Clay Jones – HKRS Harleysville, PA
How many seasons have you been a Community Coordinator?
Currently in my 5th Season (re-started Upper Salford, PA location Spring 2023 and then renamed/relocated series next door to Harleysville, PA in Fall 2024.)
Tell us about yourself! What inspired you to join HKRS?
I’m one of those unique people (my friends who aren’t runners would probably say “weirdo”) who actually enjoy the act of running. I’ve completed countless 5K’s and 10K’s, several 1/2 Marathons, and 1 Full Marathon. However, my favorite type of race is an Endurance Team Relay style race. I’ve run in many of these events with men from f3nation.com (a men’s fitness and leadership organization that I’ve been a part of since 2018), and they are such a blast. I’m an avid runner now, but didn’t discover my love for running until college (running for health, fitnes,s and stress relief…not as a sport) and regret that I didn’t try out cross country or track while in high school.
When we moved to PA in late summer of 2019, we were introduced to HKRS by my sister-in-law, and my boys really enjoyed doing the races that Fall! Sadly, that was the last “normal” season for a while as COVID-19 hit soon after and then the series struggled to recover following that, going through periods without having a community coordinator. I kept receiving emails from the National Office saying that registration was open, but I was disappointed when I pulled up our town’s page and saw that there was no programming that season because there was a need for a coordinator. I finally convinced myself that I had developed a big enough network through my involvement with F3 and other organizations in the community that I would step up and take on the challenge of relaunching the Upper Salford series in Spring 2023! I had seen firsthand how the program helped to develop a love for running in my own nephew, who began running track in middle school, then high school (and who even went on to win a national title earlier this year at the Nike Indoor Nationals)! I wanted to bring back this great program for the benefit of my own sons and for so many others in the community who were missing it!
What is the biggest success as a Coordinator (or favorite race day moment)?
I think my biggest success is that I have managed to consistently grow the Series each year, season over season, since relaunching. We have more than doubled our numbers from Spring 2023 to Spring 2025 and nearly doubled from Fall 2023 to Fall 2024. Growth has been an important goal of mine because it’s just more fun when more kids run!!! The growth incentives that the National Office has been offering have also been a great motivator and through them, I’ve been able to gradually enhance our participant experience with things like start line feather flags!
What makes your community special?
Harleysville and Lower Salford Township is a wonderful place to live for running and being active outdoors. We have an extensive network of pathways, which includes sidewalks and trails, that include over 80 miles when you combine them all together and there are plans to continue expanding this network to make our township completely walkable from end to end!
In addition to this, I feel like I have the greatest group of volunteers, and they just keep getting better! This season we have just over 150 runners and I have had as many as 25 volunteers at our races so far this season (YES all at ONE race)! Many hands make light work and I couldn’t be more thankful for them!
What’s some advice you would like to share with fellow Community Coordinators?
Especially for new community coordinators, don’t feel like you have to do everything all at once. As mentioned before, I’ve tried to make small improvements that little by little have added up over our past 5 seasons. Also, don’t be afraid to try something new. I recently decided to shake things up a bit with my approach to allocating volunteer resources (less volunteers at the finish line and more course marshals stationed along the course), along with including a course marshal assignment map with designated stations so that they have a visual they can refer to.
Fun Fact:
I mentioned before that my kids’ first season in HKRS was Fall 2019. That season was my first (and only) Parent Mile and I came in first place for it! I stayed just behind this one other dad the whole time, and then at the very end, I sprinted ahead of him to capture first place (which was, of course, only bragging rights). We later connected over the running community app “Strava” and ended up completing several training runs together, and he actually ran his first Marathon shortly after that. Turns out HKRS motivates more than just our kids to #GetUpandGo!
