When Matthew “Mars” Green turned 26, he threw himself a birthday party and invited his closest friends—and anyone else who’d like to run. “I wanted to do something different than go out to the club,” says Green, a graphic designer who lives in Washington, D.C. “So I thought, How about I host a midnight run?” Via social media and word of mouth, Green and his buddies encouraged people to join him for his free Midnight on Mars 5K on May 24, 2013. They marked the route with glow-in-the-dark chalk and coordinated a postrun toast at a local bar. About 100 runners showed up for the celebratory sweat fest.

“A lot of people who came out said, ‘I’m not a runner, I just wanted to join you guys because it sounded like fun,’” says Green, who started running in late 2012. “I think a lot of people have a misconception about running. They think it’s always really hard and that to join a club you have to be a really serious runner.”

DRC aims to give locals a fun way to interact—“an alternative to typical dry networking events,” says founder Matthew Green. John Davis

That sentiment gave Green the impetus to form the District Running Collective (DRC), which aims to capture the same all-comers spirit and playful vibe of his birthday run. “It’s really social and about running together,” he says. “It’s less about training for this race, hitting this time. We’re not a stuffy running club; we’re a community, a family.”

Green’s crew started with about 10 runners meeting up on Wednesday evenings. Today, as many as 100 DRC members gather midweek at the Colony Club, a hybrid coffee bar in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. They split up into three different pace groups and cover about four miles before returning to mingle over drinks. Sometimes a smaller (but growing) group meets up for Saturday long runs. Many DRC members travel to run races.

On the home front, Green makes a point of changing up the routes every week to inspire curiosity about the city. Sometimes the group will stop at a local site, like Capitol Hill or R.F.K. Memorial Stadium. But the group itself also attracts curiosity. “People see 50 people running down the street and say, ‘Who are you guys?’” he says. “We’ll yell at people running alone, ‘Hey, come run with us!’ and they’ll often join in.”

John Davis

Green’s birthday run is now an annual tradition that’s evolved into quite an affair: The 3.1-miler is sandwiched between a prerace party beginning at 8 p.m. and a postrace party that wraps at midnight (go to districtrunningcollective.com for more information). Beyond that signature event, DRC has built partnerships with other community groups to help members become more engaged with their city. Last year, DRC’s RunGreen 5K raised money for a new urban garden in D.C.’s Ward 8, which DRC members then helped build. This year, the group is also teaming up with Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office to host workouts in parks around the city.

“We have opened a whole new network for people in D.C.,” Green says. “It’s a network promoting health and fitness, goal-setting, community, travel, and surpassing perceived limits in their daily lives.”

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