WEST READING, Pa. \u2013 Black History Month is about more than the past: It\u2019s about who\u2019s shaping the future, and that story is unfolding on the streets of West Reading.<\/p>\n
People of different ages and different backgrounds come together as one community. This is Nemesis Fitness, and at the center of it all is founder Paul Redford Jr.<\/p>\n
\u201cNemesis Fitness is a run club that I founded in 2018,\u201d Redford said. \u201cWe wanted to get active and get our community involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Redford, the journey is personal. A health condition ended his sports career in 2007. Instead of giving up, he built something new.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ended up with a heart condition, so I couldn\u2019t be active. I was in a slump, mentally and physically,\u201d Redford said. \u201cAnd I decided I\u2019ve got to get outside and do something.\u201d<\/p>\n
What started with a few friends turned into free weekly runs, open to everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like a lot of things in our city aren\u2019t accessible for everyone,\u201d Redford said. \u201cAnd the ones that are, most people aren\u2019t able to even get to. So I just wanted to provide something for everybody to be able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, Nemesis Fitness stretches beyond Reading, with events across Pennsylvania and beyond. It serves as a reminder that representation, access and community can change lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersistence is definitely it,\u201d Redford said. \u201cAt first, it was just a couple of us, and now it\u2019s grown to something that\u2019s been huge \u2026 As long as you continue to push your dream, it\u2019ll eventually happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST READING, Pa. \u2013 Black History Month is about more than the past: It\u2019s about who\u2019s shaping the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[47998,11390,53025,128,130,129,707],"class_list":["post-110860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-black-history-month","tag-nemesis-fitness","tag-paul-redford-jr","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-west-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}