You may recognize Courtney Carter. Perhaps you’ve seen her running around the Anacostia Trail or the National Mall — two of her favorite local running routes; you may know her from Instagram, where her handle @eatprayrundc has more than 11,500 followers; or you may know her through her work with diversity, equity and inclusion and her posts about it on sites like Women’s Running, Oiselle’s blog or her own website.

She’s using her social media presence to show runners and people of color that they can accomplish amazing things. And Carter, who lives in D.C.’s Trinidad neighborhood, also wants the D.C.-area running community to do better when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The D.C. area is at the heart of some of the most beautiful and dynamic running routes in the country. The DMV is surrounded by scenic paths, urban gems, woodland trails, historical parks, lakes, and sprawling fields. But despite all that the area has to offer, many runners will time and time again repeat the same set of loops from their front door.

Vivian Smith is a cybersecurity consultant in Manassas. She does not want to fit the trend of running from home or work each day. She travels somewhere to run at least four days a week, even if that means driving only a minute or so to get there. “I’ll drive half a mile to a park so that I can enjoy more of my run in the park than on the shoulder-less road on the way to the park,” she said.