This is my third year running the Battle of Hillotes half marathon, and I have to say that it is my favorite local race in San Antonio. Technically in the nearby town of Helotes, the race starts in their cool little downtown area with shops and restaurants and turns out into the hilly terrain of the Texas Hill Country. Mostly wooded back roads, you'll pass through a very nice neighborhood thats always decked out for Halloween. Overall, a gorgeous course and from some points in the course, you can look down into San Antonio.

This course has STEEP hills and very little of it is flat. Its a challenging race that you definitely won't PR on, but its fun to come out every year and see if you can improve your time from the previous year.

Scallywompus is great about having a lot of water stops. While this race seems to always have good weather, its still capable of being very hot in San Antonio in midOctober, and they're great about making sure there is a water stop about every mile. Portopotties too, which seems pretty rare for these smaller homegrown races.

Races always come with a Beer themed medal, and tech tshirt (in both mens and womens sizes), and BEER after the race. This last year, both Alamo Brewing and Ranger Creek (two local breweries) where handing out drinks afterwards. As well as spiked hot apple cider and margaritas by a local distillery. The party afterwards is always great!

The District 4 Heroes 5k is actually part of a series put on by the city of San Antonio. Each on of the districts puts on a race each year as part of the city's FitPass program. Each of these races are FREE and chip timed. If you sign up early enough, you even can get a free unisex tshirt (Cotton). I usually request that I don't receive a shirt, as they tend to run rather large and reach almost my knees.

The race itself has a great deal amount of parking, free booths of giveaways, and there is a truck that will give measure your BMI and Blood pressure. The course is relatively flat and easy, though the scenery isn't the best. Best part is that the first 1000 people across the finish line receive a medal at a free race! It's even a nice one, being made of medal and sponsored by a local car dealership.

My only complaint is that these events are not well advertised. I usually only know about them through the local running community or through a facebook event thats not updated or answered at all. But hey, its a free race with a tshirt, timing chip, and a medal! Keep your eyes peeled for these races, because they are well worth it.

This is probably one of the best "large" races I've ever ran.

There are 4 corrals based on speed. (I was in corral B) and are organized via a plus shape, so none of the corrals are that far from each other. This meant I was able to hang out with some fellow runners near Corral D until the start of the race. Which is great!

This year, it was a balmy 32 degrees with wind and drizzle. I'm a southern runner and was a bit underprepared, it had been in the 50s the day before. The expo was great for this though, not only were there vendors where I could buy a warm hat but several sponsors handed out free gloves. These could be tossed during the race if needed and they would be picked up and given to the local homeless shelter. Super cool idea!

The course is beautiful, and COULD be considered hilly. I found in moderately flat with a few hills. You go over the Route 66 bridge over the river (COLD, but an awesome selfie opportunity) and there is a nasty hill at the end. The course goes through several nice neighborhoods and several business districts. And its a party race! Huge amounts of the town come out to cheer people on. I had jello shots on mile 5 and mile 8, and some beer at several locations too. There was fireball shots also offered along the course, but I'm not sure if that's a good idea while running hard, so I didn't try that one. I might have to next year! I was told by others that the crowd support was low this year because of the cold weather, but I was still impressed.

The jacket I received as a half marathon finisher is NICE. Much nicer than the RnR ones Ive received before, I still wear it very frequently. The medal is very nice too. It actually comes on a little stand, so you can stand it up rather than hang it up if you want.

I enjoyed this half so much, Im most likely going to run the full this year. There are a few parts of the course I missed only running half, including the "world's biggest block party" around mile 15 and the "worlds shortest ultra" (You run an extra .1 down the street and you get a little coin. I think this is hilarious and will definitely do it)