Urban Running Tour – San Antonio

A couple years back while visiting Buenos Aires, my cousin Megan set us up with a 10K running tour of the city.  I wasn’t so sure about the concept at first, but I immediately fell in love.  I make it a point to do my own running tours on work trips, in cities like London and Perth.  Running to the city’s best sites is a gazillion times better than being stuck on a stuffy tour bus and is a lot quicker than walking 6 miles to get to the different sites.  Oh, and I get to workout – sold!

So when I found a 5k city running tour in San Antonio by River City Running I was all for it, but  unfortunately they weren’t doing a run the Sunday we were visiting.  What’s a girl to do but host her own running tour?  I drew out a similar route hitting all the big sights on the hotel’s complimentary city map.  We took the route counterclockwise from the Marriott south of the Riverwalk, so that we’d end with a visit to the Alamo once it was open.

You can see the tower in the background through the fog, which made for pretty nice running weather.  First stop was through La Villita, which was still closed at 8 AM. 

I’d never seen the San Fernando Cathedral, and thought it was one of the prettiest buildings downtown.

We ran by city hall, and some fairly old historical buildings then into El Mercado, which is the largest Mexican market in the US and home of the famous (and touristy) Mi Tierra restaurant .

As we headed back east, we saw the Hero half marathon that we had almost signed up for!  I was kind of glad we were only running an easy 5k and not 20k!

Next it was down to the Riverwalk; I didn’t see any margaritas at 9 AM.

And a few other sites: churches, the library, etc.

Finally, we came to the #1 Texan tourist destination, the famous Alamo.  Admission was free, so we got to go inside as well as check out the gardens.  Luckily it was early enough that there weren’t too many people around to notice our sweat. 

You know what impressed me about San Antone?  They have a bike sharing program!  So great to see bike stations around the city.

We finished quick run through Hemisphere Park, which was built for the World Fair.  Four miles done!  We kept talking about how great it was to run to see the sites up close and get a feel for the city.  I’d been downtown many times, but never took notice of all the old, historical buildings and character the city has to offer. My only word of caution is that I wouldn’t do this run solo at early morning hours, as there were a few sketchy areas, but overall I felt really safe with a running buddy.

At the end of the run, David showed me how it’s done (he’s always on my case about posing).  He wins.

We didn’t feel like waiting for brunch after the run, so we grabbed my go-to quick breakfast when traveling – Starbucks oatmeal.  Did you know they’ve changed up their oatmeal?  It’s now a mix of steel cut and rolled oats (has to steep longer) and you can get blueberries, agave, and a new nut mix.  With green tea, that’s not shabby for a fast-food breakfast!

Hope you enjoyed the running tour – if you are interested in doing one it looks like there local companies, it really just depends on your city.  One bigger group that does multiple cities like Chicago, DC, and Seattle is City Running Tours.  It looks like some runs have a base charge plus $5 per additional mile if you are a distance runner and want a challenge 🙂  I’ll have to check them out the next time I’m in a big city!