Jason Stine & Elizabeth Greer: Building the Roswell and East Cobb Running Community

If you spend enough time around the East Cobb or Roswell running community, certain names come up again and again: Jason Stine and Elizabeth Greer. That usually happens for a simple reason. They show up. They build things. And then, somehow, those things become traditions.

Jason and Elizabeth are the co-owners and race directors of Junction 311’s Atlanta Division, the team behind some of the area’s most recognizable race experiences, including the wildly original Area 13.1 Half Marathon in Roswell and the brand-new Mimosa Mile in Roswell. They are also the founders of OTP Endurance Sports, a community built around movement, friendship, training, and making endurance sports feel more welcoming and a lot more fun.

At Big Peach East Cobb, we talk often about the Pedestrian Active Lifestyle. That means more than logging miles. It means walking, running, jogging, training, spectating, volunteering, connecting, and building a life that includes movement because movement makes life better. Jason and Elizabeth have been helping people do exactly that for years.

How It Started: Different Roads, Same Pull Toward Endurance

Elizabeth’s introduction to running was not built around chasing times or collecting medals. It began much more simply, and much more honestly. After having her fourth child, she needed a little space, a little air, and a little time to herself. A walk became a jog. A jog became a run. A run became something she genuinely loved. Like so many people who find running later, she found more than exercise. She found community.

That community began to take shape through local runners, including the old East Cobb Peachy Runners Facebook group, and it expanded from there. Over time, running became not just a habit but a meaningful thread in her life. And when Elizabeth talks about what matters most from her journey, she does not lead with race times. She talks about relationships.

That checks out.

Jason’s path started differently, but landed in a similar place. A lifelong athlete and former soccer player, he stepped away from sports for a period, then decided he needed something active in his life again. In classic overachiever fashion, he did not exactly tiptoe into running. He went from a 5K to a half marathon in short order, then got hooked on the process of learning how to train, improve, and push himself.

For both of them, endurance sports became more than fitness. It became a framework for challenge, growth, and belonging. Naturally, that eventually led to triathlon too, because apparently moderation was never really the brand.

OTP Endurance Sports and the Power of Belonging

Jason started the North Georgia Tri Club as a way to bring people together around triathlon. Elizabeth found the group while looking for her next challenge after qualifying for the Boston Marathon. Their friendship started there, and over time, so did their collaboration.

As the original triathlon club evolved, the two built something new together: OTP Endurance Sports.

Today, OTP Endurance Sports has become more than a training group. It is a social, supportive, welcoming community where people of different backgrounds, paces, and goals can train together. Fast runners belong. First-timers belong. Walkers belong. The people chasing a podium and the people just hoping to finish both belong.

That philosophy shows up in everything Jason and Elizabeth do.

They are not interested in building something that only serves the sharp end of the field. They want races and group runs to feel like spaces where real people can participate, improve, laugh, and come back next time with a friend. That is community-building in the most practical sense. Also, frankly, it is smarter business than the “let’s make this intimidating and weird” model that some corners of fitness still cling to for no good reason.

Area 13.1: The Race That Became an Experience

If you know the Area 13.1 Half Marathon (and Terrestrial 5k), you know it is not your standard half marathon. That is the point.

The race, often affectionately called Alien, leans all the way into its theme. It is held in Roswell (the “alien” connection with Roswell, NM, get it?), it starts on a Saturday evening in August, and it has grown into one of the more memorable race experiences anywhere in Georgia. This is not a sleepy road race where everyone disappears the second they cross the line. This is a festival atmosphere. There is music, energy, lights, costumes, community, and a finish-line experience people actually want to stick around for.

When Elizabeth became more deeply involved with Area 13.1 and later partnered with Jason under Junction 311, one of their goals was to make the event feel bigger, more polished, and more memorable. Not gimmicky. Memorable.

They tightened logistics. They improved support. They leaned into the afterparty. They built up the aid stations. They added details that people would talk about later.

One of the best examples is the now-beloved glowing boardwalk section. What started as a simple, improvised addition with extra glow sticks turned into a signature race feature. At night, it looks like an alien landing strip. That is the kind of detail runners remember.

And clearly, people have remembered. Area 13.1 has grown from around 800 participants when they took it over to more than 3,500 in recent years. It now attracts runners from all 50 states and beyond. That kind of growth does not happen because a logo looks cool. It happens because the event delivers.

For 2026, construction at Riverside Park has forced adjustments, with the race shifting to a half-marathon-only format and a new setup centered around the Chattahoochee Nature Center. But even there, Jason and Elizabeth are doing what they always do: adapting, reworking, and finding ways to preserve what makes the event special.

Mimosa Mile: Short Distance, Big Personality

Then there is the new kid on the calendar: the Mimosa Mile race in Roswell.

Set on Mimosa Boulevard, this one-mile event manages to sound both delightfully absurd and legitimately exciting, which is a pretty good sweet spot. The course is an out-and-back, making it unusually spectator-friendly. People can actually see the race unfold instead of watching runners vanish into the distance and hoping for the best.

That already makes it highly unique for a road race.

The event is designed to be fun, but not unserious. There will be a competitive youth wave for runners 18 and under, an open mile, and the kind of festive atmosphere that has become a Junction 311 trademark. The cap is intentionally modest in year one because Jason and Elizabeth prefer to grow events the right way: start manageable, execute well, let people fall in love with it, then expand. A bold concept is easy. A well-run bold concept is harder.

This one has the potential to become a local favorite because it blends speed, spectacle, and social energy in a way road racing does not always manage. Also, post-race mimosas do not exactly hurt the brand positioning.

Why Their Work Matters

At Big Peach East Cobb, we care deeply about the people and organizations that help movement feel accessible and meaningful in our part of metro Atlanta. Jason and Elizabeth have done that in a very real way.

Through Junction 311, they have created races people want to return to year after year. Through OTP Endurance Sports, they have helped build a network of support that stretches across East Cobb, Roswell, and beyond. Through their personality, effort, and willingness to keep trying new ideas, they have made endurance sports feel more inviting, more connected, and more human.

Their races are creative, yes. Their events are fun, yes. But underneath all of that is something more durable: authenticity. They build the kind of experiences they themselves would want to show up for. That turns out to be a pretty good filter.

And it is why so many people now say some version of the same thing: if Jason and Elizabeth are behind it, it is probably going to be worth doing.

That is not hype. That is trust.

And in the Northwest Atlanta running community, trust travels fast.

FAQs: Jason Stine, Elizabeth Greer, Junction 311 and OTP Endurance Sports