The Richmonder 25: Nikkia Young keeps Richmond running

In the fall of 2014, Nikkia Young showed up alone to a Richmond Road Runners Club Turkey Trot. She wasn't chasing a finish time. She had gotten into recreational running at Roanoke College and wanted to see what a local race had to offer.

A few weeks later, she showed up again — this time to the RRRC’s Toy Run — where instead of paying an entry fee, runners brought a toy donation for kids in need. Something about it stuck.

"That's how I came to learn more about the club," she said.

Twelve years later, Young is the club's president, leading a 19-member board of directors that oversees 17 races a year and boasts more than 2,200 members. The oldest running organization in Richmond is set to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2028.

Last year, the Road Runners Club of America named Young its Outstanding Club President of the Year.

Young is also chair of the board of directors for Girls on the Run Greater Richmond, an organization that uses running to help girls in third through eighth grades build confidence, healthy habits and life skills.

That's a lot of titles. What they don't capture is the way Young talks about why she does any of it.

"I am a plus-sized Black woman. I do not look like a typical runner," she said. "I'm so glad I'm seeing more and more people that look like me out on the road now. But that wasn't always the case. Sometimes you have to be it in order for other people to see it.”

Young grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and came to Richmond for a job after graduating from Roanoke College with degrees in music and sociology. She's worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond since 2016, focusing on cloud cost management. Running, though, is where she found her people.

"These are the folks that moved me from my first apartment to my first home," she said of the RRRC training partners, some decades her senior. "The lasting legacy these people have had on my life — I hope that I'm leaving that too. We can make a bigger table. We can build a better space."

She's held nearly every job the club has to offer: treasurer for two years, race director for the Toy Run — since replaced by the Snowman Shuffle — and for the Stratford Hills 10K, which she pursued deliberately after Mike Levins, who had directed it for 40 years, decided he wouldn't be the one to carry it to 50.

"She wanted to direct Stratford Hills from the get go," Levins said. "It was just a race that she liked and she wanted to keep it going." 

He describes Young as "enthusiastic" and "energetic," focused on making sure the club's upcoming 50th anniversary is honored the way it deserves.

This is Young's third term as club president. She first took the role during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, then stepped away for two years before returning to the board and eventually to the presidency again. Those pandemic years, she said, forced the club to focus on unglamorous institutional work: updating bylaws, building a grants program, launching virtual races that let members who'd moved away stay connected. Out of that period came what she calls the ACE initiative, a push for access, connection and experience across everything the club does.

"How can we continue to get more people included?" was the thought process, she said.

Young also has a wonky enthusiasm for the nuts and bolts of helping an organization she believes in run smoothly.

“You’re making sure that the administration happens so [the organization] can do its mission,” she said. “That is something that has always fascinated me.

“I call Richmond the land of competing nonprofits. A lot of them do the same thing, and that’s not a bad thing but sometimes in the management of them is where you lose the mission. So I knew that if we wanted RRRC to grow, if we wanted to see things move in a positive direction and also make sure were supporting our actual mission… For me, that administration is so important.”

Jenna Conley, the club's first executive director, has been in the job a little over two years. Before her, the entire organization — including a Turkey Trot heading into its 49th year this fall — was volunteer-led.

“[Young is] involved in a lot of running communities throughout Richmond, not just running but active lifestyles," Conley said. "She has a really good way of speaking up for all different parties and being a liaison for her community." 

That drive, Conley said, doesn't always know when to quit: ”I tell her, you're like the Energizer bunny. I also have to try to tell her, you can say no. But she has so much to give and wants to help the community. I really admire that about her."

At Girls on the Run, executive director Catherine Estevez meets with Young every two weeks. She credits Young with helping shape a new three-year strategic plan built around sustainable, equitable growth — not just more girls served, but better-supported volunteers and higher-quality programming, including how to keep the organization's culminating 5K, which now serves 1,400 girls on 55 teams, growing and thriving.

"I think Nikkia is a great representation of that — of how you can build community," Estevez said. "Who you are and how you move in the world should be celebrated. That really aligns with what Girls on the Run is all about."

Series sponsor:

Proud to call Richmond home, Estes is driven by people who go the extra mile — every day, for every customer. As the nation’s largest privately held freight carrier and a Richmond Top Workplace, we’re always looking for great people to join our team.