In 2024, Atlanta restaurant owner and dietician Alex Alvarez and his two siblings decided to celebrate their August birthdays with a short run on the Eastside Beltline. Soon, the trio’s friends and family started joining them for weekly runs, the beginnings of Los Corridos, a Latine-inspired and Latine-led running club.
Los Corridos is part of a new wave of Atlanta running clubs that reflect a recent global surge in running participation, as Gen Z and Millennials continue to seek out in-person social activities and community connections.
Among them is Joshua Jackson, a personal trainer and owner of 4th Quarter Performance. While a lifelong athlete and former college football player, he started running last year as part of Atlanta Run Club (ARC), one of the city’s most popular running groups.
“Running is one of the few activities that almost anyone can participate in, and I think after the pandemic, people are really craving genuine connection and community,” said Jackson of why the sport has become so popular in recent years.
He completed the Atlanta Track Club’s Triple Peach race series last year and is now training for his first marathon, thanks to the accountability and camaraderie of ARC’s group runs.
Building community
“I think running clubs have become so popular over the last few years because people are searching for community, connection, and purpose outside of their work and traditional social circles,” said Tes Sobomehin Marshall, founder of West Midtown Run Club (WMRC) and The Race, the country’s largest Black long-distance running event.
A pioneer in Atlanta’s running club scene, Marshall was the first person in the city to create races centered around social experiences like breweries. WMRC meets at Monday Night Grove—and intentionally route races through the streets of Atlanta’s historically Black westside neighborhoods.
“I’ve always believed that every neighborhood should have a run club,” said Marshall. “People should not have to drive 45 minutes or battle Atlanta traffic just to find movement, connection, and community.”
Community access to movement is exactly why Shemeeka Gentry started South Fulton Run Club in 2025.
“I noticed there was a lack of running and wellness communities on the south side of Atlanta, specifically in South Fulton, and I wanted to create a space where people in our community felt seen, welcomed, encouraged, and represented,” said Gentry.
In addition to weekly group runs, South Fulton Run Club meets for social events like a holiday brunch and service activities, including a mobile prostate cancer screening with Emory Winship Cancer Institute at its inaugural Run the Block 5K last month.
Community is also at the center of Los Corridos’s group runs. Alvarez often blasts reggaeton and bachata through a speaker as the group weaves out and back along the Eastside Beltline, and then chats with participants over coffee at the end of their route
“Especially during these times, we as Latine folks need and want places to feel we can proudly be ourselves and find support with a community that looks and sounds like us,” said Alvarez.
The group hosts health screenings, seasonal food and clothing drives, and fundraisers for community organizations like El Refugio, which supports immigrants in detention centers and their families.
Driving IRL connections
According to Marshall, social media has transformed running—historically a competitive individual sport—into an accessible, social experience.
In 2025, online searches for “run clubs near me” were up 200 percent in the United States, and posts on platforms like Instagram and TikTok are driving the surge in running club participation, particularly for Gen Z.
With more than 40,000 Instagram followers, a dedicated YouTube channel, and a team of photographers and videographers that capture content at group runs and races, ARC is a prime example of Atlanta’s social media-driven running boom.
Last year, more than 1,000 runners and over 20 local running clubs joined ARC’s Global Running Day event on the Eastside Beltline, with videos and images from the event dominating local feeds. Global Running Day takes place every year on the first Wednesday in June. This year, the event takes place on June 3.
“The visual storytelling around run clubs, races, group photos, travel, and shared experiences has helped ‘glamorize’ running in a way that attracts new people into the community,” said Marshall.
Those shared, in-person experiences are what bring dozens of runners out to ARC’s group runs every week.
“We spend so much of our lives online, but at the end of the day people still want connection, and they want to belong to something,” Marshall continued. “Running just happens to be a really powerful vehicle for that.”
