Photos are here:         https://photos.app.goo.gl/uA62Va9sjNUACRM89

Before the Start:  My 61^st race of 2025 was Veronica’s Journey 5K, held on Sunday, September 28^th in Shavano Park, Texas, a small city located just off of Northwest Military Highway. This event is named for Veronica Finne, a 13- month-old who battled Ependymoma,, a form of brain cancer, but sadly lost her battle after 11 months. Her parents established the Veronica N. Finnie endowment fund at the Catholic Community Foundation (CCF) and the Veronica Nicole Finnie Fund for Families and Children to support those in need and provide resources for families, in memory of their daughter. It also supports Veronica’s Boutique, a free program for pregnant and parenting families that provides parenting education and material assistance for pregnant and parenting families. The Catholic Charities Archdiocese of San Antonio supports this program.  Packet pickup and race-day registration was held at the pavilion near the Shavano Park City Hall offices. I was not able to do the packet pickup on Saturday, as I was still in downtown San Antonio after doing the Head For The Cure 5K, which raises funds for brain cancer research. I arrived at the City Hall around 7:30 a.m.  area and got my packet from the volunteers doing race day registration pickup. Prior to the start, there was a mass held at the pavilion. I am not Catholic, but I respectfully waited until it was was done and then gave my race shirt from Head For the Cure and my finisher medal and my shirt from this 5K also to the priest and asked him to donate it to a family who may have a child who was dealing with brain cancer, and maybe it would bring them some luck. I do so many races that I my drawer space is full of race shirts, so I usually ask for a youth-size shirt, and then donate them, as well as my finisher medals,  to various charities; usually to Morgan’s Wonderland, since I was a disabled kid myself, or to the cancer kids at San Antonio Children’s Hospital. After the Mass, I enjoyed pre-race chatting with friends there that I knew, and other participants, an getting a few pre-start photos.

On the course: The course was out-and-back.  There was a total of 79 finishers for this event, runners and walkers.  There was also a Kid’s Run right before the start of the main event. We went across the street from the City Hall area, with the help of a very nice woman police officer who was doing traffic control for us.  The start/finish line chute was set up on a street in this neighborhood across from City Hall, where my friends from local race management company IAAP, had set up the timing mat, start\finish chute, etc.  I took a group photo of them and then chatted with other participants and some of the start/finish line volunteers and got a few more photos.  Participants then lined up for the start, and we got onto the course at about 8:15 a.m.  The weather was really nice; clear skies and a nice temperature of around 68 degrees, as a cool front had moved in the night before; sweet. The course was done on paved roads in a really nice neighborhood with some really beautiful homes along the way.  I did my usual 8-minutes running/2-minutes-walking intervals and took some photos during my walk breaks. This event is also dog-friendly, so I handed out a couple of treats to the dogs who were participating with their humans. The first ¼ mile or so was nice and flat before we had to climb a not-so-steep hill – more like a long up incline than a hill – and then we were on level ground again for a while and then went down a steeper hill, as we wound through this very nice neighborhood.  As I went along, I saw my very speedy friend, Bob, already heading for the finish and got a photo of him, and then of my other speedy friend, Woody, as he came along too.  After that,  the participants were pretty spread out over the course. There was a water stop near mile 1 and I jokingly asked he guy where the beer was; he jokingly replied back “We sent someone to get it but he hasn’t come back yet.”  Lol.  Sometimes I was in the company of a few other participants, other times I was running by myself. After we came to a water stop, we then started down a hill…..a LONG hill and fairly steep too. Once we got down this, we were on flat ground again, went around a curve, and then got to the 5K turn-round. Of course, this meant that long steep downhill on the way out was now a long uphill for us – quite long, lol.  Even so, I was feeling pretty good – and I do hill training at least once a week – so decided I was going to push myself for this last half of the course and just go to the finish nonstop. We had another fairly steep part of the course to climb, got around that, and then were on up incline we had shortly after the start, which was now a down incline for us.  I could hear cheering going on so, from that, and the distance I saw on my Garmin, I knew  I was fairly close to the finish now, so pushed myself a bit more. I ended up crossing the finish line with a chip time of 42:44, averaging 13:45 per mile and my last mile was a negative split of 12:51, nice. I ended up first out of 4 in my 70-99 males age group.

After My Finish:  After getting some water and doing a short cool-down walk, I then stood back from the timing mat and got a few photos of others finishing. After that, I wandered here-and-there, chatting with others and getting some more after-photos of participants, volunteers, etc.  Finally, it was time to return back across the street to the City Hall pavilion for post-race activities. One of our participants sang an Hispanic song for us – she was really good too – and there was also a group of folklórico dancers that entertained us, wearing cultural dress. They were really good too.  The awards ceremony was then started. They began with the youngest participants first, jeez, so I knew I’d be there quite a while before they got to my age group.  Race directors really need to learn to start with the older age groups first, so we can get home and take our needed naps after all this exercise, lol. Epilogue:  This is a really nicely done event for a really great cause. Veronica’s parents, whom I met at earlier Veronica’s 5K events, are super-nice people; her father was actually driving the shuttle bus for today’s event, picking up people from where the parking was located and brining them to the race area.  I so feel for him and his wife;  you never get over losing a child, you just learn how to live with it, day-by-day, as I found out after losing my first wife and 4-month old son to a drunk driver. I am so grateful to them for helping establish this event to help those in need. I try to do this one every year but missed a few due to some cancer bouts I had to deal with myself. Never-the-less, I will continue to do this one whenever I can; and I certainly would recommend it to others.  It’s a smaller event, participant-wise, making it feel like a group get-together of a bunch of running friends out to support a great cause, making it feel very personal; it would be nice if it grows in number, which would help raise more funding and more awareness, but then if it gets too large, it might have to be relocated and also might lose that ‘personal touch” you feel with a smaller group of participants.  Either way, though, I will be there for this one whenever I can.   This is a good event with a nice course; challenging in places, but nice, lol; very nice quality race shirt; finisher medals for all finishers; and unique small plaque-type age group awards  A Lots of nice things post-race too:  the dancers and the lady who sang for us; there was also a taco truck there; and post-race ice cream too; and there was a vendor fair right near the City Hall area, for those who might be interested in that. Mucho thanks to all who made this one happened for we participants:  the Finnie family; the Catholic charities organizations; all the many volunteers; the law enforcement folks out there for our safety; the race sponsors, vendors, etc.,  the patience of the residents whose neighborhood we invaded for a few hours; iaap for the timing and results; and anyone else involved not mentioned here. Thank you all!  Whatever your exercise passion is, may you always be successful at it and safely enjoy it