Our local triathlon in the far north greater Houston area for today, April 30, 2016, was cancelled mid afternoon yesterday due to impending, potential storms; therefore, at around 2 p.m. at work, I started looking where to run today.

The first priority was it a Texas town that I had not run in before and the Fredericksburg Wildflower Run 10K and 5K fit the bill. Located about 90 minutes west of Austin out Highway 290, the town was founded in 1846 by German settlers and has many Germanic references in and around the city.

Race day registration was just $25. Hard to beat these days. Participants received a shirt, but they needed to wait until pre-registered runners got theirs before being made available to race day runners.

The race started and finished behind the Marketplatz or The Vereins-Kirche, which is situated in the middle of town.

Pre-race announcements caused for the race to be five minutes behind its scheduled 8:30 a.m. start before the timer, who had to call their ownership to understand a software issue, added another 10 minutes to the delay.

The course was on wide, non-closed city streets, whose intersections were patrolled pretty well by local residents. Police also drove it in various places.

While the region is known as the Hill Country, the course featured most of the flatter stretches of town, but there was still once long incline in the middle of mile three for the 10K'ers that took a little out of a few runners.

The only issue is whether or not the course was the complete and accurate 10K distance or if the mile markers were set correctly. Without a USATF-certified course map to learn where the markers should be placed, it is uncertain to tell. I ran what I normally would for the last .1 of a mile of a 5K for the last .2, based on the where the 6-mile marker was ... so something was amiss.

I wouldn't discourage anybody from running it if they were making a weekend trip there to explore the region's many wineries or antique shops, but be advised.

And, of course, the entire Hill Country region is pretty well very beautiful to run in and even on the city's streets the 65%-shaded route didn't disappoint.