Photos are here:        https://photos.app.goo.gl/QbeJAvN42AzrnPCv8     

Before the Start:  My 65^th race of 2025 was the CleftStrong 5K held on Sunday, October 12^th at Eisenhower Park in San Antonio, Texas. Per the race website “The Cleftstrong 5k is the primary fundraising event for CleftStrong, a 501c3 non-profit organization which works to promote a healthy understanding of cleft lip/palate and other craniofacial conditions, create events that foster hope, motivation, and connection for those in the cleft community, and raise money to advance cleft patient care and medical research.”   The event featured an opening ceremony, with some info provided on the reasons for this event; the singing of The National Anthem; and then  the starting of the events, which included Kids Run, the 5K, and an untimed 1-mile walk. The kid’s run started first and then the 5K and 1-mile walkers started after that, with an 8:30 a.m. start. I had picked my race packet up on Friday, so after arriving, got some pre-start photos. The race start/finish area was quite busy, as there was race day registration, and there was a total of 235 finishers for the 5K, so a nice turn-out.

On the course:  We started right on time at 8:30 a.m.   The weather, although a bit humid, was very cooperative temperature-wise with a nice temp of around 68 degrees, which is a ‘cool-front’, lol, for San Antonio at this time of year. The course was an out-and-back and was open to other users of the park, e.g., walkers, other runners, cyclists, even saw a couple of roller-bladers – not doing the event. We 5K folks started in the pavilion area of the park, then a short jaunt across part of the parking lot, and then onto the park’s asphalt paved trails. The asphalt trail connected us with the concrete Greenway trails of the park. For the first half-mile or so, the course was fairly flat, and then we started climbing. I’ve done events on this course before, so I knew what to expect, and these hills on the course, both uphill-and-downhill, were no baby hills, lol.  They were not ‘super-steep’, straight up, but some were pretty long, so everyone doing this course got a really good workout for sure. I did my usual run/walk thing  – can’t run nonstop for any long length of time anymore, due to my spinal arthritis – 8-minutes-run/2-minutes-walk and took some on-course photos during my walk breaks and, as this is a dog-friendly event, handed out some treats any dogs I saw, with the permission of their humans . Overall, I was feeling pretty good and went along pretty well. Per my Garmin I did Mile 1 in 14:31, Mile 2 in 13:59, and Mile 3 in 13:01, as I pretty much ran that last mile non-stop. For that last mile, I was pretty much running with these two young lads, maybe 7 to 10 years old, and wow, I wish I had half their energy, lol. They’d stop to walk for a bit as I kept running and then suddenly they were there running again and passing me. This went on right to the finish, with me encouraging them on, and right near the finish they really picked up their pace and left me eating their dust, as they finished a good 2 minutes ahead of me; good for them. I ended up with a chip-time of 42:45, which was good enough to be first out of the 3 in my 70-99 males age group. 

After My Finish: I stood near the finish line and got a few photos of others finishing and then got a banana and some Gatorade and went to my car and sat for a few minutes enjoying those, with the a/c on to help cool me down.  After that, it was back to pavilion area to get some after-photos and enjoy chatting with other participants and some of the sponsors, supporters, volunteers, etc. The award ceremony was nicely done, and they did start with we older folks first, thankfully; we need to get home to take our nap after a workout like this, lol.

Epilogue:    The CleftStrong folks who put this one on did a really good job. It is a very well-thought out course, with the trails wide enough to accommodate a lot of people; the race shirt is nicely done, and both the finisher medal, put into the race packet, and the award medal are well done too; nothing really fancy, just a nice little medal, which is great, so more funds I hope, can go to their cause.   try to do this one each year that I can.  It is for a great cause and their organization, which includes medical associations and several doctors and other medical folks, as well as numerous volunteers, do such a good job in helping those in need. This one will be a ‘main-stay’ event for me as long as I am able to keep on being a runner. Mucho thanks to all who made this one happen for we participants, e.g., CleftStrong: all the many volunteers – including the bike leads who lead the 5K leading runners;  that must have been quite a bike workout on those hills; all the sponsors supporting this event; the law enforcement folks that were out there for our safety; iaap for the start/finish line setup and doing the race results; and thanks to the patience of all the course users not doing the event, as we invaded their space for quite a while.; and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here; thank you all! May you all stay safe and healthy and meet all your personal goals you’ve set for yourself.  Maybe you will see me at a future event sometime; if so, give me a shout-out and we can chat and maybe get a photo together.  Next up for me is the Palloween Hustle 5K at Palo Alto College. I just hope I can find the place, lol, since I seem to be directionally challenged at times.