Photos are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/vsHqJumJzCdLWTkr7
Before the Start: My 75th race of 2025 was the 14th annual Boerne Family YMCA Turkey Trot 5K held on Boerne, Texas on Saturday, November 22nd. The 10K start time was 8 a.m. with the 5K following at 8:15 a.m. Of these 14 annual 5Ks, I’ve completed 13 of them. I had an ankle stress fracture one year, so had to miss the one held that year, ending my ‘streak’ of this event. There was also a 10K and a kid’s run. Due to the perpetual ongoing road construction going on in San Antonio for Interstate 10 and Loop 1604, with highway closures starting early for this weekend, I left very early before the road crews closed everything off for the weekend. Thankfully, this was good planning, as I was able to avoid the closures before they began and had smooth driving to the race site, which was the Boerne Town Center; so smooth that I arrived around 6:30 a.m, so got some nice parking close to the town center. There were already several race organizers, vendors, sponsors, etc. there, setting up their areas. Race day packet pickup, if I remember correctly was scheduled to start at 7 a.m., so I wandered around the Town Center grounds for a while, chatting with some of the sponsors/vendors/organizers and some other participants who had also arrived early and got a few pre-start photos. It was then time for me to get my packet but, just before I headed over there, one of the race volunteers came right up to me with my goodie bag, telling me, “Here’s your packet, Scottydog.” Now that’s service, lol. I guess regularly doing this event pays off, most of the volunteers and organizers know me. After getting my race bib on, and getting organized, I then wandered around again, getting some more pre-start photos. This is also a dog-friendly event, so I treated some dogs with soft, chewy dog-biscuits, with the permission of the humans of the dogs. This is a very popular event that always has a huge turn-out. The 5K each year gets the most signup and this year was no exception; There were 1,019 finishers for the 5K, wow, compared to the 10K, which had 69 finishers.
On the course: The 10K folks started 15 minutes before the 5K. We 5K participants then started around 7:15 a.m. The weather was just about perfect, with a temperature hovering in the upper 60s, low 70s, and a humidity of only 56%, very nice; it felt very comfortable. The course was done on paved roads and concrete/cement sidewalk. I pretty much tried to stay on the paved roads as my spinal arthritis can really feel that darn concrete pounding. I did my usual thing of 8-minutes-run/2-minutes-walk and took some on course photos during my walk breaks. From the start line, we did a short half-loop on the paved roads around the square and then made a left turn that took us through a parking area and then onto one of the nearby residential roads, passing some really nice houses along the way. For the most part the course was fairly flat, with a couple of long inclines along the way, but nothing you could really call a hill. I am going to show some of these photos to my race director friends, Bart (Scallywompus races) and Erik (e-Dragon races) in San Antonio and tell them “See, you CAN have a race without hills.” I think they cut the word ‘flat” out of their dictionaries, lol. I felt good for the whole way, with no issues, after have a few “medical incidents” the week before this event, which I did get taken care of and my docs did clear me to run. I pretty much ran the last mile non-stop and right before the finish the last part of the course was a fairly steep uphill, but thankfully, it was also pretty short. After we crested that, we then had a very flat road that took us the last .2 of the course to the finish line. I ended up with a chip time of 42:18. I was 6th of 18 in my 70-99 males age group, and overall I was the 571st finisher out of the 1,019 finishers. Crazy, right? As noted, very busy and popular event.
After My Finish: I got a few photos of some others coming in and then, staying out of the way of others still on the course I went back to the crest of that short hill we had to climb just before finishing and got some photos of others coming up the hill. After that it was back to the Town Square grounds to get some refreshment – they even beer post-race and lots of other goodies too – and began meandering around chatting with other participants and their friends/family members who were there to support them; vendors and sponsors; and also handed out some more treats to the doggies. Our MC and sound man – who both knew me from my doing this race so many years – announced that this was my 75th race of the year, which I thought was nice of them, and couple of the sponsors gave me some discount tickets for their products, very nice. With this many participants, the awards ceremony went on quite a while – overall winners and first 3 in each age group got awards. I chatted with one participant who is 89 years old and turning 90 pretty soon, wow. He did the 5K. I told him they should have just handed him his award right at the start, lol; that is awesome that he’s out there doing this. I want to be like him when/if I get to that age.
Epilogue: This is one of my very favorite events of the year, which I will continue to keep regularly on my race calendar as long as I am able to run/walk. All finishers got a finisher medal, and the medal is really nicely designed. The race shirt is very nice quality; a long-sleeved tech shirt. I do so many races that I’ve pretty much run out of shirt drawer space, but this one I’m keeping. I will give this one to a friend who does my “self-motivation” printing on my race shirts – I BEAT CANCER! NEVER GIVE UP! – and, the Lord willing, will wear this one to next year’s event. The other nice thing about this event is that it is a YMCA oriented event and there is a YMCA in Boerne. I am a member of the YMCA so post-race I was able to go to the Boerne YMCA, check in, and take a nice shower and change into dry clothes before going on my drive back to San Antonio, sweet.
Much thanks to all who made this one happen for us participants, e.g., all the many organizers it takes to do this event; my personal friends from race management company Athlete Guild, who did the course setup, timing, and results; the many law enforcement officers along the course for our safety; the bike lead folks for the speedy runners; our MC and Sound Guy; the young ladies right before the start who did a great job of presenting the colors for The National Anthem; the patience of the residents who lived along the course as we horde of participants passed through their neighborhoods; and the patience of the drivers too, as parts of course roads were still open to traffic; all our course marshals out there for us, as well as the water station volunteers – although they didn’t have any beer there, lol; 😉 – and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here. Thank you, all! The Lord willing, and the creek don’t rise, I’ll see you next year if you participate, help, volunteer, etc. Oh, and one more tip: there is an actual indoor restroom at one end of the square, and there were a few porta-potties too near the restroom. My advice: use the porta-potties; they were actually much cleaner than that restroom, lol, which was in pretty bad shape, especially the stall. Whatever your health passion is, whatever your chosen form of working out is, I wish all of you the success and to always stay healthy and injury-free.
Maybe I’ll see you at a future event sometime.
Scottydog Reports 