Runners from Capital Run Club and Sunrise Social Club on a morning group run (Photo by Dan Sanworanart courtesy Capital Run Club)
Want to make a friend? Land a date? Make strides in your physical and mental health or earn a gold medal? Join a run club.
From an outside perspective, it’s easy to believe in the promise of these clubs. In the last few years, running clubs went from small hobbyist groups with similar goals to massive meetups of longtime and first-time runners alike. Their popularity has been fueled by social media, as posts and videos capture throngs of joyful runners roaming trails in scenic locations and making friends along the way.
Data backs up their popularity. In a 2024 survey, fitness tech company Strava reported a 59% increase in run club participation globally for the year. Driving that increase were runners of all generations, 58% of whom said they made new friends through active groups, while 20% of Gen Z respondents went on a date with someone they met through exercise.
Richmond’s running community has embraced these clubs as a catalyst for social interaction and a way to drive traffic to local businesses and institutions. This year, running advocates and local leaders hope to merge the fast-moving fad into part of the city’s culture.
Joining the Pack
On a Wednesday in December, just after dusk, the members of Capital Run Club arrive at the end of their 3-mile loop about an hour after they began. The group pours into Scott’s Addition’s Cochiloco, powering down their headlamps and stretching out their ligaments before ordering beer and tacos for a post-run celebration.
Richmond native Jack Oppenheim started the club in May 2024, inspired by the community he had found in run clubs in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. “We’re a growing city, so I thought Richmond needed something like this,” he says. “I think lot of young people feel disenfranchised in a lot of ways, and this can be that outlet for connection.”
Capital Run Club is one of more than a dozen clubs and community meetups that find time on work nights, early mornings and weekends to log runs around the Richmond region that range from 1-mile quickies to longer excursions. Most meet at a restaurant or bar and plan their routes out and back; coffee shops are popular gathering spots in the a.m., while breweries can host the tens or hundreds of runners that turn out to any given event.
804 Run Club grew from a community of runners who frequented the Fan fitness studio Tread Happy. Josh Leidy, a prior coach at the business, helped revive the group when he was training for his first marathon in 2021. The group meets on weekday afternoons April through November at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery on Ownby Lane, where separate cohorts go for 1-, 3- and 5-mile routes in the area, with a focus on accessibility.
“I think running can be intimidating for people, and I think that’s a barrier for entry to a lot of folks,” Leidy says. “What I think people really have loved about this kind of resurgence and trend of run clubs is, it exposes fitness and movement and running to an entire group of people who never thought it was possible for them.”
While some training collectives — pace-focused groups that prepare for a race or marathon — have clear goals and benchmarks, run clubs tend to be more inclusive and welcome all paces and abilities, Leidy adds.
“People tell me, ‘Oh, I need to get into shape before I go.’ I’m like, ‘No.’ There’s not a certain shape that you have to be in,” he says. “We have people there who are training for Boston qualification and someone who’s never run a mile in their life. They’re still there for the same reasons: for movement and joy and to have fun.”
Effect Run Club, which hosts three runs a week, meeting at various venues across town, recently expanded its offerings to include a training team for the Richmond Marathon and other races across the country. “It is a difficult blend, for sure, when it comes to the hype around running right now. Some people want to be social but also want to be competitive and do better,” says Kleigh Koupal, co-founder of Effect. “With the Effective training team, there’s a space if you do want to be more competitive and within our run club.”
Members of We Off the Couch run and fitness club on Broad Street downtown (Photo by Anthony Clary)
Changing the Pace
Group leaders take their role as community-makers seriously, paying close attention to the benefits an active lifestyle provides while reinforcing to runners the positivity inherent in social activities. Anthony Clary, founder of We Off the Couch run club, starts runs with a chant of self-affirmation.
“‘Who you are authentically is what we need here,’ this is what we say. This is pretty much the opening pitch, a welcome to folks that are new, that are existing members. It’s a welcome to We Off the Couch,” Clary says. “We’re not just out there running miles. We take it very seriously, and we love running. But I think what we learned is [that] we take each other even more seriously.”
Clary started the club and nonprofit in 2019 from his personal motivation to control his health. Seeing the impact it had on himself, he encouraged others to get involved. Now, the group is one of the largest clubs in Richmond and had more than 200 runners registered for the 2024 Richmond Marathon.
“We truly remove the barriers to access, because the majority of the folks that we serve are from disenfranchised communities, redlined communities, and when we talk about health impacts on those communities, access is important,” he says.
“A lot of folks say running is free, but it is absolutely not free,” he adds. “The decision to be active is free, but is also costly to maintain that activity, depending on where you’re from.”
Clary and fellow leaders assist runners with startup expenses for shoes, running clothes and race entry fees in an effort to make the region’s running culture more equitable.
The Ukrop’s Monument Avenue 10K in April 2024 (Photo by Jesse Peters courtesy Sports Backers)
A Local Impact
Running institutions in Richmond have taken notice of run clubs’ popularity and have found ways to foster clubs’ goals while improving the region’s running community.
Richmond Road Runners Club, in operation for nearly 50 years, has acted as a stimulant for making the region active since its founding. The organization helps put on nearly 20 events and races per year, hosts multiple training teams for local races, and provides grants to local running clubs for growth and outreach.
“We have so many members who are part of multiple run groups, but it doesn’t mean that we’re in competition,” says Jenna Conley, RRRC’s executive director. “I think we’re all in support of what’s best for the greater Richmond community. We provide programming and scholarships to be a knowledge base for runners and the variety of run clubs.”
The nonprofit sports advocate Sports Backers hosts the two largest running events in Richmond: the Monument Avenue 10k in April and the Richmond Marathon in November. Nan Callahan, PR and communications manager for the nonprofit, notes that high turnouts for both events in 2024 are related to the popularity of run clubs.
“The increase has been astounding here, and it’s been great to have that work in tandem with what we’re doing,” Callahan says, “They’re a great resource to help us further our mission, because all that they’re doing goes hand in hand to help with whatever we’re doing as well.”
Area businesses have also felt the surge: Run clubs have flooded businesses like Blanchard’s on Broad, Reviresco Coffee and more in the a.m., and breweries — including Bingo Beer Co., The Veil, Final Gravity, Väsen and Hardywood, among others — have become home bases for the clubs.
“It’s a great thing for Hardywood, for sure, it does drive business,” says Justin Paciocco, music, programs, & festival coordinator at the brewery. “I could see us trying to do something similar at our West Creek location as well, because there’s such a great running community here.”
Supporting runners nourishes the city at large, Conley notes. Going into 2025, that’s the motivation for many running clubs to keep moving. “You start to see people invest in themselves in a way they didn’t know they could, and then they’re giving back to the community by way of donating monetarily or time or whatever it may be, because now they’re believing in themselves,” says Clary of We Off the Couch. “It’s a beautiful thing I’m seeing.”
