Runners of color strive to increase numbers in sport, SF Marathon – San Francisco Chronicle

At his first road race in 2014, Kyrah Ayers was so nervous at the start line that he didn’t notice much about the other runners. But over the couple of hours it took him to run that half marathon, it became pretty obvious that he was one of the only black men on the course.

On Sunday, Ayers, 39, will run another half marathon as part of the San Francisco Marathon — and he won’t be alone for any of those 13.1 miles. He’ll be running alongside two dozen other African American competitors who are part of a national black men’s running group.

“It’s a really good feeling, honestly, to not be alone,” said Ayers, who lives in Hercules and trains at least once a month at Lake Merritt with his running group, Black Men Run. “I’ve actually been to many different running clubs around the area, and a lot of times I will be the only African American there. To be able to run and talk with people who have had similar experiences, it means a lot.”

Running for fitness and entertainment has exploded over the past two decades across the United States. Participation in road races — the metric most commonly used to track running numbers — jumped from fewer than 10 million in 2000 to more than 18 million in 2018, according to Running USA.

The demographics have shifted over that time, too, particularly among female participants. Women now make up more than half of all race finishers.

But people of color — and especially African Americans — remain dramatically under-represented. Fewer than 1 in 4 runners in the United States is non-white, and only 2% of all runners are black, according to an annual survey by Running USA.

Why the numbers are so low isn’t well understood, but runners themselves say a lot of it is due to a vicious cycle of lack of representation. Though runners from African nations tend to dominate the elite levels of the sport internationally, and one of the best-known American runners — Meb Keflezighi — is a black man, for the most part the popular image of a casual runner in the United States is white.

“Maybe if people saw more runners that look like them, at a professional level and at races, that would bring more interest,” said Rafael Ortiz, who heads the Black Men Run chapter in Phoenix, and will be running Sunday’s half marathon with Ayers. “The industry probably needs to do a better job at marketing that’s more inclusive, so it’s not just considered a white sport.”

Melissa Faukner, head of marketing for the San Francisco Marathon, said increasing diversity at the race has been a stated goal among organizers for the past few years, though she’s not sure how much the industry as a whole is having those discussions.

Marathons don’t typically track race or ethnic demographics among participants, so it’s hard to say how the San Francisco Marathon compares with other races across the country. It’s known as a destination race — on a scenic course that winds through Golden Gate Park and Fisherman’s Wharf, and crosses the Golden Gate Bridge — with about a third of participants coming from out of state.

It’s also one of the country’s largest marathons, though with roughly 5,000 finishers it’s tiny compared to the races in New York City and Chicago, which draw 50,000 and 45,000, respectively. The San Francisco Marathon actually comprises five races: the full marathon, two half marathons, a 5K and an ultra-marathon, in which participants run the 26.2-mile course twice.

The San Francisco Marathon started an ambassador program a few years ago, in part as a way to increase participation among under-represented communities, Faukner said. Race organizers bring on runners with diverse backgrounds to proselytize the marathon or the shorter-distance races to people who might not otherwise think about racing.

“We use those ambassadors to get the word out through non-traditional channels. It gets us in front of so many different people,” Faukner said. “It really helps draw in a pool of runners. And definitely for us, that’s something we’re always talking about, is just being inclusive.”

Among this year’s 60 marathon ambassadors is San Leandro resident Adrian Paul, 37, who has spent much of his running career focused on increasing participation among people of color. Paul was on his high school’s cross-country team but stopped running in college and didn’t pick it up for more than a decade.

When he started running again, in 2012, he was living in Brooklyn and noted right away that he didn’t see a lot of other black runners at races or in local clubs.

“And I wanted to run with people who looked like me,” he said.

Paul started an Instagram account around his running, and he quickly found that by searching hashtags for “black runner” or “color runner” he could connect with other people of color. He formed a new running club from the people he met on social media, and at its peak there were about 100 members, almost all of them people of color.

The group disbanded when Paul moved from Brooklyn to the Bay Area in 2015, though some members created new clubs with a similar focus. Groups for people of color have blossomed around the country, in fact, including Black Men Run, which has about 6,000 members nationwide, and Black Girls Run, which was started in 2009 and has more than 150,000 members.

Running clubs are an important tool for increasing participation for people of color, said Paul and other runners. Merced resident Waldo Merino, 30, who is running his first marathon Sunday in San Francisco, said he tried to find groups to help him train and stay motivated.

“But they weren’t very diverse and I felt awkward,” Merino said, so he did almost all of his training runs alone. “If there were more people that looked like me, I’d feel more comfortable. It just takes one or two people to start expanding that way.”

Paul said he’s now involved in several Bay Area running groups, including the East Bay Beer Runners, a club for casual athletes, and the competitive Oakland Track Club. In both groups, he’s taken care to support other people of color with training advice and cheerleading.

In addition to being a marathon ambassador and joining clubs, Paul also regularly volunteers as a race pacer, someone who guides other participants to a specific time goal. All of those roles give him a platform for promoting running among people of color, he said.

“There still aren’t that many people of color running races,” Paul said. “So when people see me as a pacer, I get them coming up to me all the time: ‘That’s great, a brother. I’m so happy to see a brother doing this.’ And I’m like, ‘I’ll get you to the finish, whatever you need.’”

Erin Allday is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: eallday@sfchronicle.com