When Kayla Hunt started running in her early 20s, she didn’t see herself represented in the “traditional run culture” that dominated the early 2010s. Those run clubs often brought out an older, more competitive crowd.
Hunt vividly remembers noticing the “social” run clubs that began popping up across North America around the same time — mostly in New York and Toronto — where people would show up every week at the same time and location for a run.
The crowd was a bit younger, a bit more social, a bit more inclusive.
“I remember thinking Ottawa really needs something like that,” Hunt said in an interview before the 2026 Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend . “And that was what I was looking for at the time.”
With no running background, Hunt started the Ottawa City Run Club (OCRC) in August 2015, mostly out of curiosity to see who would show up.
At the time, Hunt forced about eight of her friends and family members to come out in support of the initiative. But it didn’t take long for Ottawa to catch wind.
“People just started showing up,” she said. “And we’ve been doing it every Tuesday since.”
Rain or shine (except during the pandemic), people showed up every Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. for a run and a time to socialize with like-minded people.
Hundreds started showing up on Tuesday evenings during the summer and, before she knew it, OCRC exploded in popularity. No sign-up sheets, no payments, just showing up at the same time and place every week.
At the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend , which took place May 23-24, the OCRC cheer station was one of the loudest. Stationed at Frank and Queen Elizabeth Drive, the Ottawa run community did not shy from loudly encouraging their peers to cross the finish line and accomplish their goals.
Over the last eight years, Hunt has been on the sidelines cheering at the OCRC run station. Her kids would join her. “Its a big party,” she said.
Her kids would see runners from different backgrounds and body types accomplish their goals, but they never saw their mom do it. Hunt said she used to run half-marathons at the race before she had her children, but hasn’t completed a one since having her children.
Hunt raced the Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend ‘s 10-kilometre run on Saturday. For her, this year was all about showing them that she too could do it.
“It’s just kind of showing them what I’m capable of, but also what they’re capable of because they see so much of themselves through their parents.”
Cheering from the sidelines this year with her newborn baby was Robin Gandy.
Gandy said she didn’t run on the weekend because she had her baby six months ago, but added that she was excited to cheer for her peers.
Gandy has been going to the run club since 2020 and became an admin lead member in 2021.
Gandy said when she initially joined the club, her goal was to be more accountable as she entered a new stage of her life. But the run club morphed into something much bigger.
“It was a community that I really needed at the time, and it really became more than running for me,” she said.
“At the time I was in my mid-late 20s and it’s hard to make friends at that time, so it just became such a great space for me.”
As one of the run leads for the OCRC, she helps co-ordinate and plan runs weekly and organize the pomp and circumstance of race weekend.
More than a dozen of the OCRC crowd huddled around and inside the tent, coffee and snacks in hand as marathoners splashed past them on the rainy Sunday morning.
“Being at the cheer station, I get emotional because I get to see people accomplishing their goals and getting to the finish line.
“It takes a lot of guts to go to your first race or go out to your first run club,” she said. “It can be scary and it can be intimidating, but once you’re in it, the community is so great and everyone is just going to cheer you on and welcome you.”
It was two or three years into the creation of the OCRC that Hunt saw deep bonds forming among regular members of the run club.
“When I started to see those friendships forming, I thought, ‘Wow this is cool,’” she said. “We had two people who met at run club who are now married and have children.
“The outcome has been life changing for so many people.”
What’s next? Hunt said she would like to see the run club stick around for a long time without her needing to be a driving force behind it.
“I don’t think it needs to live with me,” she said. “I just want to see that run culture and what OCRC has built be preserved long term.”
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