<\/p>\n
More than 200 participants set out from Herby\u2019s Burgers during Oak Cliff Run Crew\u2019s fifth-anniversary celebration Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Michael Cuviello\/Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
More than 200 runners gathered in\u00a0Oak Cliff<\/a> on Thursday, pushing one another on as they started and finished a roughly 2\u00bd-mile route in near-100-degree heat<\/a>.<\/p>\n Five years earlier, the Oak Cliff Run Crew was four friends trying to persuade others to join them.<\/p>\n Oak Cliff Run Crew participants listen to instructions before beginning the group\u2019s fifth-anniversary run Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, outside Herby\u2019s Burgers in Dallas.<\/p>\n Michael Cuviello\/Dallas Morning News An Oak Cliff Run Crew participant pushes a child in a stroller along the group\u2019s fifth-anniversary route Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Cuviello\/Dallas Morning News An Oak Cliff Run Crew participant runs through the neighborhood during the group\u2019s fifth-anniversary event Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, in Dallas. Temperatures hovered near 100 degrees during the roughly 2\u00bd-mile route.<\/p>\n Michael Cuviello\/Dallas Morning News More than 200 runners and walkers gather outside Herby\u2019s Burgers before Oak Cliff Run Crew\u2019s fifth-anniversary run Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, in Dallas<\/p>\n Michael Cuviello\/Dallas Morning News An Oak Cliff Run Crew participant smiles and gestures toward the camera during the group\u2019s fifth-anniversary run Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Cuviello\/Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n At first, people trickled in: eight or 10 runners became 12, then 20. The founders kept returning each week and inviting more people.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cFour of us and more of us,\u201d they began saying.<\/p>\n The group now averages 200 to 250 participants each week, according to its founders.<\/p>\n Thursday\u2019s fifth-anniversary celebration began at Herby\u2019s Burgers<\/a> in Oak Cliff\u2019s Elmwood neighborhood. After the run, participants gathered for burgers, running-shoe demonstrations and recovery equipment provided through the crew\u2019s partnerships.<\/p>\n For co-founder Patrick Kleineberg, the turnout showed what can happen when people keep showing up for one another.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels a little surreal, a little unreal,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we couldn\u2019t have done it without the people that got us here.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Related: At sold-out Dallas rodeo, Cleo Hearn\u2019s mission rides on<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n They built what they could not find<\/p>\n From left, Ian Shoff, Patrick Kleineberg and Vincent Holland, three of Oak Cliff Run Crew\u2019s four co-founders, stand outside Herby\u2019s Burgers before the crew\u2019s fifth-anniversary run Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, in Dallas. Co-founder Haley Renison is not pictured.<\/p>\n Michael Cuviello\/Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n Kleineberg, Vincent Holland, Ian Shoff and Haley Renison founded the crew Aug. 5, 2021, as Dallas was emerging from the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n The four met at Tribal All Day Cafe in Bishop Arts. Holland and Renison worked there. Kleineberg and Shoff arrived separately as customers, each looking for a place where they could become a regular and reconnect with people.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Within months, the four had become friends and discovered that each had a running background.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wanted community,\u201d Kleineberg said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t see what we were looking for, so we said, \u2018Why don\u2019t we just start it ourselves?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Growth came one invitation at a time. The founders recruited friends and approached people they met at neighborhood bars. Within about two years, weekly attendance had reached 50 to 70 runners. A broader social-running boom helped push participation into the hundreds beginning in 2024.<\/p>\n Kleineberg said the crew\u2019s foundation was consistency. At least one of the four founders has attended every Thursday run for five years.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s five years of my life on Thursdays,\u201d said Kleineberg, 38. \u201cI don\u2019t really have anything else going on Thursdays except for this.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Holland said none of the founders anticipated what their weekly gathering would become. At one point, nearly 600 people participated in a single run, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be astonishing,\u201d Holland said of what he would have thought five years ago. \u201cWe were literally just doing it for us four.\u201d<\/p>\n The founders consider the range of people who feel welcome more important than the size of the crowd.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have fought tooth and nail from the beginning to make sure anybody feels like they can be here at any level, any pace,\u201d Holland said.<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong> The city shrinks when I’m running<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u2018All faces, all paces\u2019<\/p>\n Oak Cliff Run Crew participants talk as they move along the group\u2019s fifth-anniversary route Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026, in Dallas.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Cuviello\/Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n The crew\u2019s official motto is \u201cAll faces, all paces.\u201d<\/p>\n Some members train for marathons. Others jog, alternate between running and walking or walk the entire route. One regular uses a wheelchair and sometimes rolls past participants who are walking, Kleineberg said.<\/p>\n That range is intentional. Some running groups say all paces are welcome, Kleineberg said, only for their fastest members to take off and leave beginners wondering whether they belong.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cIf you come to our runs on Thursdays, it really shows,\u201d he said. \u201cAnyone who is just walking, to the people who take off fast.\u201d<\/p>\n There are no membership fees or tryouts. Participants complete a waiver and show up.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to walk a couple miles, that\u2019s cool,\u201d Shoff said. \u201cIf you want to jog-walk, whatever stage you\u2019re at, do that. If you want to run a five-minute pace for three miles, go do that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Shoff said running with a group offers accountability that solitary miles cannot. On a near-100-degree evening when going outside is the last thing a runner wants to do, he knows friends will be waiting.<\/p>\n The group also provides visibility and safety, particularly after dark.<\/p>\n \u201cI know there\u2019s going to be 300 of my friends here,\u201d Shoff said. \u201cIf something goes awry, I\u2019ve got people around me.\u201d<\/p>\n For many participants, the relationships matter more than pace or finishing time.<\/p>\n Sarah Woynicz joined shortly after moving to Dallas from Atlanta nearly two years ago. She arrived in the city at 7 p.m. on a Saturday. By 7 the next morning, she was running with a group of strangers.<\/p>\n She wanted to meet people and find a place in her new city. She has since brought her parents to walk a Thursday route when they visited.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s something special when you\u2019re in the middle of your week, with everything that everybody\u2019s got going on, and you have the chance to all come together and just be with one another,\u201d Woynicz said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n