In 2006, 32-year-old engineering technician Terrance Lyles was engulfed in a series of depressions that included his mother’s diagnosis of diabetes and their own financial trouble. That same year, he eventually signed up for a fitness group in Chicago, where most of the participants were training for the Chicago Marathon.
That experience—watching dozens of others train for and complete the 26.2-mile distance—subsequently encouraged him to one day train for the World Marathon Major. It also pushed him to establish his running community, Black Chicago Runners, an all-Black faction of running enthusiasts from the Windy City who congregate every Saturday morning to train.
Lyles was born and raised in the Chicago West and South Side area with no athletic background in organized sports. However, the fitness group wasn’t his first connection to running. As a child, Lyles’s father, Bernard, completed 40 marathons, including an Ironman. Bernard would also take his son to volunteer at various races.
“At 8 or 9 years old, I was passing out Gatorade to runners,” he said. “People were telling me ‘Thank you for being there.’ I just saw the appreciation of runners that were thanking me for giving them a cup of Gatorade or water at the time. So, that was my first exposure.”
After seven years of active running, Lyles founded his first running group, “We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back,” in 2013 after publishing a post on his Facebook profile and asking his followers if they wanted to join his close circle of runners. More individuals took notice and joined his group as the weeks and months went by when fellow runners spread the word.
“I just felt so compelled to bring more African-Americans into the sport,” he added. “Because when I was doing it, there wasn’t a lot of us present. I saw some of that, but I felt so good while I was doing it. I lost a lot of weight and my blood pressure went down. I was looking good and feeling good. And I said, ‘I want to share this with people who want to listen.’”
Lyles, who is now a senior project construction manager for the Chicago Transit Authority, would later grow a massive following in his Facebook group. This occurrence subsequently led him to foster Black Chicago Runners two years later as a beneficial tool to help his community improve their health and living conditions. One of Lyles’s ultimate goals is to bridge the gap and bring all of the citywide organizations—groups like Black Girls Run, Beverly Beauties, SoHo Sistaz, SEVEN On Sundays, and many others.
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Black Chicago Runners has many members who have never run in the past. Norma Britton, a 56-year-old assistant controller, is a prime example. Britton started her expedition as a runner nearly two decades ago when she gradually went from walking outside to jogging.
“I got a little bored with doing nothing,” she said. “I didn’t really get serious with it until 2009. I had an aunt. At the time, I was 41. She was 43. She had suffered a stroke of high blood pressure. She went to the hospital and never left. She ended up in a nursing home. So, that was the time I actually started running because she couldn’t do anything. She passed in 2013.”
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“I was amazed to see that Black people actually ran in races and took it serious,” Britton added. “We’re just like family [here], and it’s a distraction from everyday life and struggle.”
Black Chicago Runners has also inspired hundreds of members to run in local marathons in the city, especially Alan Brazil, a 56-year-old Illinois Department of Human Rights chief fiscal officer who has run in 14 marathons since joining the group over a decade ago.
A fellow South Side native like Lyles, Brazil played all sports including basketball, football, and even karate. In 2010, he went to the Sports Authority sporting goods store in Chicago’s southwest suburb of Oak Lawn to buy his eldest daughter volleyball gear. It was there when Brazil saw a pair a running shoes that gave him a notion to partake in running actively. He later heard about We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back through his wife’s mutual friend and encouraged him to join.
“It pretty much transformed my life,” Brazil said. “Being a part of this community is great, because you have so many people and support around you. I can never pay back all the support I get whether it’s just running races or whatever you’re doing.”
Black Chicago Runners also hosts social gatherings, fundraisers, and other functions each year, which exemplifies how close-knit each member of the nearly 2,000 is to one another. For Lyles, he is very fortunate to create this set of togetherness and showing America that avid Black runners do exist in this country.
“I have seen more and more African-Americans get involved every year in the sport of running,” he said. “It’s a beautiful thing that I was able to help contribute to that.”
