Melbourne’s biggest run crew is now All Ours

It’s 6am on a Saturday morning in South Yarra, and the scene on Birdwood Avenue near The Tan resembles a small music festival more than a casual weekend run. Nearly 300 runners are gathered on the footpath, chatting animatedly as they fiddle with their Garmins. The energy is infectious – part social gathering, part athletic endeavour, all community. This is Melbourne’s biggest run crew in full swing, and after an eight-month rebrand, they’re no longer just Run South Yarra. They’re All Ours.

The name change, announced recently across social media, might seem like simple rebranding. But for founders Tom Adair and Cameron Macdonald, it represents something more significant: the evolution from a location-specific running group into a trans-Tasman movement that’s redefining what a run crew can be.

“The All Ours name gives ownership to everyone within the community,” Tom explains. “It’s all of ours – that’s the main meaning behind it.” The rebrand unites their Melbourne operation with their sister crew in Queenstown, New Zealand, under a single identity that speaks to collective ownership rather than geographic boundaries.

What started as small weekend runs leaving from South Yarra bistro Gilson has evolved into something approaching a lifestyle brand – one that’s attracting the attention of the industry’s biggest players. As part of a membership structure which will be unveiled very soon, Tom and Cam have assembled a portfolio of premium brand partnerships that reads like a who’s who of the running industry.

Each brand is being offered exclusive partnership rights to specific categories. On, the Swiss running giant, has signed on for shoes and apparel. Cadence, the hydration brand, is locked in. Up There Athletics will be their retail partner, while EQ, a wellbeing and recovery centre in South Melbourne, is looking after the recovery side. They’re in discussions with a number of other top-flight brands, too.

The new paid membership tier will be entirely optional and provides access to exclusive benefits through these brand partners: discounts, free products, member-only events, travel packages (through one of the partnerships still to be announced), and priority access to limited experiences. Cam and Tom strongly emphasise that the crew’s free runs – Wednesday track sessions, Saturday social runs and Sunday long runs – will always remain free.

Tom and Cam’s selective approach to brands has paid dividends. “It’s always been one of our mentalities that we hold out for the brands we want to work with,” Tom says. “We get approached every week with different opportunities, but making sure we align with the right brands is crucial.” Cam goes even further: “Our motto has always been, ‘If it’s not a fuck yes, it’s a no.’”

When global brands start approaching local run crews for meaningful partnerships rather than simple sponsorship deals, it signals a fundamental shift in how the industry views community-driven initiatives, and Cam acknowledges they’ve turned down lucrative offers that didn’t feel right: “We had a brand reach out and they had a big budget, could give us a lot of cash to collaborate, but it just didn’t quite feel right. So it’s about being very selective, and then it just makes it stronger when we do collaborate.”

The growth trajectory that’s enabled All Ours’ new chapter has been remarkable. Tom and Cam met at an art exhibition, bonded over shared gym sessions, and started running together during the pandemic when their usual training was disrupted. “We were hardcore gym guys,” Tom recalls. “I just loved training every day. It’s a very different environment. It’s very unsocial. Headphones on. Don’t look at anyone. No eye contact. And it’s completely opposite with the running community.”

Their entry into running came through the now-defunct 440 group on Anderson Street Hill – “10 times up and down” as Cam describes it. After running that format for two years, they decided to branch out on their own in May 2022. The growth was exponential: “We put a drop pin out at Gilson, ‘meet at 6am’, and the format was one, two, or three laps around the Tan,” Cam explains. “We launched in the middle of winter, in June. It was probably only eight to 12 people at the start and then we got to September, and the weather started getting warmer, and every week we started doubling. So it went from 20 to 40 to 80 to 100 really fast.”

The scale they’ve achieved is unprecedented in Melbourne, though Sydney is a whole other beast. The All Ours WhatsApp group now has about 1000 members, Saturday runs regularly attract 200-300 people, track sessions draw 50-80 runners, and Sunday long runs see 80-100 participants across multiple pace groups and distances. They’ve had to bring in help to manage the logistics, with special thanks going to volunteer Steve Yaghmoor who organises three different routes (12km, 18km and 28km, for example) every Sunday with a team of 20-odd volunteer pacers covering everything from fast four-minutes-and-change to slower six-minutes-plus paces.

“It’s such a wide array of people,” Tom says of their community. “We’ve got people in their late 60s that have come down and they couldn’t run, and now they’re running two laps every week without fail. We’ve got teenagers that catch the bus to school after a track session, who come down with both their parents because they can’t drive yet. And then we’ve got people who were overweight and never thought they’d ever run a marathon – now they’ve run their first marathon, they’re doing a second marathon and their life is completely changed.”

The membership structure they’re developing is a response to their multifaceted, ever-growing membership. But the catalyst was their ambitious Off Course event last year, a week-long series of runs, talks and brand activations around Melbourne Marathon that almost broke them personally and financially. “That nearly killed me,” Tom admits. “I took two months off, essentially unpaid, to organise, plan, build, install. Man, I got to the end of it and I was just so burnt out. I realised that we can’t keep doing these amazing things long term – it’s just not going to be sustainable.”

The realisation forced a strategic pivot toward paid membership, but not for the reason cynics might expect. “We want to monetise so we can actually improve the experience and give back to the members,” Tom stresses. “The main thing is it’s actually going to improve the experience for everyone. Cam and I have big plans, and if we can afford to do them it will be amazing.”

Those plans are already taking shape. A member breakfast with On will kick off All Ours’ Melbourne Marathon training block – the hometown event was always a cornerstone of the Run South Yarra calendar. This breakfast of champions is intended to provide educational content alongside premium access. They’re also planning enhanced cheer zones at Melbourne and other major races, bringing elevated energy and entertainment to create recognisable All Ours experiences. Most intriguingly, they’re organising “a secret underground race” for October, a choose-your-own-adventure based on the marathon distance that will be open to solo runners and relay teams in any combination.

“People can get around the course however they want. If they want to do 1K repeats the whole way they’re fine to do that,” Tom says. “If they want to do a half marathon each at a time they’re also fine to do that.”

The rebrand itself was crucial to unlocking these ambitions. After countless failed attempts to design their own logo, they engaged Melbourne’s More Studios for an eight-month process that went far deeper than aesthetics. “The location was difficult to scale,” Tom explains. “If we wanted to start doing more merchandise and doing memberships, if it became more of a global thing, then it’s hard to do it when you’re called Run South Yarra because it’s so location-centric.”

A new logo draws inspiration from Saturn’s rings, representing in Cam’s words “longevity and discipline over time because they just continually turn”. Even the typography tells a story – the parallel lowercase L’s in “All” symbolise running tracks and tie into their tagline “running together in unison”.

The location-agnostic approach was essential for their trans-Tasman operations. Run Queenstown launched in March 2023, led by Elliot Shackleton (who’d moved from Melbourne) and Cam’s school friend Sarah Skinner. The connection runs deeper than business – Cam’s family lives in Queenstown, and Tom’s family has a holiday house there. Each chapter is fairly autonomous. “We don’t have to do too much,” Tom says. “We give them a bit of graphic guidance and then they’ve got a couple of content creators within the community and they do their own reels and graphics.”

The real magic happens during the annual marathon pilgrimages. “Melbourne Marathon and then Queenstown Marathon offer opportunities for both communities to come together,” Tom explains. “They’ll send a few people over from Queenstown to come to Melbourne, and vice versa. We usually have 20 to 30 people that go over to Queenstown, do the shakeout runs together and hang out, have a cheer zone, party afterwards.”

These cross-border connections, combined with their brand partnerships, are enabling increasingly ambitious projects. Plans include packages for Ballarat Marathon featuring boutique accommodation, international trips that leverage their community’s wanderlust, and an expanded merchandise range. Tom’s fashion design background means their growing athletic wear range can be developed in-house, giving them more control over quality and margins than crews relying solely on external suppliers.

“We develop our own product,” Tom explains. “I’ve got a background in fashion design from quite a few years ago. I have all those contacts and understanding of how to produce garments and do all that. Most of the garments we’ve done so far are all our own.”

The strategic thinking extends to their expansion philosophy. “We probably don’t see us opening up more locations,” Cam clarifies. “It’s probably more about engaging with overseas trips or trying to make that membership base really strong to give back more value to the community.”

The membership launch represents the culmination of this strategy. Rather than simply charging for what was previously free, they’re creating new value propositions that justify investment while maintaining the inclusive spirit that built their community. It’s a delicate balance, but one that their brand partners seem confident they can strike.

As Melbourne’s run crew scene continues to explode with new groups launching regularly, All Ours has proven that – with the right combination of authentic community building, strategic thinking and bold vision – a weekend run can attract the attention of global brands and create something that transcends its geographic origins.

The name change might be the most visible symbol of their evolution, but it’s really just catching up with what they’ve already become: a movement that’s redefining the relationship between running communities and the brands that serve them. After all, it’s All Ours.