Photos are here:    https://photos.app.goo.gl/kwATDEeJbSaZxjWx6

Before the Start: My 46^th 5K of 2025 was the e-Dragon Summer Series 5K, Race #5, held on July 27^th at Pearsall Park in San Antonio. The Summer Series had a total of 5 races – all 5Ks –  over June and July, each one held at a different park in San Antonio different, giving participants a nice look at these parks,  which are all part of the San Antonio Greenway Trails  system.  Events were held on Sunday mornings, with packet pickup from 6 to 7 am, and the races starting promptly at 7 a.m. I completed 4 of the 5.  For this one at Pearsall Park, since I am ‘directionally challenged” lol, my wife ran map-quest on her phone and gave me the directions to get there. I live near the airport, so mentally it seemed ‘forever’ to get there, since I had to go all the way down Loop 410 in San Antonio; the directions were spot-on, though, and I found the park, got my packet, and then got a few pre-start photos, and handed out a few dog treats, as this is a dog-friendly event.  There were 118 finishers for this event.

On the course:   The National Anthem was played, and we started right on time. The course was mostly paved concrete trails, with just a bit of off-road gravel-and-dirt trails, which, lol, made me silently swear at my friend who had assured me this would be all paved trails, since I am not supposed to run ‘offroad” trails because of my spinal arthritis, unless they are really mild trails; thankfully this did turn out to be the case for the off-road parts, they were pretty mild; the majority of the course was on paved trails. I did my usual thing of run-8-minutes/walk 2-minutes and took some on-course photos during my walk breaks. The course connected with another part of the park, where we got onto some very wide trails and also had a few hills to negotiate, but nothing really extreme;  a couple of them were long ups-and downs, but not really all that steep.  After the water station on the course, I headed for the turn-round, and people coming toward me called out there was no turn-round sign on the course, so turn-round at “the stick’ that had been put onto the trail by a runner. I found this kind of hard to believe, as my friend, Erik – Mr. e-Dragon, co-owner of e-Dragon Productions – is really good about marking the course; never-the-less, I followed these shouted-out instructions from the runners already heading for the finish and turned around at that stick. My friend, Rick, coming behind me, told me I had not gone far enough, and it turned out he was right.  I ended up running nonstop most of the way back to the finish, with just a few quick photo stops, and then got to the finish. When I crossed the finish line, my garmin had my distance at 2.68, not 3.1, so shoot. I did chat with Erik after I finished and said, yes, there is a turn-round on the course, I just did not go far enough out to get to it; darn the luck; I should have just followed my gut feeling and kept going, since I have never known Erik NOT to have a turn-round sign at any race he marks out, but no, I just followed the crowd, as most of the participants did. I ran really well, and felt pretty good the whole way, so that was nice, considering it was my 2^nd 5K of the weekend.  Overall, I ended up being 4^th in my age group.

After My Finish:  I got a few photos of some others coming in and then got some water and a banana and did a short-cool-down walk.  I had also put some Gatorade and water on ice in a cooler in my car, so got that, and sat in my car for a few minutes with the a/c  on, enjoying those on this very humid morning, and then it was back out to the race area to chat with friends and other participants; hand out more dog treats, and get some after-photos.

Epilogue:  I like e-Dragon folks; they put on some really nice quality events; have some very unique age-group awards – a large ‘coin’ for the placers that has a code on the back of it that one can use to get a discount when registering for a future e-Dragon event.  The race shirt is very nice quality and there are also very nice quality finisher medals for all finishers; and even the race bibs are designed very nicely. I will definitely continue to do e-Dragon events – unless it’s an off-road trail run, lol, and e-Dragon certainly has some very challenging events in that area – and I certainly would recommend their events to friends and fellow runners.  Walkers are also welcome at their events.  Mucho thanks to all who helped make this race series happen for all we participants, e.g., e-Dragon staff; all the many volunteers; vendors, and supporters; our MC, friend Anthony Zamoroa; the e-Dragon mascot – the guy in that Dragon costume must have really been QUITE warm on some of those summer days the events were held – and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here.  I am NOT a fan of getting up so early, lol, but the cause is good – awarding a scholarship to a local student – so I probably will continue to do this series in the future. Whatever your exercise passion is, may you always stay healthy and happy doing it and have success in reaching all your personal goals. Maybe I’ll see you at a future event.