Looking back at some races from past Cinco de Mayo

The Cinco de Mayo celebration is this week. This particular celebrations stands out for me as it was the first road race in my time here that was held in San Marcos. The Capital 10K in 1979 had 2,000 runners and I went down to see Warren Leddick, the Parks and Recreation Director, to see if we could put on a race here in San Marcos. Warren was also a track and field director so he knew how to put a race on. The 10K race was held out at the Civic Center and ran out on the access road and Redwood Road (Wonder World now) and came back in off Highway 123. We had about 125 runners show up for the race. I ran in the race and helped out before and after the main race took place. I can’t remember if the race went on the next few years after that as Leddick moved to Longview for a position there.

After the Runner’s Club was organized they helped with the race and the Cinco De Mayo 5K moved to the Courthouse downtown. It grew to be a very popular race and had 250–300 runners take part in the race. The one part that I remember was the Overall Champion award for the men and women winners. The champions received a multi-colored serape with the ‘Cinco de Mayo Champion’ embroidered on it and a big sombrero to top it off. That was an award that was worth running for.

The possible trouble with a successful race is that often times a local organization wants to help out and sponsor the race. This worked out for a few years. What happens with many clubs or service organizations is that there is a constant change in leadership every year. The group assigned the Cinco de Mayo 5K race to a member that was a non-runner and did not know what it takes to put on a race. I received a phone call asking for help on putting on the race. This was on a Tuesday. I asked when the race was going to be held and he said, “This Saturday.' I usually kept up to date on local races and this was the first notice I had for this race. The previous member that directed the race had turned over his notes on what was needed to put on the race.

The previous races had a couple of hundred runners and he had ordered several hundred race tee shirts. The problem was nobody knew about the race because of limited advertising. The morning of the race there were maybe 40 runners that showed up. The sponsoring organization still had to pay for the left over 200-plus shirts that once printed you cannot return. The group lost a lot of money instead of making a profit. That was the last time the race was held for years.

Lately the race has appeared with a women’s sorority as the sponsor. Laura Mason was a runner and has helped with the Moe’s Better Half Marathon for years so was a good race director. The downtown course was not an option to hold it there because of the permits, insurance, and traffic control needed now. Laura moved the race out to Hernandez Middle School for an out and back course on Stagecoach Road. This was a good course but needed a lot of cones to keep the runners on the side of the road and out of traffic. The race never achieved the popularity of the high entry years but was a good race with sufficient number of runners to keep hosting for more years.

There are two races that seem to be a natural for putting on a race that for one reason or another never became popular. The Cinco de Mayo was one and the Juneteenth 5K was the other race.

The Juneteenth 5K was promoted by Harvey Miller and we held it at the City Park and the River Trail route.

The course along the river needs a large number of volunteers to put on a successful race. For some reason volunteers needed for the race was very limited.

With all of the other activities going on for that celebration the race had limited volunteers. The race went on and had a decent number of runners. The shirt design was a runner with a ball and chain on his leg. The last race we put on only had two or three relatives of Harvey’s and a couple of local runners to help out.

It was too hard to make it a good race and I remember driving and running along the course trying to keep runners on the correct path and getting the results sorted out after the race.

Putting on a race for an organization takes a strong commitment from a sponsoring organization and someone knowledgeable about being a race director. The San Marcos Kiwanis Club and the Retired Faculty and Staff from Texas State still put on good races for local and area runners.

Sponsoring a race by an organization is a learning experience and usually gets better every year after the first year.