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Looking for a late fall marathon with pleasant temps, great restaurants, and history and culture galore? The San Antonio Marathon and Half Marathon slated for December 5-6, 2025 could be just the ticket.
If you’ve never heard of the San Antonio Marathon, that’s because it will be brand new—kind of.
After terminating its long-term relationship with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series, San Antonio is eager to develop its own marathon and half marathon in 2025 that city officials believe will better highlight San Antonio’s unique history, culture, music, food, and running community. Plus, officials hope to maximize the impact of hosting The Running Event (TRE) trade show for at least the next three years at its Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.
The new races will follow TRE, North America’s largest running industry convention, which will be held next year from December 2-4. The industry-only trade show will blend into a public race expo and celebration of running on December 5-6 that includes a Friday night 5K race, live music, and exhibitor booths from numerous brands. The marathon and half marathon will be run on December 7 on new courses that start and finish in newly renovated Hemisfair’s Civic Park, a seven-acre urban greenspace in the heart of San Antonio’s downtown area.
“We have created a strong marathon tradition over the years, and the new San Antonio Marathon will enhance the city’s stature with runners—helping solidify our race as a destination marathon in the tradition of New York and Boston,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said Monday night at an outdoor press conference that included a mariachi band, folklórico dancers, and a fun run with about 500 runners and American marathon legend Meb Keflezighi.
Keflezighi, a four-time U.S. Olympian who was previously a long-term ambassador for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series, has signed on as an ambassador for the new San Antonio races.
“Running is something that is within all of us and something that unites us, something that brings the community, families, and the city together,” Keflezighi said before leading the Downtown Running Group fun run with Santino Corrales.
The Rock ‘n’ Roll events have had a strong presence in San Antonio since 2008, drawing as many as 18,000 runners to its marathon, half marathon, 10K, and 5K races. While loved by many runners, the feeling locally was that the national race organization—owned by Competitor Group Inc. until 2018, when the Ironman Group took over—took much of its profit out of town for the past 17 years.
The final Rock ‘n’ Roll event in San Antonio will take place December 7-8.
The move leans on a trend in which mid-sized cities are trying to optimize tourism revenue tied to sports and recreation. Officials from San Antonio Sports, an independent nonprofit organization that has partnered with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series on behalf of the city, say the new races will ensure the vision, investment, and control of the event will be centered locally in San Antonio.
Jenny Carnes, president and CEO of San Antonio Sports, insists the new San Antonio Marathon will help elevate the local sports scene, including youth sports and free community fitness programs.
“This will be more than music on the course from a group that comes and goes, but instead it will be locally owned and locally operated,” Carnes said. “Our new routes will consist of themed miles that take you on a cultural journey through San Antonio’s iconic landmarks and neighborhoods, miles that showcase our history, our food and music, the San Antonio Riverwalk, unique murals, the [San Antonio] Spurs, Military City USA, and so much more. This is our signature running event that San Antonio will be proud of and visitors will love.”
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What’s Past is Prologue … in a New Way
San Antonio Sports decided earlier this year not to renew its contract with the Ironman Group to host the Rock ‘n’ Roll Running Series events, once the world’s largest series of road running races. At the same time, it reached out to Josh Furlow, the former CEO of the Competitor Group and a principal player behind the original success of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in San Antonio, to help create the new San Antonio Marathon. Furlow separated from the race series in early 2019 and is now the founder and CEO of the Trust Group event company.
Furlow brought in partner John Smith, another former senior executive with Competitor Group who briefly worked for the Ironman Group, and together they aligned with TRE’s 2025 move to San Antonio. The TRE trade show, a national convention of running shoe and apparel manufacturers and retailers, has been based in Austin, Texas, since its inception in 2006, but it is being displaced after this year’s event—which is happening this week—because the Austin Convention Center is being torn down and rebuilt.
TRE signed a three-year contract to relocate to San Antonio, and Smith, who owns the Carlsbad 5000 race in California, is working with San Antonio Sports, TRE, and several running shoe and apparel brands to get behind the combined trade show and running races next year.
“It could be one of the biggest things in running,” Smith said. “The trade show can transition into the Friday night 5K and a big outdoor expo and the chance for runners to check out shoes and gear from a lot of brands with live music and food from local restaurants.”
The Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon was founded in 1998 in San Diego around the novel concept of putting live bands along its 26.2-mile course. It expanded across the U.S. in the early 2000s and added half marathons, 5Ks, and 10Ks, eventually growing to 30 domestic and international events with an estimated 600,000 total participants. But it has dwindled to just nine races in recent years. In addition to the San Antonio event in early December, it also put on races in Phoenix, Nashville, Las Vegas, San Diego, San Jose, and Washington D.C. this year, as well as events in Spain and the Philippines.
San Antonio officials believe the local ownership and involvement of the new event will give locals an event they can be proud of while also creating a destination event that shows off the best parts of the city to tourists.
“We have a chance to really make this a national and international running stage and really show what we’re about,” said Lori Houston, San Antonio’s assistant city manager. “We’re going to make sure that people know that San Antonio is a special city. We have the Riverwalk and that’s great, but we’re not just the Riverwalk. We’re so much more, and for the runners who come here will get to see that.”
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