‘Without Fear:’ Trail Running Is More Than a Sport for These Run Clubs

Nashville resident Gabe Marrero had plenty of hesitation about trail running. The idea of going out in the woods provoked a litany of fears for him. He was worried about getting lost or being attacked by snakes and bears.

Most of all, the thought of being alone in a forest — especially as a person of color — was a scary proposition. Marrero had always thought of trail running as a “white people activity,” or something that “black and brown people just don’t do.”

Then he joined the Freedom to Run program created by the Running Industry Diversity Coalition (RIDC). The leaders of this nonprofit understand why people of color would have fears of running alone. They created RIDC in the wake of the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man murdered while jogging alone in a small town in Georgia.

With Freedom to Run, RIDC selected more than a dozen people to receive coaching, gear, and community support, hoping to create a culture of trail running among those who felt it wasn’t meant for them.

Marrero was one of several Nashville residents in 2025’s cohort of Freedom to Run, including Yolanda Lopez-Haugabook. Together, Marrero and Lopez-Haugabook discovered the joy of running on nature trails near Nashville. And they started inviting other people of color to join them. Before long, they had formed Sin Miedo, one of the few BIPOC trail running groups in the Deep South. (The group’s name translates from Spanish as “without fear.”)

Between President Trump’s immigration crackdown and a rise of racially motivated hate crimes in recent years, it hasn’t been easy for people of color to feel safe, according to the runners interviewed for this story. But now trail running groups like Sin Miedo are popping up around the country, giving more Americans a chance to get outside.

“ICE was coming in May of last year and taking people away from their families,” Marrero said. “We made a conscious decision to say, ‘We’re going to show up.’ These things happening around us are awful and destroying our community, but we’re going to help people escape for an hour or two. And so many people have shown up in the group, providing help to those who need it. Places to stay, food, whatever… The trail running has been the catalyst for us to continue showing up for each other.”

Diversity in Running

These days, it seems like more people want to run than ever before. Marathons continue to balloon in size. Most of the major ones now have lotteries, even as participation surges to tens of thousands for a single race.

Trail running isn’t far behind. According to the Outdoor Industry Association’s latest data, trail running had the largest increase (7.8%) of any tracked outdoor activity in 2025, surging to 17.2 million participants.

When looking at runners more broadly, there’s a decent amount of diversity. About 34% of runners (16 million) are people of color, according to data from the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. That percentage could likely surge even higher as the U.S. population shifts. By 2045, people of color will be the country’s majority, with a 51% share of the population, according to U.S. Census projections.

But trail running still lags far behind in diversity, and that’s especially true in the upper echelons of the sport. A 2024 survey of roughly 600 runners by the American Trail Running Association found that 84% of them self-identify as white. Evidently, there weren’t enough runners identifying as Black to even warrant a percentage.

RIDC also offers a database of BIPOC-led running groups across the U.S. — and it’s growing weekly, Kiera Smalls, the executive director of RIDC, told GearJunkie. Many of these running groups bring dozens of people out to run each week, sometimes hundreds.

“At the end of the day, barriers still exist for people of color: safety, time, cost, perception — all of those things are still there,” Smalls said. “But we can tell by the increase in representation that something is happening.”

A New Generation of Trail Runners

Yolanda Lopez-Haugabook is a perfect example of why diversity in trail running remains so low. Before joining RIDC’s Freedom to Run program, Lopez-Haugabook and her husband were both avid runners — but mostly on concrete.

The idea of being in the woods doesn’t always feel safe for people of color, she said. But then they received coaching and guidance through remote meetings with RIDC trail-running experts, and they started to take their running habit onto nature trails. They started at Nashville’s Percy Warner Deep Well Trailhead and soon realized what they were missing.

That became fully clear to Lopez-Haugabook when she showed her father photos of various mushrooms she’d found along one of her trail runs.

“He said, ‘I’ve never seen these in real life. I’ve only seen it on TV.’ And that was almost me,” she said. “I almost missed out on this opportunity. I had done a hike here and there. But it’s such a different experience to run through the woods. You’re connecting to something ancestral. You’re getting something the road could never give.”

That’s when Lopez-Haugabook and her husband decided to co-found Sin Miedo and bring more people like them to those same trails. When they started organizing group runs last year, it was “right in the middle of immigration raids here in Nashville,” she said, so “moving in numbers together” was how they stayed safe.

An analysis of ICE videos and public records shows a pattern of “systemic racial profiling” and “demeaning conduct,” the Nashville Banner reported in February. That’s part of why Lopez-Haugabook and her husband soon realized they wanted to do more than just organize weekly runs.

So they took a cue from RIDC and focused on education, too. They created a 16-week training program and convinced several group members to join them on the Wild Thangs trail race series in Alabama. It was powerful to see so much interest from the community, she said. Sometimes, new members had been champion runners in their original countries, but didn’t know how to find those opportunities in the United States.

“When we went [to Wild Thangs] last year, we were the only people of color at the first race. Then there were a couple more at the others. By the fourth, we brought 16 people of color to the race. We also brought 27 to a race in Chattanooga in December,” Lopez-Haugabook said. “That has been a beautiful reward for us, to be part of that advancement of people of color within the running industry.”

Partnering With the Running Industry

RIDC’s Freedom to Run program has produced several success stories — Sin Miedo is just one of them. The nonprofit’s programming has continued to grow over the last few years. Although the group initially focused on safety for BIPOC runners, it has since expanded to include many initiatives aimed at increasing diversity not only among runners but also within the industry itself.

Brand partnerships have helped fund many of its programs. That includes Movement for All, a 3-year program that provides free coaching, both in-person and online. On Running helped fund the initiative, which is now available in all 50 states, and received 1,350 applications in 2026.

There’s also Run the Block, a partnership with Brooks Running. The brand offered a $200,000 grant to support the opening of a Black-owned running store. After receiving many applications, RIDC selected Carol Holland and Jesse Holland in Prince George’s County, Md. They opened their store, Haraka, this year.

“RIDC focuses on two pathways to increase diversity,” Smalls said. “How do we help more people get into running? And how do we increase participation so more people are working in the industry?”

The nonprofit’s research into diversity within the running industry is also eye-opening. While conducting industry research funded by New Balance, RIDC conducted a survey of 63 running organizations, including retailers, product manufacturers, and event organizers. About 70% of these organizations had goals for DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Yet 59% of those don’t track their progress, and only 14% publish their goals for the public, RIDC concluded.

Nearly half of the organizations surveyed have a senior executive leading those DEI efforts. Of those, 77% identify as white.

“Every time we do research, we don’t just provide info for the individuals,” Smalls said. “This is what retailers can do. This is what brands can do.”