Before sunrise on a Saturday in late July, I pulled up to the trailhead of Sleeping Beauty Mountain in Fort Ann after about an hour-long drive from Ballston Spa. Typically, the parking lot would be empty at that time. But on this particular morning, it was already nearly full—and there was a line of cars pulling in behind me.
That’s when I knew that Alec Lind, Gordy Adams, and Chris Serafini, the founders of Winners Circle Fitness Social, which had organized the hike, were onto something.
Over the course of the last five months, Winners Circle has taken the Instagram algorithms—and social calendars—of the Capital Region’s 20-somethings by storm. Launched in April with a group run through downtown Saratoga, the club has since amassed more than 4,000 followers on Instagram and 722 members on the group coordination app Band. And on that Saturday morning before the crack of dawn, more than 50 people showed up to hike Sleeping Beauty.
“We really weren’t expecting this many people, so hats off to you for waking up so early,” Gordy said to the crowd. “And if anyone knows a coffee or breakfast place that accommodate all of us after…let us know.”
As we set off in what looked like a giant conga line up the trail, someone asked, “Guys, are we in a cult?”
“We don’t tell you until the top,” someone else responded. “We sacrifice a newbie every time.”
On the hike up, I met Dan Hardwick, a New Jersey native without social media who discovered Winners Circle because two separate people told him about it in the same day. “Everyone here was really cool,” he said of attending his first event. “And it’s a better hobby than boozing all the time.”
At the summit, I started talking to Ronak Parido, a young professional living in Clifton Park who was in search of community when he came across Winners Circle’s posts on TikTok. Before the hike, he’d already been to the group’s paddle boarding, glow-in-the-dark run, and Firecracker 4 meetups, and planned to attend more in the future. “If you can get 50 people to get up at 4am, I think that’s an incredible testament to what you’ve built,” he said.
The whole morning went smoothly; after the hike, a subset of the group rendezvoused at the Queensbury Uncommon Grounds for breakfast. But when Winners Circle posted drone footage of the meetup on social media, things took a turn. The post got picked up by an Instagram account called @adkfunpolice, which pointed out that a permit is required for hiking groups of more than 20 people. And then the comments started rolling in.
“We didn’t know you're supposed to have a permit to hike with more than 20 people, let alone think we would have more than 20 people,” Gordy told me when I caught up with the Winners Circle founders last week. “But we got flooded with, like, 50 comments of people hating on us in 20 minutes.”
Winners Circle took down the post and reached out to the Fun Police to apologize. (The account has since updated its post to say that they did so.)
“It’s comical now,” Alec said. “But at the time, we were freaking out.”
“There was a guy that got in trouble in 2016 because he had had two buses carrying 65 people to a hike,” Chris said. “In the article about it, in fine print, it said the max penalty was a $250 fine and 15 days in jail. So at first we’re like, ‘Are we about to go to jail?’”
“AI says I’m going to jail!” Alec jumped in. “But listen—we learned. That’s a lot of what this club has become for us: stepping out of our comfort zone and doing something new and having fun with it.”
Since Sleeping Beautygate, it’s been business as usual at Winners Circle—if you count a four-mile run at 6am followed by stand-up paddle board yoga or a 30-person river float across state lines usual. This isn’t your typical run club with a low barrier to entry. Winners Circle is for people who are willing to hike a mountain before the sun rises, or play sand volleyball in a torrential downpour. It’s not for everyone; it’s for “Winners.”
“We have a kid coming to a lot of our events from Massachusetts,” Alec said. “He’s driving an hour and change to a sunrise run. He probably had to get up at 3am.”
“We’ve definitely had a couple events where you’ve got to be somewhat dedicated,” Chris added.
And that’s not going to change. Winners Circle will continue through the fall and winter with all sorts of events of varying intensity: hot yoga, cold plunges, rock climbing, skiing at Gore, and maybe even a wintertime weekend getaway.
“I don’t even ski or snowboard yet,” Chris said. “But get ready to hit the slopes.”
When I asked the guys what the most surprising thing about launching a fitness/social club has been, they agreed that it was the sheer number of people who show up (especially to events with ungodly start times), and the friendships they’ve made.
“We wanted to create a community, but we actually have buddies now that are sleeping over at Chris’ every weekend,” Alec said. “I’m 28 years old. The boys are a little bit younger than I am, but this is a tough stage of life to make friends like that in—guys you’re actually hanging out with on the weekend. It’s almost unheard of.”
Evan, one of the friends the trio has made through Winners Circle, echoed the sentiment. “Before the summer even started, I remember thinking to myself that this is going to be a good year,” he told Gordy. “Thank you guys for starting something like this. It’s just amazing.”
—Natalie