INTRO  

I am Scott aka Scottydog aka Scotty Dogg, runner since 1983, cancer survivor – caught very early, so I actually had a fairly easy time of it - retired Air Force, employee of University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), friend of dogs, fun-runner, and all-around punster and goofball.  In 2003 I had spinal arthritis flare up and ever since then I’ve done the run/walk method since it hurts my back too much now to run continuously with no walk breaks.  I’m on what I call my “2F Plan” which stands for Fun and Finish.  My only goals for a race these days are finish everything I start, have fun along the way, and finish standing up with no ambulance waiting for me.  At events that I now do for fun I carry my camera, chase “Great Legs” to help motivate my slow old man self to keep moving forward, and take pictures before, during, and after the race. Sometimes I even get a nice post-race sweaty hug from one of the Great Legs ladies.   I then do a pictorial race report of my events.  I also carry dog biscuits with me to treat any dogs I may meet at a run – unless it’s a mean dog; then the biscuit goes in one direction and I go in another.  Hence my nickname “Scottydog.

And a big thanks to runningahead.com for allowing me a “home” for my many many MANY race reports and photos.  Great site, free training log; calendars; running routes; maps; conversation forums for runners; and much more

I don’t have great camera skills and take photos with a camera that is like me  - old fashioned, lol - so sorry if a photo appears a bit blurry, etc.  However, they are free to save, share, etc.

Here is yet another of my photo reports.  Full report below.     

Link to photos only:

http://s166.photobucket.com/user/scottydog69/slideshow/2019%20Race%20Reports/2019%20Race%20Number%207%20Game%20Day%205K?sort=2

BEFORE MY START

My 7^th race of 2019 was the Game Day 5K held on Feb 3 – Super Bowl Sunday – with participants encouraged to wear the colors of their favorite football team. There was also a 1K for the kids. Event was held in New Braunfels, starting and finishing in the parking lot of the Rock’N R Tubes, a business providing river tube rides along the Guadalupe River.  This was a fairly smaller event with 136 finishers for the 5K.    The weather was a bit of off-and-on drizzle, the temp around 64 degrees at 8:30 a.m. start time, and the humidity was crazy – almost 100 percent – making it crazy foggy.  The drive up for me – New Braunfels is about 30 minutes from San Antonio – was nuts with thick fog along the highway and everyone driving pretty sedately, so the trip took a bit longer than 30 minutes. I arrived at race site with about 40 minutes to go to start time; got my packet and race bib, and then managed to get a few pre-start photos and then it was time to start.

Welcome to the event.  Athlete Guild did the timing, results, etc

Athlete Guild crew

Various, before the start.

Two ladies in the center are wearing the very nice quality Game Day tech tee shirts that participants got

You can see behind the ladies - the treeline is where the Guadalupe River is, right behind those trees - the fog was crazy for this morning

Doggie friendly event - and somehow they always know I have treats, so are good about looking right at the camera for me, lol.

Quick photo of me right before I got into the start crowd.  I  am definitely not a Patriots fan - and not really a Rams fan either, but hope they win - so I wore UTSA colors, the colors of the football team at the university where I work, orange and blue.

ON THE COURSE

I’ve done this one before, so knew what to expect.  Start in the parking lot, turn left onto the road, up a small incline, then turn right heading into a local neighborhood.  There was fairly good-sized hill – not steep, but long – to climb just before made a turn into a local neighborhood area.  It was flat for a while and then another pretty long uphill incline.  At the top we turned left – and here, I thought “Wait a minute….aren’t we supposed to go down this other hill and take the  NEXT left? That’s the usual course…”  but the water station was at this intersection and our instructions had been to turn left at the water station, so everyone went with that.  I thought maybe the course plotters had changed the end for us a bit.   Nope, same course, but we just did not go far enough…the course ended up being 2.8 miles instead of 3.1.  I finished with a time of 30:48 for 2.87 miles and was 5^th in my age group, 60 – 64; there are some speedy old guys in my age group, lol, the top 3 all finished in the 20s.

Into the fog....

Fog was really thick in the neighborhood we ran in.  However, we got lucky and did not see any pirates (old folks like me and people who like old movies will get that, lol)

Close-up of this lady I was in the proximity of for the first mile or so.  She is pretty speedy and I think won an age group award. Pushing a stroller, too.

When we passed by this house, there were deer all over the yard. I managed to get a photo of one before all of them took off...I guess all the runners passing by really startled them.

Very "rural' in this neighborhood - which backs up to the Guadalupe River - so this was a fairly common landscape view in places as we went along

Back onto the street that brought us into this neighborhood and going back under this train bridge.

After that, nonstop run to the finish.

And a photo of one of my senior senior friends coming  into the finish.  Still going strong.

AFTER MY FINISH

Got some water, did a little cool-down walk, and then enjoyed some of the post-race food – various types of bagels, crackers, fruit, etc. – and they also had a beer keg, nice, and I enjoyed one post-race beer. In between chatting with friends and munching on stuff, I wandered here-and-there getting some after photos.

Another of my lil doggie friends with her human

Happy finishers, et al....

My friend on the right was 1st in her age group

My speedy friend Don, 1st in his age group

Bernadette, 2nd in her age group

Three lovely winning ladies

After the awards ceremony and right before I headed home, went down to the end of the parking lot and got a few photos of the Guadalupe River.  This part of the river is where Rockin' R loads the toobers up for their ride down the river.

Looking upriver

And looking downriver, the direction the toobers go.  Nice and peaceful here, nice place to sit and relax; and there are benches along the river bank where you can do just that.

EPILOGUE

Even with the short course, this was an enjoyable event.  I did not see anyone upset about the early turn and everyone I chatted with pretty much joked about it, and not having to do the 2^nd hill – which, if we had done the whole course, would have been the steepest on the course; it’s not long, but it pretty much goes about straight up, as I remember – so all good and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Mucho thanks to all the folks who made this one happen for we participants; all the organizers, volunteers, sponsors, law enforcement, et al who were out there.  A Special Thanks to the officer at the intersection where we made the final turn just before going back to the finish.  The road we finished on is ‘well-traveled’ and the officer had to stand for quite a while waiting for all we slower runners – and he was holding up for us quite a long line of traffic too – so thanks to those drivers too, for their patience; nobody honked at us, flipped us the bird, etc and I even saw a couple of them giving ‘thumbs up’ to a few of the runners as they passed by the vehicles.  Thank you all for what you do so we participants could have this event.

Was the fog cold?