The sky is blue and the air is crisp on a Saturday in east London. A large crowd of young urbanites in caps and sports gear are gathered outside of a cafe. Some people induct newcomers into the fold with easy, early-morning chatter. There are more than 40 people standing in front of me.
This is the scene that begins my weekend, and has done since October, when I started jogging with Friendly Runners, a casual run club that has become my Saturday-morning mainstay. The clan divides into two groups, the fast and the friendly, at , with 80 plus sneaker-clad feet, and we walk past tower blocks and along the Regent's Canal. "This is the reward for getting out of bed early," laughs Emma. The 29-year-old head of account management in EU books at Amazon has been working with Friendly since September.
We are two amateur runners who joined Friendly's running ranks. The group was informally established three years ago by Oliver Hooson, a photographer, and Matt Horrocks, a marketing manager. It is popping off every week. New people are showing up. They never come once.
The Manhattan club is called the Orchard Street Runners.
The club numbers are moving fast. The Northeast Track Club in Washington DC started with around five runners and now has over 200 weekly attendees. Kent AC, the south London hub of choice for Alex Yee, has signed up more than a hundred members in the past year, while the intense club that sprints through Manhattan's streets in the twilight hours has a waiting list. The chair of the 40-year-old Serpentine Running Club in London's Hyde Park says that running together keeps you motivated in winter.
It used to be all about social drinking, but now I don't want to wake up hungover from a day of meetings.
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Dean Cook is the head of Menswear buying.
Running clubs offer a sense of community. Regardless of the status of office life, flexi-working is likely to stay. The social interactions of daily interaction are low. Lee-Anne Zinetti, a lung cancer-diagnostics strategist who joined the NE Track Club last summer, says that running is usually an isolating sport. We run at a rapid pace in clubs. The researcher moved from Boston to London during the Pandemic. After discovering Friendly on social media, he signed up as a way to meet new people.
Friendly had a fun ethos. Horrocks says that neither he nor the co-founders could find a club that was informal and "down to earth". The majority of members in traditional running clubs are paid for memberships. Horrocks says that the club is very much like the name itself. It is a running club for people who don't consider themselves runners. It still feels like a group of friends getting together for a jog. Everyone stays for breakfast after that.
The Nike Track Mafia Training Crew is made up of Duncan Nicholls and others.
The shift to social sports coincides with the growth of more amateur clubs. When restaurants and gyms were closed, friends would exercise outdoors as a way to stay connected. The number of active users on the social network for running and cycling increased from 73 million in 2020 to 95 million in 2011. They traveled more than 2 billion miles this year, up 26.3% from last year.
Dean Cook, head of Menswear buying at Cleveland's Browns Fashion, started an informal running club that completes a 7 km route after work. Industry friends often join for the jog during the buying seasons in Milan, Paris and Tokyo. Cook, who shepherded more than 30 buyers and designers from rival stores around Paris in September, says he no longer wants to wake up hungover and have a full day of meetings. He thinks alternative activities are a better way to meet people. You get to know designers in a different way. Some people are quitting drinking altogether as a way of life, while others are trying out teetotalism. The 9am start of the run club gives her an excuse to have a quiet one on a Friday.
The Allbirds are a running club.
There is a benefit to running in groups in winter. It offers safety for women. Dos Seis Uno is a women's run club in Mexico City. The aim of the weekly runs is not to have social camaraderie, but to run alone. Thalia Renucci, a campaign manager for apart-hotels in London, says, "My partner goes out running without his phone to properly switch off." I would never do that. She now jogs with other women before work.
Friendly attracts a lot of young people working in creative fields, but some clubs offer the chance to broaden one's social horizon. At the NE Track Club, Zinetti runs with members of the Biden-Harris administration, as well as Gen-Z joggers who are big on social justice and the climate. She says she meet people she wouldn't otherwise meet. An elite marathon-runner attends the club for his fun runs. He gave her tips on what to eat and drink. She says to start hydrating two days before. An hour before the race, have an espresso, peanut butter and honey on toast and a banana. I had the best run. The last two miles were easy.
I will be following the Olympian's nutrition advice. Friendly is thinking about running a half marathon in Paris this year. I will be eating a cinnamon pastry from Pophams with my jogging friends. Both of them are the most important parts of life.
