Grateful Miles Run Club Spreading Camaraderie Across Bermuda One Sunday at a Time

A Beach, a Sunday Morning, and Thirty Strangers

On a Sunday morning in late June 2024, more than thirty people showed up at Warwick Long Bay Beach at seven in the morning. They had not gathered for a race, a charity event, or a corporate fitness challenge. They came because two friends had decided that the good feeling they had been chasing across Bermuda's race season was worth preserving, and worth sharing. That first run along the waterline at Warwick Long Bay was the beginning of Grateful Miles Run Club, a crew that has since become one of the island's most visible and warmly regarded running communities. The story behind that morning starts a few months earlier, with a simple act of self-accountability. Ezekiel, co-founder of Grateful Miles Run Club, and Daniel, fellow co-founder, were not runners by identity. They ran occasionally, the way many people do, when motivation struck or a goal briefly surfaced. But at the start of 2024, they made a deliberate decision to sign up for every race on Bermuda's calendar. The reasoning was straightforward: commitment through registration, and accountability through each other. What they did not anticipate was how much they would enjoy the people they met along the way.

How a Race Season Became a Movement

Race by race, the pair accumulated a loose circle of like-minded individuals. It was never planned or organised in any formal sense. It was simply the natural result of showing up at the same starting lines, sharing the same pre-race nerves, and celebrating at the same finish lines. By the time the group had settled into a rhythm, it numbered somewhere between five and seven people. They would cross paths only on race days, but those meetings carried a warmth that stuck with everyone involved. The defining moment came after the 2024 Bermuda Day Half Marathon, the island's most celebrated road race and a cultural landmark in its own right. With the race season drawing to a close and no more events on the calendar, the question arose of what would happen to the connections that had formed. Ezekiel's answer was to stop waiting for race day to be the excuse and to create a reason to gather every week instead. The idea for Grateful Miles Run Club was born not from ambition or business strategy, but from a reluctance to let something good simply fade away.

From Five Friends to Seventy Every Week

The original group of five to seven runners immediately embraced the idea. More than that, they stepped into it with purpose, volunteering their time to serve as pacers for what would become the club's weekly social runs. Their buy-in gave the new club an instant backbone: experienced presences who knew the routes, could manage different speeds, and could help newcomers feel welcome from the first step. When that first official social run was announced for June 23rd, 2024, at Warwick Long Bay Beach, the response was far beyond anything Ezekiel and Daniel had imagined. Thirty runners arrived at sunrise on a Sunday morning, and the crew has not looked back since. Growth came quickly and organically. Word spread across Hamilton and across the island in the way that genuine things tend to spread, through personal recommendation, through the visible joy of runners passing along the roads and beaches of Bermuda, and through the simple fact that the experience delivered what it promised. Within a year, the average Sunday turnout had grown to more than seventy runners. The crew's one-year anniversary run drew close to two hundred people, a number that would be remarkable for a running club in any city, and is extraordinary for an island community of Bermuda's size.

The Gratitude That Holds Everything Together

The name Grateful Miles Run Club is not incidental. The philosophy of gratitude is embedded in how the club presents itself, how it speaks to its members, and how it frames the act of running itself. The founding premise is disarmingly simple: every step forward, whether a stride, a shuffle, a walk break, or a slow and careful hop toward a finish line, is worth acknowledging. Progress is progress. Effort is effort. The club does not rank its members by pace or distance. It holds space for the full range of what it means to move your body with intention. This grounding in gratitude gives Grateful Miles Run Club a character that extends well beyond the runs themselves. The club describes itself as a safe and social space where like-minded individuals can connect, and the phrasing matters. Safety here is not just physical. It is the safety of being welcomed without judgment, of showing up on a Sunday morning without knowing anyone and leaving with a sense of belonging. On an island where community is both a value and a practical reality, the crew has tapped into something that resonates deeply with the people of Bermuda.

Sunday Mornings Across the Island

Every week, Grateful Miles Run Club gathers on Sunday mornings, with runners meeting at 6:45am ahead of a 7am start. One of the distinctive features of the crew is that the location rotates. Rather than anchoring itself to a single meetup spot, the club moves around Bermuda, bringing its runs to different corners of the island and giving members reason to explore terrain they might not otherwise seek out. The specific location for each week is shared through the club's Instagram and on the Grateful Miles Run Club website, making it easy to stay connected regardless of where on the island you happen to be. The runs are social in pace and spirit. They are designed to be approachable, the kind of run where conversation is possible and nobody is left behind. Pacers drawn from that original group of founding regulars continue to play a central role in the experience, guiding different groups across the distance and ensuring that the run feels supported rather than pressured. The medium-distance, easy-pace format is a deliberate choice, one that keeps the door open wide and makes Sunday morning feel like something to look forward to rather than something to endure.

Membership, Community, and What Belonging Looks Like

Grateful Miles Run Club operates on an open membership model, welcoming anyone who wants to be part of what is happening on the island. For those who want to go deeper into the community, the club offers a membership tier at $160 that comes with a meaningful set of benefits. Members gain access to monthly giveaways and raffles, exclusive photography from club events, early access to merchandise, discounted pricing on Grateful Miles Run Club events before they open to the public, a monthly newsletter, and partner discounts on goods and services across Bermuda. The photography benefit is worth noting in particular. Running communities generate some of the most unguarded, joyful imagery of any social group, and capturing those moments well requires both skill and consistency. The fact that Grateful Miles Run Club makes professional photography a core part of the membership offering signals that they understand something important: people want to see themselves in the story of the club, not just participate in it. It is a thoughtful detail that speaks to how seriously the crew takes the experience of belonging. The Grateful Miles Run Club Strava community extends that sense of connection into the everyday training lives of members, allowing runners to follow each other's activities, cheer on personal milestones, and stay motivated in between Sundays.

A Crew That Belongs to the Whole Island

There is something fitting about a running crew finding its footing on an island. Bermuda is a place where the roads are narrow, the coastline is always close, and the community is tight enough that strangers quickly become familiar faces. Grateful Miles Run Club has grown in harmony with that environment, taking on the character of the island that shaped it. It is unhurried but purposeful. It is warm but not exclusive. It is rooted in the pleasure of moving together through a place worth seeing. From two friends trying to hold each other accountable to a crew drawing nearly two hundred runners for a single anniversary celebration, the journey of Grateful Miles Run Club in its first year is as much a story about community as it is about running. Ezekiel and Daniel set out to keep the good times rolling after race season ended, and what they built has given Bermuda a gathering point that goes far beyond any single race calendar. If you are on the island on a Sunday morning, check the Instagram, find the location, and be at the start line by 6:45. The crew will be there.