Photos are here:        https://photos.app.goo.gl/P3Dqz4CaMXnoAqyz6    

Before The Start:   My 44^th race of 2026 was the Heat Wave 5K, held on August 1^st at Martin Luther King Park in San Antonio.  Events included half-marathon, 10K, 5K, and 1-mile walk.  Packet pickup was from 5:30 a.m. to 6:45, so I was up at 4 a.m to get some breakfast and then headed to the Park, arriving around 5:15 a.m and got some good parking.  I took a few pre-start photos before it got light, but a couple of them did not turn out so well, as my old-time push-button camera is not a fan of the dark, lol. After getting my packet and when sunup finally came, I did get a few more pre-start photos before we got onto the course. This is a dog-friendly event too and there were a few dogs there, so I handed out some dog-treats also. Right before the main events started, there was a Kid’s Run.   

 On The Course:  Regardless of which event participants chose to do, all participants started at the same time. 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. All the courses were out-and-back on the paved trails of the park.  We were lined up behind the start/finish line, with the park’s entrance road to our left.  The route took us past the park’s splash pad on our right, and then wound us under a road overpass.  For the most part, the first ½ mile or so was mainly flat with just a couple of not-too-steep down inclines. After that ½ mile or so, we then did begin going onto down inclines as participants headed toward their respective turn-rounds. Some of the speedier 5K participants were coming toward me, already heading to the finish, wow.  I can’t imagine running that fast; I’d probably injure myself trying, lol, and I really don’t want to anyway; I’m more of a ‘fun-runner” with two goals: have fun and finish standing up with no ambulance specifically waiting for me at the finish, lol.  As we continued on the trails toward our turn-rounds, a couple of these inclines soon became some long downhills.  We also crosss over a bridge that that shook when several people were on it at the same time. I cheered on the people coming towards me who were heading for their finishes and also saw a lot of personal friends who cheered me on. By the time I reached the 5K-turn-round sign, the participants had spread out quite a bit, and at my run/walk pace, I was pretty much running back to the finish with the course all to myself off-and-on. There were a few others coming toward me on their way to the 5K turn-round, but not many. After the turn-roound I pretty much ran the last half of the course almost non-stop, ignoring my garmin beeping at me to walk, and stopping maybe for 5 – 10 seconds to get a quick photo, and then began running again. This is something I’ve been practicing on my training runs, with permission of my doctor. By the time I got to the bridge on the way back, I pretty much had the course to myself off-and-on, with only just a few others running near me, including some of the speedier 10K people and fast half-marathon people who passed me by on the way to their finishes. I finally got to the point where I could see that first overpass we had gone under, so knew I had a little less than half-a-mile to to. I picked up my pace a bit more and high-tailed it to the finish. My garmin showed me a finish time of  46:08, averaging 14: 50 per mile, and my last mile was a negative split, nice.   I’m not sure what my chip-time was, as I could not find my listed results on the RunSignUp website. Personally, if there are multiple events at the same race, I can never find the darn results on RunSignUp and when I put in my bib number, name, etc., nothing came up.  Some friends of mine have actually tried to show me hot to get to those darn RunSignup results, but being a technology idiot at times, I still could not find it. I wish Bigfoot Running or Bodies Race Company – and any running organization who puts on a race –  would just put the darn results on their own websites – like local race companies iaap  and Athlete Guild do; makes it so much easier to find the results quickly. Anyway, I found out from the people at the race doing the results that I was first in my age group, so I got an award pin for that.

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.   

Epilogue:  This is a really nicely done event with a very nice course.  Porta-Potties were provided, but the park also has indoor restrooms near the park splash pad, as well as water fountains.  One race benefit is that all participants got free ice cream if they wanted it, served up by a vendor food truck on site. There was also bottled water and various other things.  I would do this one again and recommend it to others – although is sure did live up to its race name, lol.  At the 7 a.m. start time, it was 78 degrees with a ‘feels like” temp of 83 degrees and humidity at 83%, no wind at all; lots of sunshine.

Much thanks to all who had any part in making this event happen for we participants. Thanks to all the volunteers who did race day packet pickup and race-day registration; laid out the course for us; and to the Big Foot folks who did the timing and results for us, and the Best Bodies guy that was cranking out some tunes for us – and he started pretty darn early too, about right after I arrived on-site – very early –  so I bet the residents  in this area living near the park were thrilled about that, lol.   Thanks also to the Park Police officers who where out there for our safety; and all the vendors/sponsors who supported the event; 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 I sign up for. Stay safe, stay happy, and enjoy what you do. Cheers.