By Maya Smith
Photo by Tindall Stephens
About 70 novice and seasoned runners strode around Shelby Farms’ Hyde Lake on a rainy Sunday in September.
Faster runners who had finished the loop chatted over a live DJ’s mix. They sipped on celebratory local beer, cheering on every runner finishing after them. It was the one-year anniversary of the 901 Run Club’s first run.
Jeremy Jones, 29, one of the club’s co-founders, stood at the end of the loop, high-fiving finishers until the last runner — winded yet smiling —jogged through the finish line.
When Jones and the club’s other co-founders, Jarius Powers, 30, and Darryl Sims, 29, connected through Instagram and met for their first run a year ago, it was just the three of them. Even after spreading the word on social media, the trio had no idea that the group would grow like it has, now attracting as many as 160 runners a week. Much of that growth happened over the summer.
“IT STARTS AS RUNNING,
BUT IT’S COMMUNITY AT THE
END OF IT. YOU DON’T HAVE
TO HAVE ANY SKILLS TO BE
A PART OF A COMMUNITY.”
“We started with three people, and then it grew to six,” Sims says. “Now, all of a sudden, it’s hundreds of people and different faces each week.”
The trio started their running journeys for various reasons: Powers and Sims to stay in shape. Goal-driven, Jones, in college at the time, admits he initially just wanted to run a race and get a sticker boasting the distance.
“I didn’t know what the 13.1 or 26.2 meant, but I knew I wanted a sticker,” he says. “Once I found out what I had to do to get it, I was like ‘yeah, I can do that.’”
In the process of training for his first marathon in 2022, Jones became hooked on running when he started to see the mental fortitude required for running help him in other areas of his life, such as his engineering career. Now, he wants to encourage others to run so they can reap those benefits, too.
“Us three have gotten so much from running,” he says. “It’s helped us navigate life and I just want to share that with everyone we come across.”
Though led to run for mixed reasons, the three started the 901 Run Club with one main goal: to create community, Powers says.
“We bring together people from all parts of the city — from South Memphis to the suburbs,” Powers says. “It’s a chance to interact with people we might not have otherwise. We get to see people foster and develop friendships here. And that’s our biggest thing: creating connections across the city.”
The 901 Run Club aims to create a space for beginner and experienced runners, inspiring the club’s tagline, “every pace, every face.” “Running can be for everybody,” says Jones, who coined the club’s motto. It’s not just “limited to the fastest of the fastest.”
“If you’ve never run before or been running for years, you’re welcome here,” Jones adds. “It starts as running, but it’s community at the end of it. You don’t have to have any skills to be a part of a community.”
The 901 Run Club meets weekly at 4 p.m. on Sunday for its staple 2.3-mile run around Hyde Lake. Every second and last Saturday of the month, the club meets at various locations around the city for a two or four-mile scenic run. The runs are free and open to all levels of runners.
Connect with the 901 Run Club on their Facebook or Instagram page, or check out their website, 901runclub.com for upcoming runs. Runners are asked to complete a waiver before joining.
