de Grâce Running Collective Bringing Good Vibes to Montreal NDG

There is a particular emptiness that settles over a neighbourhood when something good disappears. In Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, runners who had grown used to meeting weekly, logging miles together, and sharing that specific post-run lightness, felt it sharply when NDG Run Rite Athletics Club moved on. The west end of the city, a dense and lively borough straddling Côte-des-Neiges and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, was left without the kind of crew that turns a weeknight into something worth looking forward to. That absence did not last long. In September 2023, Jason, a runner who had experienced firsthand what collective momentum felt like, decided to do something about it. He gathered a handful of people, chose a park, picked a night, and launched de Grâce Running Collective. The name itself is a nod to the neighbourhood, to the borough's familiar abbreviation NDG, and to something a little harder to define: the grace of showing up, week after week, simply because running with others feels better than running alone.

A Founder With a Clear Sense of Purpose

Jason did not come to this decision lightly. His time running with the previous crew in the area had given him a clear picture of what a well-functioning running community looks like and, more importantly, what it feels like. He knew the rhythm of it: the pre-run chatter at the meeting point, the way a group naturally spreads and contracts over a route, the particular satisfaction of finishing together and not rushing home. When that rhythm disappeared from NDG, he recognized the gap for what it was, not just a scheduling hole, but a genuine loss of social infrastructure for local runners. His response was grounded and practical. He was not trying to build an empire or a brand. He wanted to recreate something that had already proven its value, adapting it for a new moment and a slightly different crowd. Serving as both founder and captain, Jason has shaped de Grâce Running Collective from the ground up, setting the tone for a crew that keeps things simple, welcoming, and rooted in the neighbourhood it calls home. Around 25 members now run with the collective, a tight group by design, where faces become familiar quickly and new arrivals do not stay strangers for long.

Good Vibes as a Founding Principle

Ask anyone connected to de Grâce Running Collective what the crew is about and the answer comes back quickly: good vibes. It sounds simple, almost too simple, but the phrase carries real weight when you understand how the crew operates. There is no pace filter at the door. There is no expectation that you arrive with a certain number of kilometres in your legs or a particular goal on your training plan. The crew's open-door approach means that the person lacing up for one of their first group runs is standing next to someone who has been logging miles for years, and neither of them feels out of place. That kind of atmosphere does not happen by accident. It is the result of deliberate choices made from the very beginning: choosing a format that is accessible, choosing a distance that does not intimidate, and choosing a night of the week that signals recovery and ease rather than competition and pressure. Monday, as Jason envisioned it, should not feel like a test. It should feel like a reset, a way to start the week with movement, fresh air, and good company. That philosophy threads through everything de Grâce Running Collective does.

Monday Nights at Parc Paul-Doyon

Parc Paul-Doyon sits quietly in the fabric of NDG, the kind of local green space that residents walk through without always registering its name but would miss immediately if it vanished. For de Grâce Running Collective, it has become a genuine home base. Every Monday at 7:15 pm, the crew assembles here, and what follows is an 8 km run through the surrounding streets and pathways of one of Montreal's most characterful urban neighbourhoods. The route itself reflects the borough: residential blocks lined with duplexes and triplexes, stretches that open up toward parks and green corridors, the familiar textures of a community that has been quietly thriving for decades. The 8 km distance is deliberate. Long enough to feel like a proper run, short enough that the effort stays conversational. Recovery runs are often underrated as social events, but the moderate pace is precisely what allows people to actually talk, to catch up, to laugh without gasping. By the time the group loops back to Parc Paul-Doyon, the start of the week already feels different. The heaviness of Monday evening has been replaced by something lighter, the specific satisfaction that comes from moving your body with a group of people who were glad you showed up.

The Neighbourhood That Shapes the Crew

Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is not the most famous of Montreal's neighbourhoods, but it has a texture that locals know well. It is residential in the best sense, dense with community life, populated by long-time residents alongside newer arrivals, with a local commercial strip along Monkland Avenue that functions as a genuine gathering point. It is the kind of place where people actually know their neighbours, where parks fill up on summer evenings, and where a running crew can take root without feeling forced or artificial. The western geography of the borough also makes it a natural running environment. The streets are navigable without being monotonous, and the connection to larger green spaces gives longer routes a variety that purely urban grids cannot always offer. Mount Royal, the volcanic hill at the centre of the island and one of Montreal's most beloved landmarks, is not far away, offering trails and elevation for those willing to venture a little further. The broader Montreal running scene benefits from a city built on a river island, with long waterfront paths and a network of parks that reward exploration on foot. De Grâce Running Collective draws its identity from its specific corner of that city, from the character of NDG rather than from the grander, more photographed landmarks further east.

Part of a Wider Montreal Running Community

De Grâce Running Collective exists within a broader ecosystem of running culture in Montreal, and that context matters. The city has produced a genuinely diverse collection of crews, each with its own character, geography, and community. Yamajo Run Crew has built a reputation for connection and post-run community, bringing together runners from across the city around a shared belief that movement creates real human bonds. November Project Montreal, part of the global free fitness movement, has been drawing crowds with its no-barriers, just-show-up approach for years. OutRun has created a vital and joyful space within Montreal's LGBTQ+ community, proving that running can be a vehicle for belonging and visibility. Each of these crews occupies a distinct space in the city's running tapestry, and de Grâce Running Collective adds its own thread. The west end now has a weekly gathering point again, a place where the simple act of showing up on a Monday evening is enough to belong.

Running Montreal Beyond the Neighbourhood

For those who run with de Grâce Running Collective and want to explore the city beyond their weekly Monday route, Montreal is a generous place. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Île Notre-Dame, the same track that hosts Formula One's Canadian Grand Prix, transforms into a favourite running loop in the off-season, with clean tarmac and views across the St. Lawrence River that are genuinely hard to match in any North American city. Mount Royal Park, designed in the nineteenth century by Frederick Law Olmsted, the same landscape architect behind New York's Central Park, offers a network of trails through forested slopes that feel startlingly removed from the urban grid below. The Lachine Canal path stretches westward from the old port through historic industrial neighbourhoods, offering a flat and scenic corridor popular with cyclists and runners alike. Montreal's annual marathon draws a significant international field and serves as a showcase for a city that, despite its winters, maintains a serious and enthusiastic running culture throughout the year. Charity runs, themed events, and community races fill the calendar from spring through autumn, giving crews like de Grâce Running Collective a broader context for their weekly routines.

An Open Invitation to NDG Runners

What de Grâce Running Collective offers is not complicated, and that is the point. A consistent time, a familiar meeting place, a manageable distance, and a group of people who are genuinely pleased to run alongside someone new. The crew's Instagram, @ndgruns, is the easiest way to follow along, check in before a Monday run, and get a feel for the crew's energy before committing to anything. For anyone living in NDG or nearby who has been running alone and wondering whether a crew might be worth trying, the answer is straightforward: come to Parc Paul-Doyon on a Monday at 7:15 pm and find out. Around 25 people already know why it is worth it. The kilometres are modest, the atmosphere is warm, and the west end of Montreal now has a running community it can call its own again. De Grâce Running Collective did not set out to be anything grand. It set out to fill a gap with good people and good runs, and by any honest measure, it has done exactly that.