John Coler tweeted this snap from a 1 Million Miles run around Kansas City in early July.
Earlier this year, John Coler noticed that many of the events and opportunities in the Kansas City area startup community revolved around caffeine in the morning and alcohol at night.
“I had met a lot of ambitious people at those events, and had a good time, but then it was hard to find ways to meet back up again,” Coler told SPN. “After multiple conversations with others, it seemed there had to be a way to create an opportunity for movers and shakers to connect that was a little more regular, and a little more health-oriented.
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“Running cross-country and track in high school and community college showed me the power of motivation, and how it can bring people together.”
That’s why Coler and a few of Kansas City’s entrepreneurs came together to create 1 Million Miles, a running club based on the same concept as the 1 Million Cups movement, but with a different focus: to eventually run a collective one million miles.
The group meets every Tuesday at 6:30 a.m. and typically runs between four and five miles. Beginners are welcome, as well as those training for a particular event, and the runners often divide up into three, five and seven-mile distance groups to appeal to various preferences. The organization’s Twitter page offers continual progress updates—for example, last week a group of four ran fives miles each, adding20 miles toward their goal.
“We want to be known as the ‘moving meeting,’ with a personal fitness component,” Coler said. “Running helps break down barriers, and hopefully this allows people across the industry to get to know one another on a different level to create friendships or partnerships or chat about what’s going on in the KC community.”
1 Million Miles also created a survey in order to boost attendance on Tuesday mornings and to gather insights on other health-related activities attendees might be interested in attending throughout a given week. Thus far, the group has not required any funding aside from standard site hosting and maintenance, but is open to working with companies and organizations going forward to perhaps create opportunities for group discounts related to fitness activities.
Coler also mentioned a desire to improve the scalability of the site at some point, including adding a tracking system for miles and number of “moving meetings” over time in order to collect metrics. Eventually, they’d love to see 1 Million Miles chapters open up in various regions, all working toward the same target number of miles ran.
“We all know it feels great to get something accomplished first thing in the morning and to get moving before sitting behind a desk. But it’s really hard to get up and show up. It’s easier to stick to healthy living choices when you’re motivated by someone else,” Coler said. “We don’t want this to be something where people have to make drastic changes to their plans or lifestyles.
“1 Million Miles is simply a productive and efficient way to do something healthy while networking with like-minded individuals.”
Credits: 1 Million Miles photo from Twitter.
