The Rise of Team Running: Why Relay Racing Is Having a Moment
by Leland Mah on September 20, 2026
As we prepare for the 14th Griffith Park Trail Marathon Relay & 8K, we reflect on how running has changed.
However, some of its best ideas have come full circle.
This shows that relay races endure as lasting ideas.
After my Sunday run recently, I came across yet another relay event, this time Salomon’s Gravelanza.
It made me think about how many team-based running events we’re seeing today. Moreover, their growth mirrors the rise of relay races in clubs and communities.
Relay running certainly isn’t new. But today’s running culture may be particularly well suited for it.
Before the Griffith Park Trail Marathon Relay
Our race isn’t where the story begins in Griffith Park.
However, the broader story of marathon relay races continues elsewhere.
In 1982, the Jimmy Stewart Relay Marathon began a run that would last through 2006. It became a popular part of the Southern California running scene and, eventually, changes at Griffith Park led the event away from the park.
I have a personal connection to that history: I ran the Jimmy Stewart Relay in 2006, its final year.
I couldn’t have known then that a few years later I’d become involved with another marathon relay in Griffith Park—or eventually become one of its Race Directors.
The Griffith Park Trail Marathon Relay was founded by Joe Matias in 2013. Joe didn’t invent marathon relay running, but he saw an opportunity to continue a tradition of team running in Griffith Park while creating something for a changing running community.
As Joe explained:
“One of the main reasons I kept the race going was to continue the Jimmy Stewart Relay tradition—minus the naked people holding the mile markers. At the same time, we were pioneers in building store-based running clubs, and we needed a venue where those clubs could compete against each other while still being part of one running community. The run club community wasn’t nearly as big then as it is today.”
— Joe Matias, Founder, Griffith Park Trail Marathon Relay
Looking back, that combination—relay racing and the emerging run club community—turned out to be important.
The inaugural Griffith Park Trail Marathon Relay attracted 100 teams.
That was an impressive start. But what happened afterward also illustrates something important about relay racing: sustaining one isn’t easy.
In Joe’s final year producing the event, participation stood at 71 teams.
When Choy Bacor and I took over as Race Directors in 2016, we began with 126 teams.
Last year, we hosted 300 teams.
The format didn’t fundamentally change.
The running community around it did.
The Rise of the Run Club
Over roughly the same period, Los Angeles experienced an explosion in run-club culture.
For many runners today, a run club isn’t simply a group that meets for Tuesday-night miles. It’s a social community.
Friendships form there. New runners find an entry point into the sport. People discover new neighborhoods and trails together. Clubs travel to races together.
And increasingly, they want to compete together.
Last year, 110 of our 300 teams entered the Griffith Park Trail Marathon Relay in the Run Club division.
More than one-third of the entire relay field was competing specifically as run-club teams.
That would have been difficult to imagine when the race started in 2013.
But today it makes perfect sense.
From Running Club to Racing Team
Most traditional running events are fundamentally individual experiences.
You register yourself. You train. You race. You get your result.
A relay changes the equation from the moment someone sends a message to their friends:
“Who’s in?”
Now someone has to create the team. Someone comes up with a team name. Runners decide who takes which leg. Clubs bring tents and banners. Teammates wait at the exchange. Everyone tries to figure out when their runner is coming back.
Then someone spots a familiar singlet coming down the trail and suddenly five people are screaming.
The clock still matters.
But now the experience belongs to more than one person.
That distinction may help explain why relays fit so naturally into today’s running culture.
Los Angeles Isn’t Alone
We’re seeing new interpretations of team racing throughout Southern California.
Events such as Koreatown Run Club’s Cease & Desist Relay and the Observatory Loop Relay have emerged with their own takes on the format. More recently, seeing Gravelanza was another reminder of how organizers and brands continue to experiment with running as a team experience.
And this isn’t exclusively an LA phenomenon.
Austin’s Zilker Relays has been part of its running community for more than two decades. San Francisco has a longstanding Christmas Relays tradition. Other cities are developing their own versions.
Different distances. Different formats. Different communities.
But a similar idea:
People want to run with their people.
If Relays Work So Well, Why Aren’t There More of Them?
Because they’re surprisingly difficult to get right.
Every race director already faces the challenge of convincing someone to register for an event.
A relay can require that person to convince several friends to register too.
That’s a significant additional hurdle.
Operationally, things get more complicated as well.
There are exchange zones, team registration, runner order, timing, batons, team gathering areas and an entirely different set of instructions participants need to understand.
Large race organizations have experimented with the format and walked away from it. Ragnar, for example, launched its Sunset Relay series before eventually discontinuing it.
Other organizers simply add a relay category to an existing event.
That can work, but it can also produce a fundamental problem:
The relay becomes an afterthought.
The Relay Has to Be the Main Character
That’s one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned over the years.
A successful relay isn’t simply a marathon divided among several runners.
The team experience has to influence the event itself.
The exchange area matters.
Where teams gather matters.
How clubs participate matters.
The competition matters.
The hours teammates spend together before and after their individual legs matter.
We’ve increasingly designed around that idea.
In 2026, we introduced the SoCal Showdown, creating another layer of competition around the communities showing up together. Clubs can compete for speed, participation and, perhaps most importantly, bragging rights.
But some of the best examples of team running never appear in the results.
They’re the ridiculous team names.
The club tents that become home base for the morning.
The runner standing in an exchange zone anxiously looking down the trail.
The teammate yelling when they finally appear.
The first-time trail runner who probably wouldn’t have signed up alone but did because four friends asked.
And the teams that finish their race but don’t leave because they’re having too much fun together.
That’s what makes relay running different.
We’ve Seen This Before—and Yet It’s Different
There’s something fitting about all of this.
More than four decades ago, runners were already gathering in Griffith Park to divide a marathon among teammates.
I was fortunate enough to experience that myself when I ran the Jimmy Stewart Relay in 2006.
Nearly 20 years later, we’re watching a new generation embrace team racing—this time surrounded by Instagram, Strava, group chats and a run-club culture capable of turning a handful of friends into a community of hundreds.
The technology changed.
The communities grew.
But perhaps the fundamental appeal never changed at all.
Running may be an individual sport.
But it doesn’t always have to be experienced individually.
And if the growth of run clubs and relay events is any indication, more runners are discovering just how much fun it can be when it isn’t.