Photos are here:    https://photos.app.goo.gl/KQFazx1yxUpzfYjLA     

Before The Start:  My 9^th race of 2026 was Be My Valentine 3.4 miler held on February 15^th at McAllister Park, with a 9:30 a.m. start.  This was my 2^nd race of the weekend after having done Cupid’s Chase 5K the day before at the San Antonio Zoo. I liked that 9:30 start time as Cupid’s Chase had us reporting to the Zoo very early, so  I got to sleep in a bit for this one as I live very close to McAllister Park. Put on by Hurache Turbo, an affiliate company of San Antono-based race management company iaap, this event featured a 6.9 mile relay run or walk, 2 team members per team, or one could choose t do the 6.9 miler individually; and a 3.4 mile run or walk.  Iaap did the timing and results.  My friend, Paul, was also at this one as our ‘sound man’, doing his usual great job of playing some tunes for us and more. For this one, I decided to have fun with it and do it in costume.  I arrived at the race site with just over an hour to go to the start time; got my packet and then got a few pre-start photos of some of the volunteers, attending sponsor representatives, and some of the participants that were also already there, as well as race supporters of the participants, e.g., their spouses, friends, etc.  As participants and supporters continued to arrive, I chatted with some of them and continued to get some pre-start photos until it was time to get going on the course.  The weather was really nice, with bright sunshine and blue skies, and a temp of 61 degrees at start time. The wind was blowing pretty good, but the course had us between several wooded areas, which made for a nice windbreaker. 

On The Course:  All the courses were out-and-back starting and finishing near the lower soccer fields at McAllister Park.  All participants started together. The course took us parallel to the soccer fields, then down a short paved trail that went past the park’s youth baseball field.  After exiting this path, we then went onto one of the park’s paved roads. This was a very long road that took us in the direction of Becken Pavilion and we went past the Mile 1 marker on this road. We did no go all the way up to Becken Pavilion. Instead, we made a left turn off the road onto a paved trail that took us in the direction of the police sub-station location on Jones Maltsberger Road near the park.  For us 3.4 miler participants, our turn-round was on this trail, and to our left we had a view of part of the police sub-station across a field on our left. After making the turn-round, we went back to the finish exactly the same way we had come out. I did my usual run/walk thing of 8-min-run/2-min-walk and took some on-course photos during my walk breaks. I was running in-costume, so got lots of cheers and whistles, lol, as I went along.  After the turn-round I got ambitious and pretty much ran non-stop back to the finish.

After the finish:  There were 125 finishers for the  3.45 miler; 46 for the relay run; and 43 who did the 6.9 miler individually. For my 3.4 miler I ended up with a chip time of 48:11, good enough for 3^rd out of 5 in my 70-99 males age group. For this one, awards were given only to the top 3 overall males/females in each category, which was fine with me. There was also a post-race costume contest, which I won “by applause” which was pretty cool. I got a very nice bottle of wine – which I gave to my wife after getting home as I am not much of a wine drinker – and also got a cash award of $100, nice; that I kept, lol. On the way home, I made a stop at H-E-B  – still in costume, lol – to pick up a few things and got quite a few laughs and smiles as I went along; it was pretty funny, and all good.

Epilogue:  This is a really nicely done event, well managed by our Race Director, Ceci Iñiguez, Our MC was Lana Hernandez, who did a great job for us.  The course is very user friendly, with room for all and, as noted, we had some really nice weather for it. All participants got a really nice finisher medal.  The ‘race shirt’ is actually a really nice light-weight sweatshirt of really good quality. I would certainly do this one again and recommend it to others.  BTW, Lana also manages the upcoming Street2Feet 5K, training program that promotes spiritual, mental and physical health among individuals experiencing homelessness. It’s a well-done event for a good cause, so I’m giving it a plug here.

Many thanks to all those involved who made this one happened for us.  This includes all those out there for we participants, including iaap doing the timing and results, our sound guy Paul, doing his usual great job for us; the law enforcement officers there for our safety; all the vendors/sponsors who supported this event; medical folks there for us, just in case; and anyone else involved I may not have mentioned here. Thank you all!

Whatever your passion is, may you always be successful and stay healthy and injury-free to keep on doing it. If you’re a fellow runner, maybe I’ll see you at a future event.  Give me a shout-out; love chatting with fellow runners and we might even get a photo together.  Stay happy, stay safe.