‘So freeing.’ For these Charlotteans, a run isn’t just a run.

It’s a Tuesday night at 1501 S. Mint Street, and a voice is booming through a megaphone.

Greetings echo through the chilly night air as the little crowd grows. There’s people of all races and all ages doing some last minute stretching. And they’re going to need it — for the next hour, they’ll run together as the Mad Miles running club.

Even in Charlotte’s thriving running scene, Mad Miles is an outlier.

Most of the city’s run clubs are majority-white. It’s a significant obstacle for many people of color who run — often, running can require vulnerability and comfort they don’t find in spaces where they’re not represented.

And historically, jogging has long excluded Black runners.

Local runner and fitness coach Bre Leach has already seen some changes in Charlotte’s running community since she moved here five years ago, like the creation and expansion of groups like Mad Miles and Black Men Run. But she thinks there’s room to make it more welcoming for everyone.

“Charlotte is a huge running city... In our communities, I’ve noticed the running community has blossomed among people who look like me,” she said. “I just wish that there was more support behind other communities.”

More inclusive

As the only girl in a house of brothers, sometimes it feels like Leach has been running since birth.

Childhood play turned into school sports, which turned into a career — she majored in kinesiology in college, started personal training while there, and realized that was her calling.

“I really loved getting a chance to be part of every person I was connected to, no matter what they wanted to achieve — weight loss, weight gain, rehabilitation, or just wanting to be an active person,” she said.

About six years ago, Leach started posting her workouts to Instagram. She says she did it out of a love for exercise, but her followers started reaching out

Her Instagram account turned into a fitness page over time, and now, Leach says Just BN Fit is her full-time job. Though she posts other workouts, running is her bread and butter.

“Running is so freeing. Not only do I love to train people, I love taking care of myself — and one of the ways to do that is running,” she said. “Anytime I run I tell myself, even though I’m not on a team anymore, it doesn’t mean that passion is gone. Running is something I can always do — it reminds me that I’m still capable.”

As a fitfluencer of color, Leach said she takes it as a personal charge to motivate people who look like her to exercise. Citing high cardiovascular disease rates in the Black community, she said that running is the most basic exercise you can do, she said — all you need is a good pair of shoes.

“For Black communities in particular, there’s not a lot of access to gyms or access to healthy living spaces where people can go exercise,” she said. “Running can be done in all neighborhoods.”

‘We’re a run club’

One of Charlotte’s most diverse running clubs started with Cornell Jones posting a picture on his Instagram stories.

The former college athlete decided in 2019 that he wanted to run a mile every day. And at the start or end of his run, he’d share a picture.

Folks slid into his DMs, encouraging him — but then they started showing up, too.

At first, there were just five or six people, but the numbers grew quickly. Jones made Mad Miles an official running club.

“I wanted to start it as a space where people could feel accountable and just try to challenge themselves,” he said. “Now, we’ve hit hundreds.”

Mad Miles, which meets every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., and every Saturday at 10 a.m., is open to anyone. Saturday run club meets at Elizabeth Park on North Kings Drive in Charlotte.

Its runners are different races, different ages and from all walks of life. Jones said that’s his favorite thing about it.

It does inspire questions when they’re out running on a trail, though.

“People are like, ‘Look at all these Black people running. Wow, where are you guys going? What’s going on?’” he said. “And I tell them: ‘We’re a run club.’”

Running while Black

Jones said the club helps dispel the myth that Black people don’t run for fun. Not only is it untrue — it’s a dangerous stereotype.

Just last week, three white men were convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery last February in Georgia. Arbery, a young Black man, was chased and killed after Greg McMichael and his son Travis McMichael saw Arbery running — and wrongly assumed he was committing a crime.

Charlotteans joined joggers across the country last May in a collective 2.23 mile run to honor Arbery’s life.

Running, as a pasttime, has historically been marketed toward white people — while Black runners have often been interpreted as a threat.

When Jones would go on night runs before Mad Miles, he had a checklist — he knew he needed his ID, a second form of identification and flashers. The mental checklist is a common practice for many Black runners.

“I don’t want to say it’s sad, but it kind of is,” he said. “But when I go out to Mad Miles, I don’t have to think about any of that. I know that they have my back.”

He’s used to feeling out of place as a runner — while running cross country for his historically Black college, most of the people he competed against at meets were white.

But people in color in Charlotte don’t ever have to experience that alienated feeling. With Mad Miles, there’s power in numbers, Jones said.

Though Leach hasn’t run with the group yet, she said it gives her comfort to know that if she ever wants to, it’s a welcoming, inclusive space where there are other people who look like her.

“It all adds up to feeling safe and feeling comfortable,” Jones said.

“I think about running as a Black man every day — except Tuesdays and Saturdays.”