the first time I’ve ever been to this location so, of course, being directionally challenged, lol,  I missed a turn and had to call my wife who knows where this place is and she stayed on the phone, giving me directions until I finally did find the place. God bless her, she has a lot of patience, living with me every day, lol. I thought this event started at 8 a.m., but found out it was actually 9 a.m., so since I had an early arrival, I got some really nice parking, and then wandered around chatting with race day volunteers, the Foundation people, volunteers, supporters, police cadets, law enforcement and firefighter folks there , vendors/sponsors and other participants and getting some pre-start photos.   It was nice to see foundation director Erin again who, with all her staff and volunteers, makes this one happen for we participants.  She also told me there was a photo of me on the lobby wall at the Thrivewell office. I did not know that. She said it was in honor of me being a survivor too (colon; skin; and my most recent one, prostate) and also for coming out every year and doing these photo race reports on the event.  Awww, so nice of them to do that, thank you.  I’ll have to go check out that photo sometime….since I am so photo-genic, lol.  The gathering area was all decked out with various booths, tables, and so forth, with lots of the sponsors having a lot of give-away items;  there was also coffee, water, and some other drinks and food goodies available for those who wanted them from the various vendors out there. There were also a few pink balloon arches on the grounds.

On the course:   Before the main event started, there was a Kid’s Run and they got a lot of cheering and encouragement as they did their short route near the start/finish line. After that was done, The National Anthem was played and then we went down to the 5K balloon-arch start area. This was planned to be a timed run/walk, as it usually is each year, but one of the volunteers told me the person who was supposed to do the timing had gotten ill the night before; so this turned into an untimed fun-run, which I had no heart-burn about; it is what it is. We started in front of the main building, going underneath our pink balloons arch, and then proceeded out to the paved ‘track”. It was more like a paved trail in a park, this thing was very long, over a mile long, winding all around this way and that.  I did my usual 8-minutes run/2-minutes-walk thing and took photos during my walk break. The first part of the trail had a lot of cracks and uneven parts on it, and I was thinking, good grief, the cadets have to run on this thing? What happens if they trip over one of these uneven surfaces and fall before they even graduate to start police work.  You’d think San Antonio City Council would allocates some fund to repave this darn thing.  Well, I found out after I finished that has been done, and this thing will be repaved this year sometime, so that’s good. The firefighters doing this one ran in formation and, wow, are they speedy; they were waaaay ahead of me, lol. If I’d tried to run with them, they’d kill their finish time by having to stop and give me medical aid, lol. Just after I hit 1.5 miles – which gives you an idea of how long this track is – there was a water station tent set up. I got a cup of water and jokingly asked “What, no beer?”  After the water station, we continued on the track and then went onto a part where the 1-Mile walkers were doing their course.  They stayed to the left and made a turn that took them back to the finish, while we 5K folks went up an incline and then made a left turn and that part of the track took us toward the walkers. We then came off the track onto a paved road. The walkers went left and we went straight on the road.  This took us down an incline, and then we did a short loop that brought us back out to the street farther down, and then back up the road we had come out on, and then a right turn that took us to the finish. Whew!  The course was a tad short – I had 2.9 instead of 3.1, and another participant near me told me she had the same thing- but what the heck, no big deal, since this had become a fun run, so all good. I ended up with a finish time of 38:51, which I was happy with, as usually I finish in the low 40s, with my run/walk and photo taking; and I did run most of the last mile nonstop, ignoring my watch when it beeped for my last walk break. A volunteer handed me my finisher medal and I did a cool-down walk and got some hydration in me, overall feeling pretty good.

After My Finish:   After doing my cool-down, then it was time for me to do Stage 3: my after-photos of the event.  I happily wandered here-and-there, like the good dog I am, lol, chatting with volunteers, other participants, supporters, etc. and getting some more photos.  The Thrivewell folks did have trophies for the top overall male and female and I think they did get theirs. There was supposed to be age-group awards too, but since no timing was done, no results for that; so Race Director Erin cracked me by just randomly selecting people to get these, lol.   “First male in this age group….hey, you look like a first-male winner…here you go… first female in this group” and so forth and handed out the medals that way, lol.  It was quite entertaining and the crowd there got a big kick out of it, applauding and cheering.  Too funny; and a ‘good time’ (no pun intended) was enjoyed by all.

Epilogue:   Since there were no posted results, I don’t know how many participants were there, but it was a LOT, a very nice turn-out with probably several hundred participants, both runners and walkers. The course was busy for quite a while.  This is a great location for this event, and I don’t miss at all the original locations – used to be in Stone Oak area – especially the climbs in that area, and this year’s was one fun location, with the course, the police and firefighter, and all those police officers out there too for us; this is probably the safest 5K ever, in San Antonio, lol.    As I passed by them on the course, I tried to thank every one of them for being there for us. Post-race, all kinds of goodies! There was free food give-aways, including sausage wraps, sandwiches, lots of bottled water, various sweets from some of the vendors, and also item give-aways too, like pens, stickers, buttons, and lots more.  This is just a really super-nicely done event by Thrivewell, one of my very favorite annual events to do; one I will continue to regularly keep on my race calendar.  Thanks so much to all who made this one happen for we participants, e.g.,  Police Training Academy staff, and cadets; all the many-many sponsors and volunteers;  the person flying the drone over us during the event, that was pretty cool watching that thing buzz around; the fire-fighters out there, as well as the medical people on hand, if needed (thankfully none were, I think), and, of course, Thrivewell Foundation people.  Thank you all!  Hope to see you all next year at this one!