Photos are here:   https://photos.app.goo.gl/A39MoYfcdJdiuo657    

Before The Start: My 16^th race of 2025 was the Strides for Sight 5K, held on Saturday, March 28 at Comanche Park #1 on Rigsby Road. The SA Founders Lions Club was the host partner. This event, per the online registration remarks has purpose to “educate and inspire the community about the Gift of Sight, healthy vision, and to build awareness for the resources that partners offer”.  The event was put on by Soler Sports, owned and managed by my friend Lisa Soler. This was an ‘old school” 5K with self-timing and a start time of 10 a.m.  I left home around 8:30, deciding to get there a little early, since I am “directionally challenged” at times, lol, so wanted to give myself plenty of time to get there.  It’s a good thing I did leave early, because after I got there – with no issues, lol; I did remember how to get there – the parking lot was already pretty full. I found fairly good parking close to the start/finish area; got my race packet and then wandered around chatting with other participants that included many running community friends I knew; and handing out treats to the dogs there, as this is a dog-friendly event; and getting some pre-start photos. Along with the 5K run, there was also a 5K walk. I don’t know how many participants there were, but I think Lisa mentioned there was wall over 200 runners and walkers.  Before the start, The Colors were presented and The National Anthem was played, followed by The Pledge of Allegiance.

On The Course:  As usual for me, with my spinal arthritis, I did my thing of 8-minutes-running/2 minutes walking and got some on-course photos during my walk breaks. We started on a grassy area just short of the park’s paved trail. After crossing the start line and getting onto the pavement, we made a left turn onto the paved trails, crossed over a bridge and the course took us in a direction leading toward Southside Lions Park East. The first 1/2 mile or so was fairly flat and then we started going down a pretty long hill.  Upon reaching the bottom of this hill, we then crossed another bridge and starting going up again, passing under a highway overpass, and then a right turn that had us continuing to climb. After we crested the hill, we then had a short flat part of the course and then began going downhill. Upon reaching the bottom of this downhill, we then crossed yet another bridge and that brought us up to the turn-round point – which was across the street from the trails of Southside Lions Park East. We did not go into that park.  Our turn-round was just past the water-station table. Our route then, of course, took us in reverse of the way we had come out, so on the way to the finish, we had to climb up that first long hill we had come down on the way out. In total, if I remember correctly, we twice crossed the 3 bridges on the course, once for each on the way out, once for each on the way back.  That last hill – the long one on the way out – was quite a climb up on the way back to the finish.  The last ½ mile was pretty flat.  I crossed the last bridge and then picked up the pace a bit and, per my Garmin, crossed the finish line at 42:56, gun time of 43:39.  Lisa handed out cards to each finisher and as noted previously, “Old School” running – we filled the card out with name and results and dropped it into our appropriate age group basket. The overall male and female and the top 2 runners in each age group got awards, and most of those people were quite speedy, so I did not place in my 70-79 males age group, which is okay, I didn’t expect to; I was quite happy to have finished with my personal goals I have for every race I do: Finish standing up and no ambulance at the finish line waiting specifically for me; lol.

After My finish:  There were quite a few vendors/sponsors at this event, so there were all kinds various goodies and activities, including give-away items, various types of food & drink; some games you could play; and I think there was also a Kid’s Run before the 5K started, if I remember correctly. Post-race, I enjoyed wandering around getting some more photos, handing out more treats to the dogs – some of them even wanted to follow me around, lol – and chatting with other participants, volunteers, sponsors/vendors, and getting some post-race photos of lots of them. I especially enjoyed meeting some of the JBSA Fort Sam Houston medical folks from BAMC – my servicing hospital that has always taken great care of me; personally I have never had bad service from any department at BAMC, and those folks literally saved my life when I had cancer and then also an AFIB that required me getting a pacemaker implant. I had an enjoyable time chatting with them; and my apologies to them, lol, if I bored them too much with some of my ‘war stories’.

Epilogue:   This is a really nicely done event that I will certainly do again and would recommend to others. It’s a somewhat challenging course – but nothing like the hills at, say Eisenhower Park or in Helotes – and is an accessible course for those with disabilities and, as noted, is dog friendly too. All the volunteers on the course were great; and my friends with Pushbutton Photograph did the ‘official” photos for the event with their usual great professionalism and friendliness.  If you’ve never done this one, give it a shot;  nice course, friendly, people and lots of before-and-after activities, as well as a lot of good eats too, and drinks that included water, Gatorade, coffee (blech for me, lol; can’t even stand the smell of the stuff);  the race shirt is really nice quality and well-done; and all the placers got a nice medal.  I can’t remember what the over male and female got, but I’m sure it is pretty nice.  Also, no porta-potties required; this park has two restroom buildings with ample facilities.

Mucho thanks to all the people who made this one happen for us participants: Solor’s Sports for doing race registration, start-and-finish line set up all the race organizers, the many volunteers that did race-day packet pickup; and/or who served as course marshals and water station volunteers; all the many sponsors that supported this event; the Park Police officers that were out there for our safety; our Lion’s Club MC who did a great job for us, as well as that Lion Mascot guy with that great costume; Pushbutton Photography folks for all the photos that will be posted by them; and thanks for the patience of all the other non-participant users – cyclists, walkers, other runners, etc. – as we invaded the park trails for a long while; and, of course, or EMT and 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 enjoy it safely and have much success. If you’re a fellow runner/race participant and see me at an event, give me a shout-out; love chatting with my fellow runners, and if you are so inclined, we can get a photo together for my race report I do for each of my events. Time for me to rest a bit.  I have another 5K on Sunday, March 29^th, the day after this one.