Claim your journey

Running is often considered a solitary pursuit. But those who run in Baton Rouge will tell you that runners worth their Gatorade have to find some running tribe to belong to. Maybe it’s the heat; maybe it’s the beers and jambalaya that flow so freely following fun runs, even at 9 in the morning.

Eventually, the lonely Louisiana long-distance runner finds friends who can be counted on at the crick-crack of dawn, in downpours, and maybe even in quirky costumes. Fitness and fun is what it’s all about. Even the most serious runners find the social life of running helps keep them lacing up the shoes.

Until recently, though, the average Baton Rouge runner usually found and stuck with a single group, unaware of other groups and get-togethers out there. Running events were loosely advertised by word of mouth or flyer, so that those not plugged into the group hosting the run would miss out. Runners had to spend practically as much time researching running events as they did actually running. Inspiration came from national sources, in the form of magazines such as Runner’s World, or from chitchat on long morning runs around the LSU Lakes.

Now, though, the quirky world of Capital City running has an online hub, and it’s bringing people together both here and in other cities throughout Louisiana, such as New Orleans and Lafayette.

Brandon Williams launched his site claimyourjourney.com in January as part of a New Year’s resolution. Williams had been a runner at Baton Rouge High, but he hung up his spikes during college. He realized late last year that it was time to get back in shape, and he signed up for the four-part Forge Trail Series. He decided to blog about his comeback.

“The name just came to me out of nowhere,” he says. “I wanted something that was kind of similar to Nike’s ‘Just Do it.’”

With an easy grin, Williams naturally gravitates to people. Before long, he realized his blog had great potential as a way to bring together runners throughout Louisiana.

“I’d been running all these races, and I’d been involved in a lot of these running clubs, and I was like, ‘We don’t have a one-stop news source for running in Louisiana.’ So that’s when Claim Your Journey started changing from a personal blog to more of an outlook of what’s going on in Louisiana on the running scene.”

Williams doesn’t have a journalism background, but he knows Louisiana running and has a strong sense of how to balance fun videos and anecdotes with solid training advice and insider knowledge—for instance, where the good and public running tracks are. This is the kind of information that helps runners take their sport to the next level.

The site has a grassroots feel to it, with local faces and locally produced music.

Williams isn’t sitting in his armchair writing about his own views on running. He shows up at local events and travels regularly to far-flung places if they’re hosting a run he thinks might be fun to film. He profiles runners from Louisiana who travel or move to other cities. He also recruited several different types of Louisiana runners to provide a variety of blogs giving practical advice and encouragement.

Williams hopes the site will become a profitable business and says he will eventually seek sponsors. Right now, though, he’s still fine-tuning the content in his spare time, when he’s not working his day job at LSU or running. As a result, he’s only getting about four hours of sleep per night.

He says the video content of his site seems to garner the most new views, so that’s where he’s focusing his energy.

Williams has become a key partner in promoting the upcoming inaugural Louisiana Marathon, which will take place on Jan. 16 in Baton Rouge. He’s also a regular at Happy’s Running Club, a Tuesday evening downtown tradition that pairs running with other pursuits—such as finding a good bite to eat and sipping a cold brew.

On a recent Tuesday night, Williams was found after a run lounging at Lucy’s Retired Surfer’s Bar. Three tables had been squashed together to form a rambling roundtable of runners and fitness fiends.

“I just feel connected to the little society that he’s building,” runner Caitlin Lamothe said. “He’s getting all the people connected.”