Photos are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/mmf1gyq3hAo2nQtUA

Before The Start:  My 43^rd race of 2026 was the e-Dragon Summer Series 5K, Race #4 held on July 26^th at McAllister Park.  The Summer Series, put on by my friends Kristine and Erick Burciaga, co-owners of e-Dragon Productions aka “Dragon Den, is a total of 5 races of 5K distance that raises funds for student scholarships. Each race is held at a different San Antonio park.  You can register for all 5 of them at the same time, and get a registration discount for doing that, or you can sign up for each race individually.  After the final race, a scholarship is presented to a female and male recipient.  This 5K was held at McAllister Park with a start time of 7:15 a.m. For Race 4, if I remember correctly, I believe there were around 100 finishers, both runners and walkers.    I live very close to this park, so arrived very early before the start time –  the day was still dark when I arrived –  found some good parking, and then got my race packet when registration/packet pickup area opened at 6 a.m. After getting my packet, I then enjoyed chatting with other participants, volunteers, supporters, the e-Dragon team and volunteers that did the course setup, packet pickup and race ressult and getting a few pre-start photos.

 On The Course:  Because of the spinal arthritis I have now, I can no longer run non-stop for full race distance, so I did my usual thing of run-8-minutes/walk-2-minutes and took some on-course photos during my walk breaks. Also, as I had a skin-cancer biopsy on Friday, I took Saturday off from running to rest up. On race day was not sure how this would affect my running, but I was fine and was able to do my run/walk with no discomfort at all.  The course started and finished near the Buckhorn Pavilion, which is right across from the park’s lower soccer fields and just down from the park’s youth basebaseball field. This was a loop course that started took us past the soccer fields and the baseball stadium. We then went onto an asphalt park road that took us toward Becken Pavilion which is close to the park’s Jones Maltsberger Road entrance. We hit Mile 1 on this road. We did not go as far as Becken Pavilion. We made a left turn, taking us by the course water station. This took us on an off-road paved trail that took us on a circuit that passed a dry creekbed on our left; then onto a trail where we could see a body of water on our left; and continued on this same trail where we had a view of a police substation that is just up from the Jones Maltsberger Road entrance of the park.  We then took a paved trail and crossed a road tht was quite near Becken Pavilion. This got us back onto another off-road paved trail, that looped us alongside the back fence of the soccer fields, and then we made a turn onto a trail that took us out onto the road we had started on after the start. A left turn on this road took us back to the finish area in reverse of the way we had started, with the baseball stadium and the soccer fields now on our left as we went to the finish line. Per my garmin, I ended up with a time of 47:12, averaging 15:11 per mile, ending up 4^th out of 4 in my 70-99 males age group.

After My Finish: I stood near the finish line and got some photos of others finishing, staying far enough back so as not to interfere with the timing mechanism or the participants finishing. After that, I got some water and then continued to walk around the area getting some more after photos of happy finishers, supporters, voluneers, etc., and handed out some more dog treats. After that, I enjoyed sitting for a bit with my friend, Gilbert, at his tent area where he had an array of fresh fruits, includinging bananas, watermelon, etc.  He is a cyclist who does some pretty impressive distances on his rides, but he is also a great supporter of the local running community, often attending several events over the year and providing lots of post-race goodies.  There was also an award ceremony with overall winners and the first 3 finishers in each age group getting recognized and awarded.   

Epilogue: This is a very nice series of races, with e-Dragon doing a great job of organizing it all. The series courses have a nice mix of having sometimes mainly  flat courses, like this one is, and sometimes having some hills, and sometimes having a mix of both.  The series also gives you a nice “tour” of several local parks.  The series also offers “Summer Series” race shirts for each event and participants also get a coin that, if I remember correctly, has a code that can used for a registration discount for upcoming e-Dragon races.   I will definitely continue do do Summer Series events and I certainly would recommend then to others. Kristine and Erik have built e-Dragon into a very nice quality race company and besides the Summer Series, they also offer several other very nice quality races throughout the year.  They also have up-and-coming runners in their kids, a couple of whom are already quite speedy; one of their young sons, lol, always leaves me ‘eating his dust” at the same races we do; that is one fast kid. I don’t think Erik and Kristine will have to worry about college for these kids; I’m guessing they are all eventually going to end up with college running team scholarships.  When Kristine and Erik are ready to eventually hand off the company after their kids are grown it will be in good hands with their sons and daughters.

Much thanks to all who had any part in making this event happen for we participants. Thanks to all the volunteers who do packet pickup, race registration, help lay out the course, set up the start/finish line – and then take it down after the race; and to the “official” race photographers that were taking photos of participants on the course – much better than mine, I am sure, lol – and anyone involved that I may not have mentioned here. Thank you all! Without all of you volunteers, races probably could not be held.

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 I sign up for. Stay safe, stay happy, and enjoy what you do. Cheers.