Photos are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Y6hbVun651LwJAKQ6

Before the Start:  My 52^nd race of 2025 was the Little Comets 5K held on August 23 in Castroville, Texas. I had originally signed up for Beat The Heat 5K in Kyle, Texas, but that one got canceled, so I was going through ‘no-weekend-race withdrawals”, lol, until I thankfully found this one. This run/ walk is the kickoff to a weekend of events leading up to St. Louis Day. All proceeds from this run/walk go to benefit the St. Louis Catholic School field trip fund. This was a self-timed event held at Houston Square in Castroville, with a start time of 8 a.m.  Since I am directionally challenged – even after given directions, lol – I got a very early start, driving from where I live near the San Antonio airport down to Castroville; and, of course, me being me, I missed my turn when I got to town and had to regroup and go back. I finally got to Houston Square, WAY early at 7:15 a.m. and there was nobody there yet.  There was one guy walking in this park and he told me it might be at that park down the road – if I remember the name correctly, it is Koenig Park –  so I went down there. There were a few people there and one of them was doing the 5K too and told me I had been in the correct place, it was at Houston Square; I was just so early, I arrived before everyone else, even the organizers. He and I chatted a bit, and then I went back to Houston Square and there were now people out there setting up the start/finish line, tables, etc. I provided a bit of help to a couple of them putting up tents, and then more of the organizers arrived, as well as more participants, so I got myself pre-start organized and then took a few photos before the start while chatting with volunteers and other participants. This is also a dog-friendly event so, since I have a pocketful of dog treats, as I usually do when I run, with the permission of their humans, I handed out a few treats; I was very popular with the dogs, lol.

On the course:  I am not too familiar with Castroville, so I was not sure what to expect. We started in the very large parking lot at Houston Square. Our route was a kind of loop-course that took us through a very nice residential area with wide streets.  I did my usual 8-minutes-run/2-minutes-walk thing – can’t run nonstop anymore due to some spinal arthritis – and got some on-course photos during my walk breaks. The course was all paved roads, wide enough to accommodate a lot of people, so we had plenty of maneuvering room. For the most part, the course was pretty flat – but whomever laid out the course put a pretty long uphill after the 1-mile mark; it really was not all that steep, just long. After getting up that, we made a right turn onto another road, mostly flat, thank goodness, and lol, and went down this for quite a ways.  There were several dogs in their yards cheering us on, so I handed out a few more treats. After going down this road we then made a right turn and went on a road that was a down incline; again, not steep at all, just long.  This brought us to a turn onto a flat road, where we hit the Mile 2 marker, and also passed by some spectators at the side of the road bawking cheers at us – chickens, and one rooster, lol, and the next intersection had a small, very friendly black kit in its yard, who came right up to me when I stopped to get its photo. I gave it a behind-the-ear scratch and continued on. After the Mile 2 marker, we got to an intersection where we turned right, and this took us past a small movie theater and then down to a left turn onto another road. After going down this road, we made another left turn, and this took us back to the finish line at Houston Square.  Per my garmin, I ended up with a finish time of 43:21, averaging 13:51 per mile.    

After My Finish: I stood near the finish line and got a photo of another guy coming in, that I had been running off-and-on with for the last mile. I’d stop for a walk break, he’d pass me; he’d take a walk break, I’d pass him back, and so it went. After that, I got some water, did a short cool-down walk and then got some after-photos of some of the happy finishers, volunteers, supporters, etc.; and yes, handed out more dog treats, lol.     

Epilogue:  This is the first time I’ve ever done this event, so I was not sure quite what to expect. I ended up liking it a lot.  This is a well-organized event with a really nice course and lots of friendly people, one of the ‘friendliest events I’ve ever done. Participants also got a very nicely designed race shirt – except for me, lol, but that’s on me; I do so many events over a year’s time that I am running out of race-shirt drawer space so these days I usually order a youth medium or small shirt and tell the organizers to keep it and just donate it, which I did today too, asking them to just give the shirt to one of their students; or I just save them up and when I get enough of them, I then donate them to Morgan’s Wonderland – since I was also a disabled kid, so know how that goes – or to the kids at the cancer ward of Children’s Hospital in San Antonio. I also do the same with any finisher medals I get at races. I would definitely do this one again and would recommend it to others.

Mucho thanks to all who made this one happen for we participants: my friends at Athlete Guild, which hosted the online registration for this one; all the event organizers and volunteers out there for us; thanks also to the neighborhood residents for their patience as we invaded their space for a while; and I saw a couple of patrol cars along the course at times, so thanks for them watching out for us; and thanks to anyone else involved that I may not have mentioned here.  This will be my last race for about a week, as I have to take a break to get treated on the 27^th for a recurrence of skin cancer, and my doc told me NO running for 5 days after that; my poor wife will have to deal with my ‘running withdrawals’ for that week, lol.  My next scheduled 5K is the Whine Run on Labor Day, put on by the San Antonio RoadRunners.  See you there, if you are doing that one. May you all stay safe, happy, and healthy and achieve all your personal goals you’ve set for yourselves.