Amid the heights of the pandemic, James and Lauren Osborne got serious about opening a running store. Both working at Nike in Portland, OR, the husband-and-wife team explored relocating elsewhere in the U.S. to activate their retail ambitions. After evaluating potential markets on a few key characteristics, including population growth, the presence of universities and a lively running culture, they quickly identified a winner: Nashville.

So in October 2021, the couple moved to Music City USA. They solidified their business plan, secured a commercial spot and inked deals with vendors before opening The Exchange Running Collective in East Nashville in early 2023.

“There was room on the canvas in Nashville to help the running culture evolve even more,” Lauren Osborne says.

Over the last 18 months, The Exchange has played a role in the continued rise of Nashville’s running scene alongside other run specialty shops, including the 13-year-old Nashville Running Company, the multi-store Fleet Feet Nashville chain and Team Nashville.  

“The run culture was here, but now it’s rippling out further and further,” Lauren Osborne says. 

Running on the rise

Native Kentuckian Christi Beth Adams says Nashville’s running scene has been on a “steady rise” since she first came to the city in 1998 to run at Belmont University and “continues to strengthen and evolve.”

“Nashville’s a wonderful city to live, work and run in,” says Adams, who took over the existing Fleet Feet shop in Brentwood, TN, a Nashville suburb, in 2011. Adams now has six Fleet Feet locations spread across central Tennessee.

In 2011, Adams says run groups existed across the city, but they tracked under the radar. She recalls the East Nasty Running Club being the area’s “first, true advertised run group” featuring a leader and posted routes. In the years since, digital platforms like Instagram and Strava have brought other local run groups into the light and Adams says there are now “probably 30 run groups” gathering on different days across town, including the Nashville Striders, the city’s OG run club, as well as 6Run5, the Curio Jogging Association, The Nations Run Club and Jogalope.

“There’s a natural and healthy life cycle around run groups, which are the gateway of community building,” Adams says.

Nashville Running Company owner Lee Wilson has observed the same upward trajectory since moving to Nashville from New York City 16 years ago. Like Adams, Wilson, too, sees run groups of varying sizes all over the metro area meeting at different running stores, greenways, parks, lakes and breweries. Multiple Take the Bridge events, meanwhile, have brought local run clubs together and added an extra dose of momentum. 

“It’s something well beyond what it used to be,” Wilson says of Nashville’s running scene.

Wilson attributes Nashville’s swelling adoption of running over recent years to a few key factors: population growth, including a 21 percent surge in residents over the last decade; an influx of young people embracing active lifestyles; and the pandemic, which saw individuals embrace running and outdoor activities at an accelerated pace.

“Nashville was trending in this direction, but it’s gone to a different level of late,” Wilson says.

The role of running retail

Run specialty shops have been both an accelerant and beneficiary of the surge, serving as inclusive, lively hubs to promote running and provide sage counsel. 

At The Exchange, the Osbornes’ Tuesday night run group routinely attracts upwards of 150 attendees and more than 110 kids signed up for a K-5 running club the Osbornes recently started at their daughter’s school. At Fleet Feet Nashville, the company’s Dirtbags trail running group regularly attracts 100 people to its Summer Trail Mixer Series events.

“We continue to see growth and people coming into the sport of running because it’s great for physical and mental wellness and community building,” Adams says.

The area’s rising fitness tide has lifted the revenue boat of local run shops. The Nashville Running Company, for instance, recorded an all-time sales high in 2023. This year, Wilson says his 1700-square-foot shop located in an old two-story home is on pace to eclipse that mark.

“People want customer service and knowledge,” he says.

Bullish on Nashville

The energy for running and active lifestyles in and around Nashville is inspiring and propelling new efforts.

In June, Diversified Communications, which hosts The Running Event and also publishes Running Insight, announced Nashville as the site of its inaugural Switchback Spring show – an educational and business gathering for the outdoor industry – set for June 16-18, 2025. While Nashville’s central location factored into the site decision, so, too, did the area’s burgeoning running and outdoors scene.

“Nashville is lively, vibrant and a place where the active lifestyle seems to be growing in big ways,” says Christina Henderson, event director of The Running Event and Switchback. “By bringing Switchback there, we hope to play a role in helping drive that growth even more.”

Sock brand Swiftwick, which has called Nashville home since its 2008 founding, is eager to play a bigger role in local running and fitness alongside its retail partners, too, says first-year CEO Mark Chou. 

“We want to be a bigger presence in the way Nashville deserves,” Chou says.

For the Osbornes, who placed a significant bet on Nashville in moving to the city three years ago to open The Exchange, it all adds up to exciting times.

“We see Nashville leading the way in how running can evolve and pushing the edge of what a running community can be,” Lauren Osborne says.