Photos are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/VXGUHFdRHpUiKnNM8

Before the Start: My 70^th race of 2025 was the Trails Fur Tails 5K, held on November 2, 2025, at McAllister Park. This race supports the Alamo Area Partner for Animal Welfare (AAPAW) is “a coalition of local organizations working together to improve the lives of animals in the region. Its mission includes coordinating rescue efforts, increasing spay and neuter activities to combat overpopulation, and working to ensure homeless animals are adopted.”   This was a fairly smaller event with 50 finishers, 15 males and 36 females. It felt more like a group of friends getting together to have a nice outing in the park.  Race start time was 9 a.m., so I got to sleep in a bit, as I live very close to McAllister Park. I arrived with about an hour to go, got my race packet, and then enjoyed chatting with participants, supporters and volunteers, and getting a few pre-start photos. The weather was sunny and bright, with temp of around 61 degrees at the start, which was considered pretty chilly for we South Texans, as our temps the days before this were in the high 60s in the morning and 80s in the pm. Several of us were wearing a base-layer shirt, lol, including me; I’d rather be too hot than too cold.

On the course:    There was a kids run before the start of the main course, and then we got going after that.   The course was nicely laid out by the Athlete Guild folks and was a mix of a kind of loop and out-and-back. We started near the pavilion by the lower soccer fields at the park that took us down an asphalt road and then onto one of the park’s off-road paved trails. This wound us behind the soccer fields, and then onto a trail that took us past Becken Pavilion in the park. We made a turn after the pavilion and that put us onto a trail that took us up by a police substation that is adjacent to the park. There was a water station at this point, so thanks to those volunteers out there. We continued down the trail, going away from the water station.  The trail looped us around quite a bit until we finally came to one of the park’s main roads. We crossed that, going onto a trail on the other side, and then we had a long, winding loop that finally brought us back to the first trail we had turned on after we started. After exiting this trail, we were back on the park road and a short sidewalk that took us back to the finish line in reverse of the way we had started. I ran most of the last mile non-stop, with another guy in my age group running ahead of me. I was trying to catch up to him, but he heard me, lol, and put it into high gear and finished quite a bit ahead of me.  We had a nice laugh together about that after we finished.

After My Finish:  I stood near the finish line and go a few photos of others coming in. After that, I went in search of water and just relaxed for a few minutes as I drank some water and a Gatorade I had brought with me. I then went wandering around chatting with people there and getting some after-photos of fellow participants, volunteers, supporters, etc., and handed out some more treats to the doggies there.   There was an awards ceremony with prizes given to the overall male and female and to those who placed first in each age group – and the guy I had been chasing was the first in our age group, which was 60-99 males. Congrats to him! 

Epilogue: This is a nicely done event put on by AAPAW and Athlete Guild; very nice course; nicely designed race shirt; nice awards for the overall winners and age-group winners; and lots of post-race snacks and liquids, that included water, some Gatorade, and I think there was orange juice too, and snacks like  single-serving bag of crackers, nuts, and so forth, bananas and other things. All finishers got a really nice finisher medals and the race shirts are nicely designed. I do so many races now that I don’t have any more room in my shirt drawers, lol, so I usually request a kid’s shirt for my races and then when I get enough of them, I donate them to disabled kids at Morgan’s Wonderland and/or the kids with cancer at San Antonio Children’s Hospital.  Mucho thanks to all who made this one happen for we participants, e.g., AAPAW and all their volunteers; Athlete Guild for setting everything up for us, and doing the timing and results; the law enforcement officers that were out there for our safety; the patience of all the other park patrons also using the trails as we invaded their space for a while;  and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here. Whatever your passion may be, may you always be successful at it, meeting whatever goals you’ve set for yourself and may you always stay healthy enough to keep at it.