I have been looking at some of my friends on social media with photos of them after finishing a race. Some of them are holding a place finish award and many of them are holding a finishers medal. It seems that most of the posts lately are the results of running a half marathon. This distance is becoming one of the more popular races around the state and country for runners.
This had me recall my early days when I began running. The first race was the Capital 10K in 1979. I remember you had to run faster than 54 minutes or around that time to get a t-shirt. I made it with about 5 minutes to spare. Inspired by the over 2000 runners at the Capital 10K, I met with Warren Leddick, the Parks and Recreation Director, and we put on a race here in San Marcos.
We used the Cinco De Mayo celebration for the title of the race. It was the Cinco De Mayo 10,000 K race. It shows how little we knew about race distances back then since a 10K is 10,000 meters – but not 10,000 K distance. I imagine I have the only tee shirt from that race on my shelf. We put on several more 10K races and then Austin had a 5K race one weekend.
Not knowing much about running I thought since it was half the distances of a 10K you could run it twice as fast. After the first mile I realized this was not a reality. Those last two miles after sprinting the first mile were a real lesson in running long-distance races.
As we got into the job of putting on more races in San Marcos, we decided to try a 15K distance (9.3 miles) since there were no races at this distance. A couple of my friends and I found that starting at the high school and heading out Staples Road, turning down Old Bastrop Highway, and running over the river and through the neighborhood was a perfect distance. We ran it both ways to see which way would be the best for a race. Heading out Staples Road was the choice. We had no idea how many would show up for that distance but we had over 100 runners waiting for us to get the race started. It is still the least-run distance it seems.
Since I was not able to run a race in San Marcos because I was always the race director, Brian McCoy offered to sponsor a race that I could run in and they would organize the race. This was in 1983 and my recollection of races back then was that there were very few half marathon races around. I thought we would have about 60 runners and Brian ordered 150 shirts. A few weeks before the race we had over 250 entrants. Brian ordered 300 shirts to cover the runners.
Day of race we had over 350 runners and had to order more shirts to mail out. The Better Half Marathon lasted 33 years and with the population and subdivision growth along the race course it was just a matter of time before traffic would be a problem. The other two deciding factors on ending the race was on the last race there were three other half marathons in the area on the same day. Instead of the usual 350 - 400 runners, we only had 250 runners. The other factor was after 33 years, my crew that worked so hard putting on the race were also getting older. We decided it was time to call it off and let some other group put the half marathon on.
The 5K distance is still probably the most popular distance for most races. It is popular with walkers and beginning runners. It is also easy for the sponsoring organization and race director to coordinate everything. Finding a 3.1 miles distance around the outskirts of San Marcos or nearby towns is easier to measure than a 10K, 15K, or half marathon distance. Finding a location to put on a race is becoming more and more difficult because of population and housing growth and the necessary restrictions for permits and insurance needed. But races are still popular and a runner can find a race every weekend to earn another t-shirt.
