SHOW DESCRIPTION

Timothy Orey is the founder of JXN Run Club, one of Jackson, Mississippi's fastest-growing running communities, which now draws hundreds of runners and walkers to LeFleur's Bluff every Sunday. What began in 2019 with four friends meeting at the Mississippi Museum of Art has grown into the engine behind 601 Day, a race that has sold out twice and drawn runners from six states. In this episode, Timothy talks with host Paul Wolf about the phrase he coined and still lives by — every pace is legal — and how it shaped a culture of belonging from day one. He also opens up about a hard season in 2022 and 2023, when 30 of the club's core leaders moved away within a few months, and how that moment became a reset rather than an ending. The conversation covers building an inclusive community, keeping JXN Run Club free, brand partnerships with Lululemon, and the growth of 601 Day into one of Jackson's signature events.

TRANSCRIPT

Note: Soul Sessions is produced as a podcast first and designed to be listened to. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes the emotion and inflection meant to be conveyed by human voice. Our transcripts are created using AI and human transcribers, but may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.

INTRO

Who Is Timothy Orey? Meet the Founder of Jackson Run Club

Paul

When 30 of his core leaders packed up and moved to Memphis, Atlanta, and DC within a few months' stretch, Timothy Orey started wondering if the community he'd built was built to last. It wasn't the end. It was a reset. Today he's the founder behind one of Jackson's fastest growing running communities, pulling hundreds of runners and walkers out to LeFleur's Bluff every single Sunday. Hey, it's Paul Wolf with a front row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi.

We call the podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places, and events that make the city with soul shine. On today's show, we're talking with Timothy about how Jackson Run Club grew from four friends at the Mississippi Museum of Art into the engine behind the 601 Day race — a race that sold out twice and pulled runners in from six states. It's a conversation built around the phrase he coined years ago and still lives by: that every pace is legal.

We sat down with Timothy. He was....

Timothy

relaxed and excited to be here. Ironically, I just finished a run, so I got home from the museum trail, hopped in the shower, and now I am ready.

Paul

I would expect nothing less from an avid runner.

How Jackson Run Club Started at the Mississippi Museum of Art in 2019

Paul

But Jackson Run Club, I know it started with four of your friends at the art museum. Is that right?

Timothy

Yeah, so we started in 2019 — the end of 2019, I believe it was October 2019. Now, on paper, I always tell people I started Jackson Run Club in 2020. It just looks better, you know, and we started so late in the year. But if you are around, or if you go back — if you look in the archives, you will see that we started at the art museum in 2019, right before COVID ushered in.

What Does "Every Pace Is Legal" Mean to Jackson Run Club?

Paul

Every time I see you post something, this phrase comes up, and I know you know exactly what I'm gonna say. Every pace is legal. Where did that come from, and why did you bake that into the culture from the start?

Timothy

We wanted to establish a base where everyone felt welcome and seen before the Run Club blew up on social media and before the community was really built. I have to go back to Atlanta, because I started running in 2016 with Movers and Pacers, and they actually set the vision up for what Jackson Run Club is.

Me being in Atlanta, me being ushered into that community, it was extremely welcoming. It welcomed everyone with different paces. You had a lot of runners that were extremely fast. You had your, you know, normal walkers and joggers, and believe it or not, I was extremely slow. So I know how it feels to join a community where you're nervous, where you feel overwhelmed, where you feel very insecure about your pace or how someone will perceive you — which in reality it doesn't exist. So with that being said, we wanted to create a slogan and a phrase that will resonate with everyone, and yeah, you know, that's where we coined the phrase every pace is legal.

From Eastover to LeFleur's Bluff: Jackson Run Club Finds a New Sunday Home

Paul

Yeah, and we're gonna talk more about that inclusivity that Jackson Run Club provides. I wanna first kind of talk about — we mentioned your days at the art museum, and then you were at The District at Eastover for a while, and I remember walking out on the Eastover trail back before I started running again, and would see your group on a Sunday morning, and there would be 10 or 12 of you. And I was like, man, that's cool — that's a great group.

But these days you have hundreds of people, and your new home is the Northeast Jackson baseball fields on Lakeland. You get to run through the museum trail and LeFleur's Bluff, such a great green space in the middle of the city. What's it been like watching it become this kind of gathering point with so many people on a Sunday morning?

Timothy

So many emotions. God is good. It's been — Paul, it's been enjoying it. Starting downtown, as we mentioned too, at the art museum, going over to the district — that actually is our foundation to, you know, what Jackson Run Club is. This is where we went through a ton of highs, a ton of highs. We've seen the turnover, as you mentioned, from going from fifteen runners to twenty runners to, you know, sixty runners, to a hundred to two hundred to three hundred runners. It has been a blessing.

The Hard Season: How Jackson Run Club Survived Losing 30 Core Leaders

But it's been a lot of hard work. And I do wanna mention this — people see the numbers now, but what they don't see is we actually went through a phase where we were averaging around sixty to seventy runners, and it actually dropped to around thirty to forty, almost twenty, where I felt we had this restart. And I don't talk about this a lot. However — around 2022, 2023, the economy changed. We were still in COVID. A lot of individuals were working from home, and a lot of our core members, a lot of our core leaders, they moved away. We lost 30 members in almost a three-month, three-to-six-month time frame. They moved to Memphis, they moved to Atlanta, they moved to DC. And at that time frame, in my head, I was thinking, what am I doing wrong?

Why can't we retain? And it was less truly about the retention. It was merely about the growth of individuals outside. And at that point, it was needed, because I had to realize that this is a revolving door — which is a blessing, because we can help start you on your journey. But ultimately, we don't have the rights to anyone, right? A lot of our members got great job opportunities. One of my best friends, Jordan Barber, he moved to Memphis at that time frame. Danielle was one of our leads too. She ended up moving to Memphis.

People often remember the beginning and the end, not before the climax, right? Like, what's the storyline between there? Because that sets the foundation of how your leadership is, how your vision is, how you were able to self-sustain your community.

We were blessed, and still are blessed, to reach 100, 200, and 300. But there were those rough patches where I saw it coming, and then it did. And once the running boom truly hit social media, six months to a year, that's when it started to usher in on our end. It has been a blessing. We're still riding a high, which lets me know from a longevity standpoint that this is not a phase, and this is built on organic relationships, but it's also built on a great business foundation too.

How Jackson Run Club Built an Inclusive Running Community

Paul

You mentioned community, and I think it's really important to ask you about this. I'm on social media like most of us are, and I look at Threads, for example, and I'm a member of a running thread on there because I'm a relatively new runner after having not run for 15 years. And I see people say: I want to join a running club in my town, but it seems like a clique. It seems like I showed up and no one talked to me, or I showed up and I didn't feel welcome. How do you combat that with Jackson Run Club? Because I feel like you have built something that is inclusive and that people want to be a part of.

Timothy

One, we speak to everyone. We do a great job at making sure we introduce ourselves. We also have this model where we ask, you know, who are our first-time runners, one, to build that relationship with them, to make them feel seen. More importantly, we ask them their name.

But to go back to what I stated in Atlanta — I've been there before. You know, I've seen how it feels to be the new member. It's like being transferred to a new school, and it's, you know, the first day, and you're around all these individuals that you didn't go to middle school with — which is somewhat similar to my story when I transitioned from Chicago to Jackson. I remember the first day of high school, where I knew no one, and I know how that feels. So that's always been a part of my story, where I wanna make sure someone feels seen and supported. So, one, it starts at the top, it starts with our leadership. And two, our leads also do a great job at making sure everyone feels seen.

And we always talk about that, but that goes back to just the individuals that are within the group. Running can be extremely intimidating, especially now, because as a whole we focus so much on the numbers and the metrics — how fast are you running, how many miles are you running as well too. So it's so easy to get ushered out of the quote-unquote norm of what everyone is running, especially with social media. You see all these fast paces and all these fast times where you feel less than.

And when you see the majority of the running groups that are online, and running groups just in general, all of them focus solely on pace. They focus solely on your running attributes, opposed to the individuals that are running. And the community is what makes this. So going into that, we didn't care about the pace, I didn't care about the mileage. I cared about the community, because the community are the individuals that [FLAG: "help roller running community" — unclear phrase, possibly mis-transcribed; confirm wording] help roll our running community at the end of the day.

Why Jackson Run Club Is Free: Timothy Orey on Keeping Running Accessible in Jackson, MS

Paul

You talked about Mississippi's health numbers and wanting Jackson Run Club to be free for people. Why did it matter to you so much that the cost never be a thing standing between someone and actually them showing up?

Timothy

It was a no-brainer for me. Like, why would we charge? Again, it's — building a community was more important than any other numbers. It's always been that way for me. I am a servant, and I say this all the time — on the serving, I'm just doing the Lord's work. So for me, it was less about the numbers, it was less about trying to charge. Which again, I'm not against — I know that there's a lot of run clubs that do charge, because it's contingent on where you are, Paul, and what your logistics are, it can be expensive. And we see that now too — if you're a fitness trainer, I know that does come with the cost, because we do have professionals here that have degrees, they have their certifications, right? They have to be paid for their time.

We're just at a point where I'm comfortable with not charging. It may come on the back end of something else, but I'd rather charge brands opposite of charging our community. For now, we've been doing it six years, and I take care of a majority — 95% — of the things. The only thing that we do charge for is our premiere race, which is the 601 Day 5K that we put on with Visit Jackson.

Our community does not have all the resources. They don't have all of the knowledge as well too. So I'd rather usher them in and get them more equipped on my end. I'm completely fine with doing this free for the community and giving back as much as I can. And I'll continue to do that. Even from a business model, it just makes sense.

Jackson Run Club's Brand Partnerships: Lululemon, Nike, and Propel

Paul

Yeah, there's so much in that answer. So let's unpack some of that. You mentioned charging brands. You are an ambassador for Lululemon and for Nike. How have they been helpful in building Jackson Run Club?

Timothy

Vital. Our biggest sponsorship and partnership has actually been Propel. We've been partners with Propel for two years. This is my fourth year being an ambassador with Lululemon, and they have been extremely vital from a resource standpoint, providing products to our community for a low cost or discounted cost — or sometimes even providing merchandise for free — building that gap of what the relationship of the Jackson community looks like for a brand like Lululemon, which is also a very high-end brand when it comes to their products. And I stand behind their products because their products are excellent. However, their products do speak to a certain demographic financially, right? So we've been able to bridge that gap in inviting individuals in that may not be able to either afford it or weren't aware of Lululemon.

Always grateful, always grateful for their relationship and everything we've been able to do within the past four years. And even for myself — which again goes back to the community — I was awarded a CI fund this year for 601 Day, which was able to cover the costs for a lot of things financially as well. And everything that I receive, I'm always giving back to the community, because we deserve it. We've been overlooked for a long time. If you look at fitness as a whole, I understand our numbers. I think sometimes we focus more on the numbers and not enough on the mindset. This is not something that's gonna happen overnight, Paul. We know it's gonna take time. So we still got a lot more work to do.

Inside 601 Day: How Jackson Run Club's Signature Race Sold Out Twice

Paul

You've mentioned the 601 Day race that started off as a 5K. This year you added an 8K, and I gotta tell you, it's one of the hottest races I've ever run. I know that there were a ton of people — like, you sold the race out, and then you opened it up and sold it out again. How does that experience tie back into what you're doing on Sunday with a group run? And then I guess the bigger question is: does something like a 601 Day race that's this successful just validate everything you're trying to do?

Timothy

It does validate everything that we're doing. And 601 Day has served as a large entree to what Jackson Run Club is, meaning number-wise and connectivity to the community, to the citizens of Jackson and the surrounding areas as well too. We've received a lot of exposure, and that has been a great piece of what Jackson Run Club is in connectivity.

After 601 Day last year, that's when we truly started to see averaging 150 to 175 and going into the 200 numbers. That was our third 601 Day. The first 601 Day was actually at Hal & Mal's. That was an inaugural one where I think we may have had like 60 to 75. The second annual was on the museum trail, and at that point, that's when I knew — that's when the relationship with the museum trail started to blossom. They've been a huge part of our success as well.

And once I saw the numbers for the second year, I knew going into the third year, which now we hold over in the Belhaven area — I have to give kudos to the Belhaven Town Center and the community too in Belhaven, they have done an amazing job. 601 Day has transformed Jackson Run Club. The numbers that we see after 601 Day have always been amazing. Yeah, the validation is there. We're seeing it, we're seeing the numbers — this year we were right at a thousand for 601 Day, as far as runners and attendees.

I wanna make it bigger. I actually had intentions on making it bigger this year, but I was a little hesitant. I know we've expanded this thing a lot. I always want to protect the businesses and residents of Belhaven. I make sure that we partner with businesses within that area. Fertile Ground, they've been amazing. Cultivate Coffee, they've been amazing as well too. Good Bar opened up this year.

I wanna make sure that our residents within Jackson can have an amazing time, but also — to the attraction — we were able to bring individuals from Atlanta, from New Orleans, from Chicago, from North Carolina, South Carolina, from Alabama. So the tourist part of it — when they come to the city of Jackson and they see how beautiful the city of Jackson is, they're able to get a taste of our culture, they're able to get a taste of our food and our businesses. I do, at some point, want this to be one of the biggest races in the state of Mississippi. And I feel we can accomplish that. I have absolutely zero doubts that that will happen.

The Team Behind Jackson Run Club and the Path Ahead

Paul

You have done such an amazing job over the past six years building the running community in Jackson, Mississippi. It's evident — people are talking, people see it on social media. Thank you so much for what you're doing for Jackson, Mississippi, and for the running community.

Timothy

I appreciate it. I will say this, it's not me. I have a beautiful team. Shaquita Chapman, she is our director of everything, she's director of events. She brings a fire to this run club, and I couldn't do this without her and all of our leads as well, in the community in general, Paul. I am only a small piece of this puzzle, but without the community, this does not happen.

How to Join Jackson Run Club's Sunday Group Run

Paul

That is the endlessly passionate Timothy Orey, whose story is about building a community that measures belonging, not pace. We talked about watching runners come in from Atlanta, New Orleans, Chicago, and beyond for the 601 Day race in Belhaven — leaving with more than a finisher's medal, but a real taste of Jackson's food, its culture, and its people. That's the kind of exposure Timothy's chasing, not just for the run club, but for the city itself. He was honest about the hard seasons too — the quiet fear of how growth might slow down — but six years in, it hasn't.

If you want to feel that energy for yourself, Jackson Run Club meets every Sunday at the Northeast Jackson baseball fields on Lakeland Drive, running the museum trail through LeFleur's Bluff. And if that's not enough for you, they have sprint nights and hill nights too. You can keep up with those dates and times on their Instagram. And we'll have links in our show notes to Jackson Run Club and 601 Day at visitjackson.com/soulsessions.

Soul Sessions comes to you from Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Jackson, Mississippi, the City With Soul. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Rickey Thigpen. I'm Paul Wolf, the managing editor and host of these conversations.

Your next Jackson adventure starts at our website — check it out, it's at visitjackson.com. And you know someone we should be talking to? Drop me a line. It's pwolf@visitjackson.com. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you again soon.

Listen to previous episodes of Soul Sessions