Running Clubs? There's More To That
Hint: The explosion of running clubs has nothing to do with running
Running’s popularity has seemingly exploded over the past year. If there were a chart that graphed new runners, it would be an exponential curve. Social media feeds are filled with people who have completed their first half marathon - that would be me, the new running club that is more of a running herd than a club, and videos on how picking up a running habit is now deemed to be a part of the quarter life crisis. It is a beautiful sight. More and more people moving their bodies, making themselves better.
I get it. I participated in both cross country and track in high school. I began and I was addicted. The runner’s high they talked about? That was no joke. Some days you felt like you could run forever. 40-60 miles per week were common with plenty of cross-training mixed in. I was drinking all of the running punch I could get.
I had the big dreams. Go to the University of Florida on a track scholarship, run in the national championships, and win the state championships. Eventually, expectations met reality and the high came crashing down.
I went to college and the love for running quickly faded and got replaced by lifting. Coming out of college, I ever so slightly eased back into running. Occasionally, I might take in the sunrise over a slow morning jog. Eventually, I started running more and began to realize I still did enjoy it and it was no longer a chore. The runner's high was inching back. Slowly, I got back in the rhythm until the running wave that took the nation by storm, swooped me up and took me right with it. I was back, drinking all the running Kool-Aid.
It started by doing a 5k. A 5k progressed into a half-marathon and the next thing I knew, I was doing random road races on a Saturday morning. Maybe I got caught in the craze but running has been around forever. It doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.
But it still begs the question of why running has become so popular lately. Running has a great community and it was part of the reason why I initially loved it. With everyone wanting to run, the next logical step was for running clubs to explode in popularity as well. People wanted a sense of community, something that can severely lack, so they picked up running.
Gen Z, my generation, has a world that has shifted to be online. Spending less in-person time than previous generations, friendship applications and apps are now common, dinner is now shared with YouTube videos rather than another person, and social media redefined our generation's relationships. This pushed us further online. The incentive to see a friend in person plummeted when a text would suffice. Friendship became defined by a Snapchat streak and not going to a friend’s house. We determined a real friend would like your picture on Instagram rather than ask, “What’s happening? What’s on your mind?”. And now, we can replace real-life friends with AI companions.
A side effect of the world now being deeply online was we lost the community, connection, and relationships we craved. This led us to feel lonely and loneliness is quite scary. On what loneliness feels like, I think Olivia Laing, a British novelist, said it best,
“What does it feel like to be lonely? It feels like being hungry: like being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a feast. It feels shameful and alarming, and over time these feelings radiate outwards, making the lonely person increasingly isolated, increasingly estranged. It hurts, in the way that feelings do, and it also has physical consequences that take place invisibly, inside the closed compartments of the body. It advances, is what I’m trying to say, cold as ice and clear as glass, enclosing and engulfing.”
Loneliness is crippling. Our phones are loneliness devices, and media addictions are rampant. We are fed headlines catered to our fears. We can’t look away. It is an issue, but it has begun a rebellion. People are trying to break out of the loneliness crisis, trying to feed themselves when they are hungry so they can feast like everyone else.
Enter run clubs - a solution to that crisis. Running clubs have a low barrier to entry. Get yourself a watch and a decent pair of running shoes and you are on your way. The only skill required is putting one foot in front of the other and at a club, you are bound to find someone on the same fitness level as you. It reduces the stakes, there is no learning curve, increases the surface area for social serendipity, and the social pressure is low.
Running is the activity, the conversation is second. Conversations get a little dry? You can focus on putting one foot in front of the other. Awkward pauses in the convo? Chalk it up to someone trying to catch their breath while trying to run and talk. It is a very easy way to create community. We want and are searching for it. Community that helps to feed our need for belonging. Belonging is an integral part of the human identity. When you have a community to show up to each week that fills your mind, body, and spirit, it is addicting and nourishing.
More and more young people are dying for social connections, connections beyond following each other on Instagram or requesting someone on LinkedIn. Artificial dopamine is great until a point, but staring at a black box all day doesn't seem to fill us up. It provides a dupe that keeps us thinking it one day will be “real”. We need connection and we need real relationships that fill our souls. Running clubs do that.
It is in this movement I’ve realized: Running clubs aren’t about running. It is less of a celebration of the sport or bringing people together to be faster, stronger, quicker, etc. It is about creating community and trying to be something beyond how the online world defines us. Community is a pillar of our identity, it makes us human. And at the end of the day, aren’t we all humans just trying to make it in this world? Trying to find the community that makes us whole?
Community and relationships are the ultimate cure to whatever ails you. It reduces your risk of injury, just like exercising. When you cure your ailments, it makes sense why a running club rebellion is occurring.
All this to say, I think loneliness is real. I think it’s worth rebelling against. We can’t afford not to. There are a lot of ways we are pushed online in the modern world, but running clubs aren’t one of them. People are refusing to give up on finding their community. Maybe, just maybe, running clubs are the spark that ignites a fire of people moving out of loneliness and instead, finding the people who help move them forward in this world.
Appreciate you reading. Tap the heart, if you enjoyed.
-Scantron
I read somewhere that before social media and dating apps, running clubs helped adults connect new people and find their significant other. Maybe that also explains its resurgence? :-)