Photos are here:        https://photos.app.goo.gl/EpWDJw5hKypT5xmM6  

 Before the Start: My 24^th race of 2025 was the May the 4^th Be With You 4-miler, held on Sunday, May 4^th at Comanche Park in San Antonio.  This was my 2^nd event of the weekend after having done the Run To Remember 5K the day before this one, which was also held at Comanche Park. This event was put on by the San Antonio Roadrunners (SARR), the largest San Antonio-based running organization with over 1, 700 members. SARR provides races, meet-ups, community outreach, and fun-runs. Other distances for this event included a half-marathon, an 8-miler, and an untimed 2-mile fun run.  Costumes were encouraged for this event, so several people were in costume. The half-mile participants started first, followed by the 4-miler participants and then the 2-mile fun run participants. There was also a Kids Run before all the main events got started. I arrived a little before 7 a.m. and got a few pre-start photos as I wandered around chatting with other participants, friends, supporters, vendors, etc., and, as this is a dog-friendly event, handing out some treats to the doggies there. With all these different events, the turn-out was quite nice per iaapweb listed results; 299 finishers for the 4-miler;  70 for the 8-miler; and 111 finishes for the half-marathon.

On the course:  The half-marathon participants started first, followed by the 4-miler and 2-miler participants at 7:30 a.m. For this event, we went in the opposite direction of the course I had done the day before for the Run To Remember, which had a few hills.  As we started out, we could see parts of Rigsby Road on our right. The course for this one was a very flat out-and-back, taking us over a few bridges and under a couple of overpasses. The bridges were pretty stable, except for one on the way that had a bit of “sway” in it as we crossed, even though it was a concrete surface. I have a thing with bridges, and water, lol – during  my running life, I’ve fallen off a couple of of them – thankfully they were not high – ran off the Riverwalk once’ and when I lived in England,I was on a run where I fell into the River Cam near Cambridge University, much to the amusement of the students there.  I did my usual run/walk think of 8-min-run/2-min-walk and took a few photos during each walk break, of participants going out, of some of the speedier participants heading for the finish as I was still going to the 4-mile turn-round point. A few of these speedier folks were the 8-milers and they were really moving. I can only dream of moving at that pace, lol. I felt pretty good the whole way; so good, that I ended up running nonstop most of Mile 3 to the Mile 4 finish.  I ended up 3^rd out of 4 in my 70-79 males age group, with a chip-time of 53:53, averaging 13: 28 per mile. Per my garmin, my last mile was 12:17, nice.

After My Finish:  Got a few photos of others behind me coming into the finish.  Then got some water and wandered here-and-there getting post-race photos of happy finishers, supporters, some of the vendors/sponsors there, and handed out more dog treats.  The awards ceremony was nicely done and age-group finishers got this really nice sort of ‘trophy’-thing that was on a stand; not an actual trophy with handles, but a circular “disc” nicely set in a stand. You’d go up and get your award and then go to the backdrop where one of the official photographers would take your photo.,  Also, as this is star-wars themed, our MC, Anthony Zamora kept occasionally throwing out Star Wars pun joke groaners to us, lol, e.g. How do wookies contact their family members? Wookie-talkies; and so it went, lol.  I stayed around a while longer and got so see my friend, Woody Wilson finish his half-marathon, and some other half marathon folks coming in too.  Woody is quite a talented and speedy runner and usually places. I heard there was some controversy and upset about the half awards, but don’t know anything about that, so will let the half-marathon participants deal with that in their own posts.

Epilogue:   MUCHO thanks to all the people who made this one happen for we participants, including iaap for the start/finish line setup and course setup; doing the timing and results; they always do a great job; thanks to our Music Man, Paul for cranking out the tunes; Anthony Zamora for being MC for this one – and also for the one I did yesterday at this park; all the many sponsors, vendors, etc. that help make the races happen; the Sausage Wrap guy who was out there VERY early setting things up and grilling like crazy so finishers could enjoy those wraps; and, of course, the SARR folks out there for us that got this all-together, from pre-race packet pickup to all the race day activities they had to do; to my friends from Pushbutton Photography who took the ‘official’ race photos; the law enforcement and EMT folks out there for us; and let’s not forget our family members, who put up with our running lives, lol;  anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here. Thank you all!  Whatever your passion is – walking, running, cycling, etc. – may you always stay healthy enough to enjoy it and always stay safe.  Next up for me is the Girls on the Run 5K on May 10^th at Mission County Park, followed by the El Taco Run on May 11^th, also at Mission County Park.  See you there if you are doing either of those.