Gabe Zimmerman Triple Crown

If you already did the 2026  TMC Meet Me Downtown 5k, you can now sign up for final two races of the GZTC for the discounted price of $105.  

Here's what you receive:

* Registration for the September 13th TMC Tucson 10k and 5k, staged at Pima Community College West with a route through the stunning saguaro-studded Painted Hills section of the Tucson Mountains. 

• Includes race medal and souvenir shirt, plus other race goodies.
• Current stand-alone price $50.
   

* Registration for the October 18th TMC A-Mountain Half Marathon and 4-Miler, staged near the Mercado Annex at the base of A-Mountain on the west side of Downtown Tucson. 

• Includes race medal and souvenir shirt, plus other race goodies.
• Current stand-alone half-marathon price $75.
   

* PLUS: You'll receive the 2026 Run Tucson shirt and the souvenir MMD GZTC medal that completes the 3-race medal triptych.

You can pick these items up at packet pickup for the TMC Tucson 10k. We can't promise exact shirt sizing, but we currently have shirts in small, medium, large, XL, and XXL. 

As always, $10 of each registration goes directly to BEYOND-Tucson. For those newer to Tucson's running community, see below to find information on our beneficiary BEYOND, plus Gabe's story and why this series is named after him.

Q: I'm new to this sort of thing. What is the Gabe Zimmerman Triple Crown?  
A: GZTC is a charity-based, three-event run/walk series that includes running and walking events in three unique Tucson locations. The goal is to honor the late Gabe Zimmerman by promoting year-round fitness, enabling people to train for and complete by walking or running events that include 1 mile, 5k, 4-miles, 10k, and a half marathon.

Q: What is the charity involved?
A:  The Triple Crown beneficiary is the BEYOND Foundation, receiving $10 of every race entry.  

Q: In years past, Triple Crown participants have received sandstone candles, Ben's Bells, medallion sets, and desktop medals.  What is the special Triple Crown award this year?
A: In 2024, we put together a three-piece medal set, but we have not yet decided the 2025 Triple Crown Award that all Triple Crown participants will receive at the TMC Meet Me Downtown event.  After the TMC Meet Me Downtown, each Triple Crown registrant will also receive the other medals when you finish the TMC Tucson 10k and the TMC A-Mountain Half-Marathon and 4-Miler.

Q: Back up a second -- what are the three events, when do they take place, and what goodies do I get?

A: Here's what you get when you register for the 2025 Gabe Zimmerman Triple Crown

• The vibrant 2025 "Run Tucson" Gabe Zimmerman souvenir shirt featured above, in both unisex and "ladies" sizing
• The special Gabe Zimmerman Triple Crown award -- details to be announced in 2025
• The TMC Tucson 10k/5k souvenir medal highlighting the Painted Hills of the Tucson Mountains.
• The third piece of the souvenir set, the medallion for the TMC A-Mountain Half-Marathon and 4-Miler
• $10 of each entry goes straight to BEYOND

The three events:

* Registration to the Saturday night, May 31st TMC Meet Me Downtown 5k Run/Walk and 1-Mile​, including souvenir race shirt 

* Registration to the Sunday morning, September 7th TMC Tucson 10k and 5k​, including souvenir race shirt and finisher's medal

* Registration to the Sunday morning October 19th TMC ​A-Mountain Half-Marathon and 4-Miler including souvenir race shirt and finisher's medal 

Q: Do I have to run, or can I walk?
A: You can run or walk and you can hike, race or stroll, the goal is simply to be outside and be moving! The idea is to honor Gabe and celebrate Tucson by having fun exercising -- so come on out and walk or run as fast or slow as you want! 

Q: What if I cannot be in Tucson for any of those dates? Am I out of luck or can I do the Virtual Triple Crown?
A: Out of town folks who want us to mail the shirts and medals: you need to sign up for the Virtual Crown and we will ship your shirts and medals to you!

Local Crown: For those in the greater Tucson region (Tucson, Oro Valley, Marana, Vail, etc), we will bring the race goodies to The Running Shop at 3055 North Campbell in central Tucson and have them there for you to pick up until one month after the event. We cannot mail race goodies to locals in the Tucson region -- please note that you will have to pick up all race items within one month after each event.
 
Q: If I signed up for the regular Triple Crown but now want to do any of the races virtually, what should I do?
A: You can go into your own RunSignUp registration portal and modify your registration - or you can email us at randy@runtucson.net and we'll modify it for you.  Remember: we cannot mail race goodies to locals in the greater Tucson region -- please note that you will have to pick up all race items within one month after each event.
  

Q: What if I signed up for one of the events as a single race and now want to change to the Triple Crown?
A: Email us at randy@runtucson.net to change your registration.

Q: What if I want to change my chosen race distance for one of the events?
A: You can simply change your GZTC registration information through your RunSignup registration platform, or email us at randy@runtucson.net to modify the distance.

Q: What happens if you cancel any of the races - will we get our money back?
A: All races take place rain or shine, but in the event of an emergency cancellation determined by the City of Tucson, Pima County, or some other governmental entity, we will fall back on the Virtual Triple Crown - and everyone will then be able to receive their specific race awards following the rules of the Virtual Triple Crown. Of course, we will communicate regularly in this event.
 
Q: I signed up but now do not want to do it. Can I have my money back or transfer my entry to someone else?
A: There are no refunds and there are no transfers to other people.  However, you are always welcome to shift your entry to the Virtual category and do the event distance at a different time or volunteer on race day.  All Tucson-area participants can pick up their shirts/medals at packet pickup on race weekend or in the weeks immediately afterwards at The Running Shop.

Q: For those of us new to Tucson or from out of town, can you tell us about Gabe Zimmerman?
A: Gabe Zimmerman was only 30 years old when he lost his life in the January 2011 shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords here in Tucson. 

Others killed by gun violence that day include Christina Taylor Green, Dorothy "Dot" Morris, Judge John Roll, Phyllis Scheck, and Dorwin Stoddard. 

Gabe was murdered doing what he was best at: supporting his community, trying to make it a better place for everyone, regardless of their politics or their backgrounds.   From the Gabe Zimmerman Davison Canyon Trailhead to the Gabe Zimmerman Meeting Room at the U.S. Capital, Gabe's presence will forever be a part of our community. We are grateful to Ross Zimmerman and Julia Strange at Tucson Medical Center for developing the concept of the Gabe Zimmerman Triple Crown. Gabe's whole family has been devoted to fitness, running, and the Arizona outdoors, and we are honored to be able to celebrate the spirit of Gabe and highlight the possibilities for our community through the Gabe Zimmerman Triple Crown.

Our goal is to celebrate Gabe and motivate the community to aspire to individual and collective greatness - to work alone and work with others towards those goals we find valuable. To celebrate living, community, and good will. To live with love, to live with passion, to chase dreams. As we all know, running shows us the power within ourselves. If we can go three miles in a hot summer night or slog our way up and down the hills of the Tucson mountains, the ups and downs of daily life are certainly manageable and we can rise to our other challenges. 
 
Special thanks to the thanks to the 7,000+ registrations that have been part of the Triple Crown these past few years!!
 
Q: Who are the sponsors?
A: Tucson Medical Center provides the sponsorship and support for the series. We are grateful to Julia Strange and the whole TMC community for working with us to develop the series. And teal is the color of TMC so we're honoring them!
  
Special thanks to the local running specialty store, The Running Shop, for hosting the Virtual Triple Crown goodie-bag pickup.

TMC Meet Me Downtown 5k Run/Walk Details

Friday, May 30, Registration and Packet Pickup
3:00 pm - 6:00 pm, at The Running Shop, 3055 North Campbell Ave

Saturday, May 31, Race Night Schedule
5:00 - 6:30 TMC 5k Registration and Packet Pickup, 200 South Sixth Avenue
6:00 pm Start Open Mile Race -- for all ages, all abilities, all bodies, with prize money and finisher medals
6:30 pm Start SAR FitKidz Mile -- free for all children under 12
7:00 pm Start TMC 5k Run/Walk
8:30 or so Awards
9:00 or so: Shut down Beer Garden, adjourn for Hotel Congress after-party

Post-race through June
Shirts and Triple Crown awards of registrants who cannot make race weekend will be available at The Running Shop, 3055 North Campbell through the end of June. T-shirt sizing first come, first served. We will donate all remaining souvenirs on July 1st, so please be sure to pick up your items or send someone to pick them up before July 1st.
 

Events:

• 5k Run/Walk for all ages and abilities
• Free 1-Mile event for runners and walkers of all ages and abilities
• Free High School Mile, for all high school and junior high runners
• Free SAR FitKidz Mile, free for all children under 12

Cool things: 

• Free entrance to Children’s Museum – race number provides one adult and one child entry. 
• Prize money for top finishers
• Age group awards in 5-year categories from The Running Shop
• 14th Annual Running Race Food Truck Round Up, with local vendors offering food and drinks for purchase
• TMC 5k Night Run is part of the SAR 2025 “Running Shop Grand Prix”
• Live Music 
• Pueblo Vida Beer Garden, with free pour for all 21+ registrants, presented by Sonoran Desert Mountain Bicyclists
• After-Party at Hotel Congress

Location: Downtown Tucson, on the lawn of the Children's Museum and Armory Park, 100 South Sixth Avenue

Terrain: pavement 

Difficulty: this is an easy course, on a flat and fast paved asphalt surface, with lots of spectator support 

Children: Yes, this is a family-friendly event staged at the Children's Museum, with a free FitKidz Mile, partnered with SAR; plus jumping castles, other activities.  All children receive free entry to the Children's Museum.

Weather: often hot

Chair Friendly: Yes, this course is suitable for chair athletes.

Pets Allowed: No, not in the race itself.

Want Training Advice? Contact Run Tucson's RRCA-certified running coach Tia Accetta at tia@runtucson.net 

Our running events take place throughout Arizona, including in Southern Arizona at Saguaro National Park, Old Tucson Studios west of the Tucson Mountain, the Biosphere 2 in Oracle, and at the base of A-Mountain and in Downtown Tucson.  We also produce a trail race near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, along what is known as the Kaibab Plateau.

We respectfully acknowledge that these lands have been peopled for thousands of years.

While the Kaibab Plateau has been home to the Havasupai (https://www.theofficialhavasupaitribe.com/), the Navajo, Hualapai, Apache, and Hopi have all lived in the borderlands of the Grand Canyon area.  

In Southern Arizona, according to the Tucson Indian Center, "The Tucson area has long been the traditional site for Indian settlements. From the Archaic and Hohokam Indians, to the Tohono O’odham and Yaqui, the waters of the Santa Cruz River and the surrounding fertile land attracted desert dwelling tribes" (https://www.ticenter.org/history, retrieved January 1, 2023).  

Of course, this beautiful desert has long been a sought-after landscape, with the Spanish first arriving in the 1530's, raids by Apache and Comanche throughout the 1700's and 1800's, and even the Confederate army fighting battles in the desert during the American Civil War.

For additional information, we refer to the Friends of Saguaro National Park website (https://www.friendsofsaguaro.org/nativepeoples, retrieved January 1, 2023): Human habitation in the Tucson Basin dates back approximately 12,500 years -- to the Pleistocene Age.  The first people were likely descended from those who migrated across a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska;  bands of hunters were roaming the desert grasslands of southern Arizona by about 10,000 BC.  Archeologists have concluded that sites found in the Tucson Basin, along the Santa Cruz River, likely represent the oldest, continuously inhabited area in the United States. About 2,300 years ago, a group we now call the Hohokam had settled in southern Arizona -- including the Santa Cruz valley.  By AD 700, they had a well-developed agricultural economy including extensive irrigation systems.

Archeological finds in the Rincon Mountain District of Saguaro National Park show that Hohokam villages existed there for about 600 years -- along Rincon Creek and its tributary washes.  Then, during the 15th century, the Hohokam culture simply vanished.

Contemporary native peoples that would constitute the ethnographic history of the Park include:

Akimel O'odham (also known as Pima)
Apache
Hopi
Maricopa
Yaqui
Tohono O'odham ("Desert People")
Yavapai
Zuni

For those interested, The Desert Museum offers insights on the Spanish and Mexican contact in the region here: https://www.desertmuseum.org/members/sonorensis/week9.php.  

For additional information about local tribal lands, see http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/ and https://itcaonline.com/member-tribes/pascua-yaqui-tribe/ and https://heard.org/education/arizona-indian-communities/. 

For those interested in making the running community more accessible, inclusive, and visible for all, you may wish to read about the Running on Native Lands Initiative at  https://www.risinghearts.org/nativelands.  You can also visit https://native-land.ca, the source for the image on this page.  For additional materials, perhaps see the recommended books here: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2020/10/09/honoring-indigenous-peoples-recommended-reads.   

2025 POLICY: all entry fees are non-refundable, non-deferrable, and non-transferrable.  

When you register for this event, you are making a non-refundable purchasing decision and must agree to this policy.  

The pricing is already discounted, so there are no SAR member discounts or other coupons.

For those who cannot attend an event, race shirts and souvenirs may be picked up at The Running Shop (3055 North Campbell Avenue) on a first-come, first-served basis starting on race weekend and continuing until one month after the race date.

You may not give or sell your number to another individual - if you do, this will result in disqualification and banishment from this event.

Due to the virtual option for these events, this policy stays in effect whether you are injured, have an unexpected business or family emergency, illness, etc.  Once you register, unrecoverable race course services and items are paid for you as if you will be attending the event.  

Pregnant athletes may wish to do the events virtually, but please contact us at tia@runtucson.net if you have any questions and we're happy to help.

TMC Tucson 10k, with companion 5k Run/Walk

Sunday morning, September 7th, registration opens at 5:30 am, with the TMC 10k beginning at 6:15 am and the TMC 5k at 6:30 am.  See links at www.runtucson.net for additional updates.

Finish Medal: all finishers in the 5k and 10k receive the 2025 souvenir race medal, with stained glass highlighting the Tucson Mountains

Location: Staged at west courtyard of Pima Community College West Campus, 2202 W Anklam Rd, Tucson, Arizona 85709

Terrain: smooth pavement 

Difficulty: this is a hilly course, on smooth and well-paved roads

Children: Children are always welcome but we do not have specific children's activities planned

Weather: probably 70's at the start, rising to 90's in mid-day

Chair-Friendly: Yes, the course is hilly with a few sharp turns, but it is suitable for chair and other athletes

Pets Allowed: No, not in the race itself.  

Want Training Advice? Contact Run Tucson's RRCA-certified running coach Tia Accetta at tia@runtucson.net.

TMC A-Mountain Half-Marathon, 4-Miler, and Cox Family Mile 

Sunday morning, October 19, 2025 registration opens at 6:00 am, TMC A-Mountain Half-Marathon start at 6:30 am.  See links at www.runtucson.net for additional updates.

We're coming back to the A! In 2025, we'll once again stage the TMC A-Mountain Half Marathon at the Annex at the Mercado San Agustin, alongside the Santa Cruz River at the foot of A-Mountain.

Souvenir Medal: Finish Medal: all finishers in the Half Marathon and 4-Mile will receive the 2025 souvenir race medal, with stained glass highlighting the "A" of Sentinel Peak.

Terrain: Paved

Difficulty: Both routes are on a smooth surface and include A-Mountain.  

Children: Yes, this is a family-friendly event.

Weather: Most likely about 50 degrees at race start, with mid-day hitting 70's

Chair Athletes: The course includes A-Mountain, which may not be suitable for chair athletes

Pets Allowed: No, not on the grounds of Annex at the Mercado.

Want Training Advice? Contact Run Tucson's RRCA-certified running coach Tia Accetta at tia@runtucson.net.

Your registration for the three-event series gives you a host of cool stuff.

Pictured here are the 2024 goodies!

* A 202​5 Run Tucson Triple Crown colorful t-shirt in both unisex and ladies sizes

* Registration to the Saturday night, May 31st TMC Meet Me Downtown 5k Run/Walk and 1-Mile​, including souvenir race shirt 

* Registration to the Sunday morning, September 7th TMC Tucson 10k and 5k​, including souvenir race shirt and commemorative medal

* Registration to the Sunday morning October 19th TMC ​A-Mountain Half-Marathon and 4-Miler including souvenir race shirt and commemorative medal 

* A unique 202​5 Gabe Zimmerman commemorative souvenir

Plus, you get the happiness of knowing that a portion of your entry fees will go to the BEYOND Foundation, plus each of the the other race beneficiaries.