Photos are here:    https://photos.app.goo.gl/UBfrYUtG7beauL4CA

Before The Start:  My 11^th race of 2026 was the University of Texas at San Antonio Diploma Dash 5K held on Saturday, February 28^th at the UTSA main campus.  As a UTSA staff member, I have done this event for several years.  I have not done them all, as it started in 1985 and I started with UTSA in 1996; but I sure have done a lot of them over the years.  This event raises funds for The UTSA Alumni Association student scholarships. Events included the main 5K; a team 5K; and a 5K with dog category. My friends of top-notch race management company iaap did the course set-up, timing and results. For the 5K, the results show a total  was a total of 1,464 finishers, with females in age group 20-24 having the most participants with 242 finishers in that category, wow.  I saw on-line that the time for this race was listed as 7 a.m., which I thought was the start time, so I got up very early, had some breakfast and then headed to the campus.  When I got there, around 6:30 a.m.,  my timing friends told me the start was actually 8 a.m., but the alumni posted it as 7 a.m., so everyone would arrive early before the course marshals and police closed off the roads for the course; ok, I get it, makes sense; but now I had plenty of time before the start, lol. I wandered around chatting with some of the volunteers and other participants already there, and when it got light enough, I began getting some pre-start photos. This is also a dog-friendly event so, with permission of their humans, I handed out some dog treats to our 4-legged participants.  This is how I got my race/running name of Scotty.  I was doing a race with some friends and stopped to treat some dogs that were in there yard barking at us as we went along. One of my friends shouted at me “Darn it, Scotty, we’re doing a race here! Get back here you darn Scotty Dogg!”  lol.  And the rest, as they say, his history.  People started calling me that, so I took it as my race name. Also, being one of the early arrivals, I did not have to wait in any line to use the restroom, got immediate access, nice. We had access to the Convocation Building restrooms as the start and finish was in front of that building.   Finally, it was time to get going. 

On The Course:   We started right on time. For this one, this was the second 5K I did where I had to behave myself by walking only – no running – as I had a bladder biopsy on February 19, and my urologist that did the procedure told me NO RUNNING for 2 weeks, which would be March 5 from the date of the surgery. I am pretty slow anyway, even running and I do a run/walk method because of my spinal arthritis, so I asked her if that would be okay.  She told me if I did run, it risks the healing procedure because it could cause  a significant bleeding increase in the area where they took the tissue sample, and I probably wouldn’t even know I was bleeding and could end up even passing out and then would have a whole new set of medical issues. Umm, okay….I think I’ll behave myself. When I can run, I normally do 8-min-run/2 minute walk break. For this one I walked 8 minutes and then when my Garming beeped to walk, I kept walking but also used this 2-minute time-frame to get some on-course photos. We started in front of the Convocation Center, turned onto the road in front of it, went to a stop sign, made a right turn, and went past the campus Recreation Center on our left. We then passed some campus tennis courts and went up a fairly long hill, heading in the direction of the Loop 1604 frontage road. At the top of the hill, we made a right turn onto Cook, and this took us down a short hill and past a water station. This part of the course took us past the Main Building on the campus and then onto the road that took us up the very long hill that went up to the campus parking area adjacent to Valero Way.  After getting up the hill, we made a left turn and went down to a turn-round point. After the turn-round we did another short jaunt in the upper parking lot area that took us to the 2-mile marker. We then went down the hill and made a left turn that took us toward UTSA Boulevard. We did not go that far, however; we made a right turn that took us past a parking lot on our left and toward one of the campus bus stops. We then turned left, going up to a campus road that was parallel to UTSA Boulevard. We made a right turn onto this road, and that took us down a hill, where we made another right turn, and we were on a campus road – with UTSA Boulevard behind us –  that took us toward the convocation center. We then turned left into the convocation center parking area, and that took us back to the finish. I noted the time on the race clock and then on my garmin and was surprised that I finished walking this 5K 7 minutes sooner than the first 5K I had walked after my biopsy; nice. I guess I am getting stronger as a walker, lol; but I still am going back to doing my run/walk thing as soon as I am allowed It was also helpful that I did most of the last mile with a very nice couple, and we all just chatted away about this and that as we went along.  With a chip time of 1:06:07, I was dead last in my males 70-99 age group; even so, I was quite happy with this, as I had walked this event almost 6 minutes faster than the last 5K I’d walked after my surgery, nice. Even so…I will be so happy to be running again soon.

After My finish:   I got some water and ate a banana and then I wandered here and there chatting with other participants, volunteers, people from the sponsor companies and people there supporting friends/family members who had done the 5K,  etc., handed out more treats to the dogs there – most of them recognized me, lol, from handing out treats before the start, so I had quite a lot of doggies ‘talking at me” since they knew I had treats.  I ended up getting lots of post-race photos, and lots of people asked to get a photo with me, lord knows why, but I gladly accommodated them – especially the ladies, as photos with them make this old wrinkled dog look good, lol.   I also watched the placer awards being handed out and noticed several of my speedy runner friends placed in this one; congrats to them all.

Epilogue:    As long as I am able to run – or walk if I have to, lol – I will continue to do this event, which is one of my very favorites of the year, and I’ll have lots more time soon as, after 29 years as UTSA Staff, I will be retiring from UTSA at the end of March.   This event is always well-organized; a very nice course that gives you a good ‘tour” of the campus; really nice finisher medals; lots of post-race goodies; indoor restrooms – sure beats porta-potties; very nice quality race shirt; and the camaraderie between all the participants, volunteers, sponsor representatives, etc., is just tremendous; also, dog-friendly, which is a big plus for me, lol.  I would certainly recommend this one to others.

 Many thanks to all who made this one happen for us participants, e.g.,  the Alumni Association for organizing it all; the many volunteers and sponsors it takes to put this event on; all the law enforcement folks out there for us to help keep us safe; iaap for the course setup, timing, and results; the patience of all on campus not doing the event, as we ‘flooded their space” for a few hours; our DJ-and-Sound Guy who did a great job for us, as did our MC too; members of the UTSA Band who were out there  for us; 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.   Maybe I’ll see you at a future event sometime, or maybe you’ll see me, if I don’t see you; whichever, give me a shout-out and we’ll get a photo together for my race report.