LRC's transformation from club to family-Jadyn Talley

Jadyn Talley joined LRC in the fall of 2024. President Cole Schwartz attributes much of her work as the “team mom” figure and her planning of social events being the driving reason as to what changed LRC into a family. Talley began her running journey in the spring of 2024. She says “it was just starting as punishments for intramural basketball whenever our team lost. And then I realized that I enjoyed my punishment of running way too much.” She utilizes this social media account to document her running journey “and this random Instagram account called Liberty Running Club kept liking all of my content.” LRC’s account advertises meeting times, so Talley became “anxious to join a group of people that were all really good at running when I was just beginning to run. So I told myself that in the fall, if I was still running, that I would join them.”

The following fall she “asked one of my friends to come with me and she bailed, but I ended up going anyway and stood there awkwardly as the first female surrounded by, like, 10 guys.” However, Talley was welcomed by Webmaster, former Director of Logistics, Matthew Petke. He “introduced me to people and he was another [Lynchburg] local. Turns out I taught his younger sister's ballet.” Talley decided “to go back because I potentially saw a really cute guy that I was interested in getting to know.” This “really cute guy,” former Vice President Kyle Moore, is now Talley’s fiancé. Talley found her group of running people and reflects that “the girls that I met the first time were really fun and inclusive, even though I hadn't been running for very long.”

Talley’s running career shortly thereafter took a hit. She recollects that “two weeks into the semester, I got put into a boot and wasn't able to do any physical activity regarding lower body, including running, and soon after got put on crutches.” However, this difficulty shifted Talley’s perspective on running club. She continued to come to Tuesday night runs, “for my own sanity, I needed to keep going to club just because I wanted to be around people and isolating wasn't good.” She “noticed that after one of the practices we all went to [Green Hall] and got food, and our President Cole mentioned that that was like the biggest amount of people that we ever had come to north for a dinner after an event. It was just so fun getting to sit and talk with everyone, even though I wasn't a part of the actual running.” Which is when she realized “how much I enjoyed being around these people.”

As the fall progressed, LRC continued its participation in NIRCA meets. Talley admits that in a pursuit to spend more time with Moore, she “decided to drive people, even though I was in a boot and on crutches, to NIRCA meets so that I could watch him run.” These meets are where she began to step into the “team mom” role. She enjoyed “provid[ing] snacks, and I want to be a dietitian in the future and work with sports and endurance athletes, so getting to tap into that role a little bit with run club and be like the team mom in that aspect.” She enjoyed “offer[ing] support,…because it gave me a glimpse of what I was going to be doing in the future.”

These experiences grew freindships she had with people in the club, and she “realized that if I couldn't run, I had to find other ways to hang out with them, so I started organizing ways to hang out with them outside of running.” She describes that this planning “kind of grew from that…it started with just some casual events and then eventually I got approached to be officially the female team captain slash team mom slash social event coordinator, and we got budget and then I got to spend money on stuff.”

Talley says “I didn't really know what it was gonna look like or how it was gonna grow when I first started just putting stuff together., and I just love hosting.” Living in Lynchburg, she was able to “open up my parents' house” which her family had specifically set up to do this. She knew many college students can’t go home during the semester, “and I wanted to do stuff in a home setting” because of this. All of this “morphed into what the social events are now and just different things that hit everyone's taste and everyone's desire to bring everyone together.”

When asked, Talley reflects that “it's crazy to think that some of my actions of just wanting to be around people and wanting other people to be involved in stuff, even if they couldn't run, has now kind of morphed it into running club changing for the better.” She “never thought it was going to grow as much as it did.” Talley explains that she wasn’t here before social events were a norm, but from conversations “with Kyle about what it was like before…it's hard to think that I really made that big of an impact just because I don't really have anything to compare it to.” She says “I know that I'm really glad that the club has been growing and thriving and that people enjoy being with each other, and that's led to a continued turnout even when it gets cold or it's raining or stuff like that because those people enjoy being with each other more than just running in a circle.”

When asked what her favorite social event(s) are, Talley reports “I love formals. They're fun. I started doing the superlative aspect just because it is fun to make everyone feel appreciated and seen and valuable. The last formal that we had with the medals was just so much fun even creating medals for the plus ones.” She enjoyed figuring “out how to complement them and make them feel seen.” She also loves hosting “the Super Bowl party because it's always at my parents' house, and getting to invite people into the house has always been really fun. I love the bonfire that we did last semester. It was something new that we haven't done before, and everyone was just goofing off and there was a fire and marshmallows and it was late at night. Then I also love the unofficial social events that happen, like, we went camping, and it was just people in the club who have now become such good friends that they enjoy being with each other and decided they wanted to go hang out with each other in the woods for a night or two.”

Sadly, Talley will be stepping down going into her senior year since she is now planning a wedding and finishing school, but she always wants “the club to remember, in a way, what it was like without the social events so they can appreciate it, but also just remember, that community is more than just running and running is more than just community. You can find ways to include people outside of just the workout.” She says “when you branch out and explore pathways [for community] that it makes the running portion so much sweeter and so much better because now those people that I never would have run with I get to talk to them, I get to hang out with them, and I have inside jokes with, and it's just a group that, if you keep feeding it, it's gonna keep growing.” She encourages members of LRC to continue investing in these relationships. “You know, Running Club is amazing, and Liberty University is better for having it.”

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9