Community service with Venice Run Club
It’s one of the biggest run clubs in the world and Justin Shields is using Venice Run Club to build a community that can help him change the world.
Venice Run Club is a phenomenon.
It’s only been three and a half years since Justin Shields started Venice Run Club in earnest. By last summer, the regular Wednesday evening meetup counted 1,100 people running 4.5 miles (7.2 km) through the canals and along the beach (no wonder that run is called Mobbin.) This Sunday (March 10 2024), VRC has convinced the Venice Neighborhood Council to shut down Abbot-Kinney Boulevard - one of the most famous streets in all of Los Angeles - for a foot race. Next Sunday, over 300 members of Venice Run Club will line up to run the L.A. Marathon.
This monumental growth, however, has come at a cost.
Sure, they’ve been labeled the ‘Tinder Run Club’ - a great place to find a date - but there have also been a couple of mild race-related controversies (both types of race). The first part is something that Shields rolls his eyes at as much as the more earnest run club runners among us might, and we’ll return to that, but the second part sits incongruously with the past and present truth of Venice Run Club.
Building with Purpose
It was the relentless murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd in 2020 that originally sparked Shields into action. He played lacrosse in college and “was teammates with people who never had black friends.” After fielding one apologetic, questioning text message too many from a former teammate, he embarked upon a charity running challenge to get away from it all. He chose David Goggins’ 4x4x48, where you run four miles every four hours for 48 hours.
Through this urban ultramarathon he and his friend, Tyler Standley raised $60,000 for progressive policing reform non-profit, Campaign Zero. That was the genesis of Venice Run Club in 2020. It all started from real action to address racial inequality.
Cut to 2022 and VRC is picking up steam, commanding 400 or so runners every Wednesday, and they post on Instagram about the third annual 48 For Floyd. The post image had two shirtless, blonde, white men, taken at the 2021 event, which benefited women and minorities in STEM to the tune of $25,000.
“Somebody actually made an anonymous account and they commented, ‘I'm asking for a friend but are people of color allowed at this run club, or are only white people allowed?’ That's when it first started.”
A few months later there was another misstep as a Merrell-sponsored team running The Speed Project - a 100% white team - posted to a separate, event-specific Instagram account while wearing VRC kit (their only affiliation with the club) with a surprisingly tone deaf caption: “What we lack in diversity, we make up for in culture.”
Was it a joke? It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t funny. The result? The main Venice Run Club account was then angrily tagged hundreds of times, Justin’s phone blew up with notifications. It took him a minute to figure out why, but the blowback lasted months, even coming at Shields and his wife at in-person events.
“I can see this negative thought about it's just privileged people that live on the beach - and I can understand where this came from - but if you look a little deeper, you'll see like the run club actually started for a reason, and that's still a main foundational pillar of what we do as a club.”
Catching digital punches for being too white is a galling situation for a black founder on his way to raising $100,000 to help “combat racial and social issues and help marginalized communities,” and the anguish is clear on his face when he retells the story.
The Pitfalls of Trying
Maybe I’m on the optimistic end of the spectrum because I’ve been watching Venice Run Club from afar with plenty of admiration. Just like Silver Lake Track Club’s recent formation of a 501(c)3 non-profit charity, I see these neighborhood run clubs organizing themselves for the good of their communities, and I feel pride even in running the same streets.
Misunderstandings can easily occur when people are at a distance, however - something exacerbated by the extensive gaze social media affords us and pandemic-related isolation. It’s easy to look on from afar and wonder if everything is as it should be.
In 2023, the club’s long-planned pioneering partnership with On Running had finally come to fruition (it was the Swiss brand’s first foray into U.S. club sponsorship), and the 175 VRC members running the marathon had custom running kits. It should’ve been a high moment for the run club, but their wins were instead overshadowed by a stressful, slanderous low.
Justin Shields had to come to terms with his position and responsibilities as the head of one of the fastest-growing run clubs in the world, plus everything that comes with it.
“Growth is interesting. When you are small, you don't matter. As soon as you grow, people nitpick to muddy your success. The amount of hate I've received is crazy.”
Having trusted someone else with the VRC image and getting burned hard, there’s a clear sense that Shields will not relinquish control of the club’s messaging quite so easily again. He certainly doesn’t wish to court that kind of stress again - he doesn’t think he deserves it.
“There's a very small percentage of people in the world that get paid to do what we're doing. Let's scale it back a little bit because we're not those people.”
The criticism, he found, largely came from outside of Venice. Sentiment within the community remained aligned. Wednesdays evening runs just kept growing in size.
Run Clubs as a Third Place
Venice Run Club is one of the many social clubs formed during the pandemic. With work-from-home situations increasing, the melding of first (home) and second (work) places has led to a lack of separation; a blurring of boundaries. Third places were the first to shut down - bars, libraries, gyms, restaurants - and studies have shown a resultant increase in loneliness since the start of the pandemic, especially among the Gen Z demographic that makes up so much of Venice Run Club.
These third places are neutral places to give our new, more isolated selves common ground to share a conversational reality with others. Think of cozy, accessible spaces with regulars and strangers who command the same status. Third places are stress-relievers from the grind of daily life, and America was already awful at providing them.
Third places are also essential parts of the human experience in order to establish a civic sense of place and community, and that is exactly what Justin Shields offers with VRC. While the 48 For Floyd and clothing drives offer tangible ways to connect with marginalized society, the next step along the way is this weekend’s Abbot Kinney One race - the first sanctioned race that the run club has organized.
“I love Venice. Everything I do, I try to do for the city. I got a permit from the City of Los Angeles to shut down one of the busiest streets in L.A. It wasn't easy. If it wasn't for the community, we wouldn't have had the support to do it.”
With race categories for everyone, from pets and kids to elites and masters, it’s a landmark event for the club and the whole Venice community.
Venice for Lovers
The confluence of running culture and dating culture has hit mainstream news recently. Run clubs are the new hotspot for finding your next spouse according to the NY Post and TikTok (of course), but Justin isn’t altogether happy with the undeserved eye rolls.
“I've heard things like the only reason why I started the run club is to find girls, but my thing was I'm going to treat this like a business. I have a purpose, and my name is connected to this. Yeah, I'm running this like a business. This isn't the game.”
With best laid plans, however, Justin met his now-wife at the club’s fourth ever run. After a while, she offered her help, and took over the club’s social media. He grimaces when I suggest they’re a power couple.
I went down to a Mobbin Wednesday recently, and it sure is a curious thing when, as a newbie, you introduce yourself and you’re asked if you’re single in front of hundreds of people. There used to be more questions!
“When you have 100 new runners it's kind of hard, but back when we would have two [new runners], I would ask six questions to get to know who you are. Let's make you vulnerable. Let's make you uncomfortable. That's how we form a real connection.”
The question about being single came from a real moment of someone wanting to know! Maybe finding your life partner isn’t your number one goal, but online dating is a grind, and this type o real-life connection is difficult to force. How comfortable you personally are answering certain private questions in public is wholly subjective, but there’s absolutely no denying the positive connections and community that have been made.
About Justin
Shields laughs that when he started VRC, he had “never even heard of a run club.” He wasn’t a runner, per se, but he ran a lot. His first purposeful run was the Santa Monica to Venice Christmas run in December 2015. Such was the buzz that he signed up for the L.A. Marathon as soon as he got home. He then ran four L.A. Marathons as a “solo bird,” but simply never noticed the community aspect of it.
At school, he recalls seeing the track team running laps while he was playing team sports, and wondering why they would do that to themselves. For him, running was either sprints or a punishment. He often trained for those first few marathons running 15 miles on the treadmill because he was self-conscious. He didn’t think he looked like a runner.
Now, he thoughtfully acknowledges that he runs with people who run four-minute miles “for fun” as well as with people nervous about running their first 5k, and he revels in building it.
“I want every single person to show up. I'm trying to promote an inviting culture where everyone is accepted. I honestly feel like that's the main reason why the club has grown so fast.”
With a massive 310 (and counting) running the Los Angeles Marathon, he’s not a solo bird any more, though.
“I don't know if it’s a trauma bond or that feeling of missing out, but that shared experience of training for something so difficult brings everyone closer together. Seeing people train for the marathon, where every single long run is their longest run of their life is such a motivating feeling. It's so inspiring. I love it.”
Having launched the Venice Run Club community with the sentiment of Black Lives Matter that permeated all of correct-thinking America at the start of the pandemic, Justin Shields has built a space for his neighbors to organize, train, and feel at home with like-minded people. And who knows? Maybe they’ll follow their founder’s lead and build a new home with someone they meet at Venice Run Club.
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Links & Further Reading
Venice Run Club [WEB] [IG] [Abbot Kinney One]
48 For Change [WEB] [GoFundMe]
Campaign Zero [WEB]
Third Places [The Atlantic] [UMich]
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I've been thinking about joining one of their runs but what has been turning me off is the pictures I see on their instagram. Running is supposed to be one of the most inclusive and accessible sports, but all you see they post is attractive people in the 20s and early 30s. It's almost like they are only trying to attract a very specific crowd. A run club should be inclusive enough to attract all types of runners of all ages, sizes, and abilities. If you are trying to create a more niche club that caters to a particular demographic, just own up to it.
extremely well-written and unbiased, presenting all objective sides to a complicated but necessary story. i'm rooting for VRC to succeed in their evolution.