By Moe Johnson
Special to the Record
San Marcos — Time to kick back and enjoy a little free time after the race from last Sunday.
The ARA-Moe’s Better Half Marathon and CASA Speak Up For Kids 5K turned out to be a nice success and the efforts of the race organizers paid off well for the runners in the races.
The weather held off with the rain until everything from running the race to putting everything away and the equipment was packed up and moving out before a few sprinkles began to fall. The weather did have an affect on the number of runners that actually showed up to run the race.
With over 300 runners pre-registered there were only 250 runners that were timed for finishing the race. Approximately 50 runners turned out to be no-shows for the run.
The runners in the 5K race were actually down a little also from those that actually signed up to run but did not show. It sort of made my comments about runners enjoying running in the rain last week seem to be a stretch.
Comments from runners and from e-mails that I have received this past week have all been very favorable about how much they enjoyed the course and the volunteers and organization of the race. This always makes the amount of time and effort that goes into putting on a race seem worthwhile.
It is once again a big “Thank You” to the volunteers that make the race a success from direction people to aid stations people, course monitors and food preparation tables set up.
CASA had a large number of volunteers as well as the Kiwanis Club and the GAP store employees having a great group of volunteers that were available for often spur of the minute tasks. A special thanks to the race organizers that put in much of the work in Linda and David Alexander, Mike and Tricia Schneider from CASA and Jim Moyle from ARA. They are the driving force behind the run.
These key people are what made the run happen: Tanger staff was there at 5:00 a.m. to help with getting material out and setting up roadblocks for traffic control that always proves to be a valuable help.
RunFar Timing and Race Works drove down from Austin about 5:30 a.m. and were responsible for setting up the finish line and coning off the area to set up the technology aspect of the race.
Some of the stores near the finish area even opened up a little early to see if the runners wanted to shop while waiting for the announcement of the awards. Tanger Outlet Center really goes all out to make an event a success here in San Marcos.
Area runners that finished the half marathon distance included Leah Whitworth (2:22:13), Leah York (2:26:39), Stacy Mitchum (2:17:20), Precious Hernandez (2:38:55), Theresa Flores (2:45:25) and April Harris (2:50:36).
Other runners included Rebekah Welvaert (2:42:08), Charles Welvaert (2:11:22), Laura Mason (2:29:56), Reenie Smith (2:04:34) and first place in the 55-59 age group followed by Gina Eben in second place in 2:08:15 and Teresa Medina in third place with a 2:27:37 time.
Running in the half also was Casimiro Chavez (1:52:12), Eric Rindahl (1:44:24), and Mocha & Java’s owner Kevin Carswell who provided coffee for the early volunteers then turned in a 1:49:57 time in the race.
The runners from the area in the timed portion of the CASA Speak Up For Kids 5K were small in number as many of the local runners chose to enter the fun run and were not recorded on the finish results.
In the 15-19 age category, Jordan Carswell turned in a first place time of 28:15 with Laura Artiles in second place with a 28:15 time as well.
The only other runner listing a San Marcos address was Alan Atchison who took third place in the 50-59 age group with a 24:58 time.
Everything considered the race was a good event for the runners as many of the first time entrants mentioned that they would be back next year and runners liked the shirts this year as well as some of the past participants saying they wanted to add another commemorative coffee mug from the half marathon to their collection.
Dr. Maurice Johnson is an instructor at Texas State University in the Department of Sports and Exercise Science. His column runs every Sunday in The Daily Record.
