Photos are here:   https://photos.app.goo.gl/dYHtLwgLZQbTKqT28        

Before the Start:    My 72^nd race of 2025 was the King’s Compassion 5K held on November 9^th at Southside Lions Park in San Antonio.  This was my 2^nd race of the weekend after doing the Ima’s Home 5K in Helotes on Saturday. King’s Compassion, established in 2011, provides for senior citizens wellness through free services and goods. The organization provides items such as non-perishable food; toiletries, paper goods, and soap goods; seasonal items like fans and heaters, and much more. Start time was 8 a.m.  Being ‘directionally challenged’, I drove the race site the day before, so as not to be late on race day.  My good friend, Woody, kindly connected with me via phone and got me to the correct Southside Lion’s Park, as there was another part of the park that I first went to, where there was a pool and a playground, and that one turned out not to be the race area; Woody’s directions got me to the right one.  On race day, I got up early and drove right to the place and got there pretty quickly, arriving about an hour before start time. I got my race packet and then got some pre-start photos. If I remember correctly, this was the inaugural race for this organization and, per the results listing of iaap, the company that did course setup and timing, there was a total of 96 finishers.

On the course:   We had an 8 a.m. start time, with a temp of 61 degrees, plenty of sunshine and blue skies, and a wind blowing pretty good at times. The event was done on the park’s paved trails, part of the San Antonio Greenway System that connects several San Antonio parks, so you can go a very long distance if you wanted to do so. On the open parts of the course, we could feel the wind, but most of our course was done on trails that had woods on either side of us, giving us a nice wind-break, and it was pretty pleasant going, weather-wise.  Once I got started, I remembered this trail and that I had done some previous races on this course.  I did my usual thing of run-8-minutes/walk-2-minutes and took some photos during my walk breaks. Our route started near the park’s pavilion and took us on these paved trails with a view on our right of the lake by the park.  We reached a point where we crossed over one of the park roads, went onto the paved trails across this street, and then crossed over a bridge that put us onto the trail heading in the direction of Comanche Park. This gave us some up-and-down inclines to negotiate along the way, but nothing you could really call a hill, until we got closer to the Comanche Park area; then we had a fairly long downhill part of the course, and then an long uphill to get to our turn-round point, after we crossed a second bridge on the course. After the turn-round, of course, we went downhill, re-crossed the bridge, and then had a climb up the first hill we’d come down on our way to the turn-round point. After the hill, I came up onto a young lady running by herself, so we ran together for a ways, having a nice chat as we went along. She then saw her husband just ahead of her and went to join him. I passed by them and continued onwards.  For most of the rest of the course, with my two running speeds of slow-and-slower, I pretty much had the trail all to myself almost all the way back to the finish, passing maybe two or three other people still on the course too. After crossing the first bridge we had gone over, I recrossed the park road, made a right turn and headed toward the finish. The lake views were on my left now and I did stop a couple of times to take a couple of different views of the lake.  With ½ mile left, I then went non-stop to the finish, with a brief stop after I whacked my head into a low-hanging tree branch, since I wasn’t paying attention, lol, as I saw a couple walking two beautiful dogs on the side of the park road and was reaching into my pocket to get some dog treats out to give them. Thankfully, at my slow pace I ended up being fine – and I recalled that I’d done this before on this same darn limb at a previous event I’d done here; you’d think I’d have learned my lesson, and been watching out for it, but no, I am still an idiot runner at times, lol, and what can you do? You just have to keep your sense of humor about things and laugh it off; something I do with my running life, that I need to carry over into my “regular life” too, which I don’t always do. I finally did give the doggies their treats and then went nonstop to the finish, ending up with a chip time of 43:25, averaging 13:59 per mile, and Mile 3 for me was a negative split, even with my tree-limb adventure, lol. I was 2^nd out of the two in my age group. The first guy in my age group finished in a speedy 28:09.

After My Finish:  I stood near the finish line and go a few photos of others coming in.  After that, I headed to the park grounds, where two nice ladies who were volunteering handed me a tote bag with some goodies in it, nice. I then wandered around here-and-there chatting with other participants, volunteers, race organizers, running friends that I personally know, etc., getting some after photos, and handing out more treats to the dogs there; I was very popular with the dogs, lol. There was an awards ceremony with the overall male and female winner and each first-place person in the age groups getting awards.   There was also a raffle for various prizes, none of which I won, darn the luck.

Epilogue:  As noted, I believe this was the inaugural race for this organization, and it was very well done. iaap – in my opinion, the top-notch San Antonio-based race management company – did their usual great job with the course, timing, and results. Race Day packet pickup was well organized and went quite smoothly from what I personally saw. The race shirt is very nice quality, and the finisher medal is also very nicely done. I thought it was also a nice touch of volunteers handing each finisher a goodie bag full of stuff as he/she came out of the finish line area. We also had a DJ-Sound guy playing some tunes for us before and after the start; and there were several various types of munchies post-race too. The park restrooms were locked for some reason, but there were a few port-a-potties accessible, with no long waiting lines that I saw. Parking was kind of crazy – as it is as just about all of San Antonio’s parks when there are ongoing organized events – but I got there early enough to find a pretty good spot . I certainly will do this event again in the future and recommend it to others.  Much thanks to all the King’s Compassion staff for putting on this event and doing a fine job for us, and to all others involved in making this event happen, e.g., all the sponsors; the many volunteers; the two Park Police officers that were doing ‘Road Guard” duty at the one road we had to cross on the course; our music and sound guy; iaap folks; the ‘official photographer’ at the event; and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here. May you all stay safe, healthy, and happy; and have success with any goals you set for yourself.  Maybe I will see you at a future race sometime.  Give me a shout-out and we’ll get a photo together. Also, as I was doing this report, my friend Woody, who did the race also, texted me on Monday morning to tell me he’d seen me on TV talking about this event.  I did talk to a couple of the King’s Compassion organizers and some other folks with a camera, but did not realize I’d be on TV, lol. Cool.