This morning, I went to Stockdale in Wilson County for the Watermelon Crawl 5K. It would prove to be my 27th race of the year and the 16th of those that are new races to me.
Some other statistics included the following:
95th county to run a race in in Texas.
188th city, town or census-designated place to run a race in in Texas.
341st city, town or census-designated place to run a mile or more in in Texas.
373rd city, town or census-designated place to run a race in in North America.
I went to bed a little early - at about 10 p.m., but I started to become restless around 2 a.m. I actually didn't have an alarm set as I didn't pre-register.
I also had a couple of options, if I decided not to make that drive. (One was the Holland Corn Festival 5K as well as the Seven Hills Running Club monthly club 5K.)
I figured that I would need to leave by 3:30 a.m. to make it there by 7 a.m. or so for an on-time start at 8 a.m.
Thing is: Working from home 40-plus hours a week, I have to 1.) get out of the house and, often, 2.) roam.
Stopped at Buc-ee's in Katy for gas as well as at the one in Luling and made it into town at about 7:15 a.m.
Got parked, went and registered ($25 in cash), got my bib and then did a warm-up mile in 10:12.
Watched the kids start and finish their mile run and then gathered at the start. I had seen a young man wearing an "SFA cross country" shirt and I asked him if he had run for the Lumberjacks and he said that he had.
I mentioned about knowing Lauren Stroud and he said his name was Jonas Rodriguez and that they had been teammates. We chatted about her until the race started from Bryce Field and that he was the cross country coach at nearby Floresville High School.
In the park, we did a loop that had a shortened "S" in the northeast corner of the oval and then we passed back by the start and headed straight to a road that led us to three straight lefts, then a right and out to a turnaround and back in to the finish.
Between the last left and before the only right on the way out, I saw Jonas, cheered him on (as he had two high school kids that he was racing in a pack against) and because of that, as I often pick up my pace, I needed to back off a little when I made the right-hand turn.
All in all, I ran the distance in 30:03.39 and ran the whole way with the exception of that one time, having found a good steady pace for once.
The temperature was 71 before the start and 75 after I finished and, of course, the humidity was crazy.
I saw that Jonas had a GPS device on his wrist and he said that he had 3.08 miles on there. There's a way that they could make it right on (looking at the map), but that's pretty close for a small-town race.
Haven't seen the results posted online yet, but it seemed like - to me - that they had a pretty good turnout.
I'll be down next week as I'm on call for worst. At best, I might be able to make it to Run The Woodlands 5K at Barbara Bush Elementary. At worst, it will be miles in my neighborhood regardless.
The following two weekends will be the bookends of vacation and I have plans for races in LA (4-miler), AL (5K), FL (5K), eight miles with Robert "The Raven" Kraft and then maybe the Toughest 10K in Texas in Lampsasas and one of the trail races at Navasota the following day.
Looking forward to it.
Have a great rest of your weekend.
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