Chris Brewster was the Head Coach (Track, Cross Country) at nearby Hoover High School (07–21’) and was joined by Co-Founders Tlaloc and Rachel Venancio in 2012.   Frustrated by a lack of  access to distance running for youth largely unexposed to the sport, as well as by inequities in resources (camp, equipment, travel expenses) that made it difficult to compete against schools who enjoyed great resource advantage, they started City Heights Runners as a youth development initiative of Urbanlife Ministries. 

Over the next decade they have exposed hundreds of middle and high school students to the sport, and closed the resource gap at both Hoover, and eventually Crawford High School, who won a CIF Boys DIV Cross Country Championship DIV in 2019, just three years after the Venancio’s took over the program.

Brewster and Tlaloc Venancio decided to work together to leverage resources at Crawford in Fall 2021, yielding positive results with our boys winning a San Diego Section Division IV Boys Cross Country Championship 22', and elevating a women's program that rarely fielded complete teams over the last two decades, to a fourth place finish at the Section Championships (22'). In Track and Field, we have led numerous athletes and relay teams to the Sectional Track and Field Championships awards podium!