My local running club is everything that is wrong with local running culture

I've also had good luck with clubs that are organized by running shoe stores.

I would also add D.C. to your list of cities where you can find a fast group to train with.

Slow, nonathletic, rich whites, mostly women, that's whats make up the local running clubs.

Idk if I agree with all points made above, but some thoughts come to mind after a turkey trot last week (LRC cliche I know)

So I never ran one before but after years of running and racing, last Thursday was beautiful and the idea of a 5k before some winter training sounded like fun. I am far from an accomplished runner, I ran in HS, and have been running on a regular basis for nearly a decade, trails, roads, treadmill, whatever I can find on that day. I don't put crazy mileage in but I am steady, week after week. I support those that get out the door and push their relative limit, but damn, let's be honest, breathing heavy crossing the finish line as a 20-40ish year old past the half hour mark is troublesome to wrap my head around, short of a physical ailment.

Once again, I respect ya for getting out, but is it a one and done effort, and then back to months of excuses? I mean, young people were walking and struggling on a relatively flat course to maintain a 11+ minute pace for 3.1 miles. As a whole, events like these highlight just how far gone we are as a society when it comes to general fitness.

Your local sub-sub-elite hobby jogger wrote:

-It's a rarity that I find anyone that actually follows the competitive running scene. Maybe once every few months.

I don’t understand the LR hang-up about following the sport at the elite level. I am a runner because I like running, not because I like watching other people run. Most of my friends who are faster than me care even less about “the competitive running scene” than I do.

I’m happy to leave the spectating to the beer guzzling fatties in NFL jerseys. I’ll enjoy my sport by doing it, not by watching other people do it.

Hey - rolling with it - do you happen to be in the Bay Area? Your club sounds like the club I've been training off / on with since high school (more off as of late).

My recommendation to the OP is either to find a new club, train with a few couples to find the one you like the best, or stick with the one you are currently running with and try to inspire the conversations to be more running oriented. But, it just may not be for that group of people. A lot of running clubs is a social experience for people, which may include faster running or running-centric people...but it might not.

runner, not spectator wrote:

Your local sub-sub-elite hobby jogger wrote:

-It's a rarity that I find anyone that actually follows the competitive running scene. Maybe once every few months.

I don’t understand the LR hang-up about following the sport at the elite level. I am a runner because I like running, not because I like watching other people run. Most of my friends who are faster than me care even less about “the competitive running scene” than I do.

I’m happy to leave the spectating to the beer guzzling fatties in NFL jerseys. I’ll enjoy my sport by doing it, not by watching other people do it.

A lot of us do care about what's happening at the elite level and would like to find a place where we can talk about it with others that do. That's kind of a point of this thread.

Unfortunately accomplished runners who don't follow the sport seems pretty common.

I help coach a HS team, one of the assistants on the girls team ran in the Olympic trials, she didn't know Desi won Boston until I told her at practice.

I had this same problem with stuff I checked out and a similar attitude in the first couple years after college. After being hurt and out of the game for a while. I'm realizing most running clubs, are really just people out to be social like after work rec. flag football, basketball, or softball leagues. If a college RB running back didn't get drafted he'd have to work pretty hard to find a group he enjoyed training/competing with. I agree with another post, if there's not groups out there to find easily, make a FB page or put some work in. I talked to some people at a running shop and found some great training partners. Ran in the good spots for weeks consistently till I found somebody also training and flagged them down to run with.

runner, not spectator wrote:

Your local sub-sub-elite hobby jogger wrote:

-It's a rarity that I find anyone that actually follows the competitive running scene. Maybe once every few months.

I don’t understand the LR hang-up about following the sport at the elite level. I am a runner because I like running, not because I like watching other people run. Most of my friends who are faster than me care even less about “the competitive running scene” than I do.

I’m happy to leave the spectating to the beer guzzling fatties in NFL jerseys. I’ll enjoy my sport by doing it, not by watching other people do it.

Well, I don't expect others to be super fans like myself, but my minimal expectation is that the people participating in the sporting activity might have a minimal interest in the sporting activity they participate in beyond the gear they get at races.

Most major US cities have competitive running clubs and social running clubs, and while there may be a spectrum, it's usually not hard to figure out which are which. If you're a competitive runner, aim for the ones that participate in the local racing series and have a number of fast runners.

My biggest problem with the running club scene near me is the crappy coaching. If you're going to have track workouts, why not make them decent workouts? If you're going to be a competitive running club, why not have a weekly schedule that makes sense?

I joined a local running club and it’s a very social club with runners who run (sometimes a lot of) races but the only problem is the fastest pace group for marathon is 8:00 pace and half marathon is 7:30 pace. We have a pretty ethnically diverse group of runners. Very nice group of runners with a select few who are faster who have BQ’d or sub-3’d. I think the faster runners basically treat club runs as an easy/social run or train by themselves just using the water tables that are set up by the club. I trained with the 9:00 pace group and ran my first marathon in 4:12 when I started seriously running 3 years ago. Now that I have improved my marathon time to 2:42 I mostly train by myself but will occasionally show up at my running club for social purposes/easy long runs. I have recently joined an ethnic running club where there a few faster runners but also mainly for social purposes. There are some faster but non elite running groups in the LA area that I am considering joining for group runs.

CrazySlowRunner wrote:

I have completely different experience with my local running club. Very positive experience.

Tbh I'm quite shocked by the negativity and bitterness of this forum, it's so different from the running community I interact with in real life.

+1

Very positive to all members or join ins. Most of my club races or use to race. A handful ran in HS / College but the group is completely inclusive. Pace varies and depends on the person but 9:00 is fairly common / group average. We are an older group with about half the club over 60 and 80% over 45. Conversation varies with the group and day, could be Alberto Juantorena, last months vacation, the next race and often it's injuries.

Come to the F & Marshall Track - Lancaster PA - if you want to work hard and get faster then run intervals with our club.

Three speed groups and we are on the track 52 weeks year round - if not, run with your local running club., better than sitting on the couch.

dude, i used to train with a group of sub elite?(ya know 225 marathoners 2930 10k guy. There would also be a rotating group of world class women who would jump in for long runs on the weekends..... and guess what... maybe 2 followed the top runners... even the elite women(im taking ncaa champions and sub 230 marathon women) just talked about recipes most of the time.

Use Strava to find local runners- start following each other, meet them at races (in either order), get together for Sunday long runs. Strava makes this a lot easier than it used to be. I have met people at races- or found people I want to meet at races- then I k ow who to look for. Find one local person, see who they follow, and branch out from there.

I feel very blessed to be in the UK, which, like most of Europe, has a 'club system'. Sure, we have our new wave 'jogging clubs' which are all about getting people out and moving - and they are very valuable for public health.

But in every town, we have a 'full service' athletics club which takes kids all the way through to veterans, and welcome everyone from heavy lifters/throwers through to skinny distance runners. Most competition is organised by clubs, not schools. The clubs EXIST TO COMPETE and it's ingrained in their culture. Join one, and even 3 years after you retired injured, expect that Friday night phone call asking if you can make up a relay team. And clubs are constantly renewed, with 500 young kids becoming 200 competing teenagers becoming 50 adults who love to race and train.

The depth of support and competition in the USA in high school and college is great, but it has its downside.

I tried running with a group in my town but it made me feel a lot older and faster than I am - I was the oldest by about 10 years and the fastest by far, not because I'm talented (I'm not) but I care about running & staying in shape. The group was more of a social group that cared about running in the same way a kickball league member cares about kickball. And clearly I was too old for this crew, so I ended up finding some other old guys to run with - it was a better fit.

Our running club would be classified under hard core. We have been running tempos and intervals on Monday and Wednesday mornings in 20s/30s weather at 5:30 am. Sure there is the usual social conversation among friends.

Remember the scene in Rocky III when Clubber was down in his basement ripping out them pull-ups.

It's a rarity that I find anyone that actually follows the competitive running scene. Maybe once every few months.

I agree with this AND- look at golf- the average duffer knows and watches the pro's.

The average Hobby Jogger does not do the same with running.

I perceive that a lot of "slower" runners almost begrudge faster runners their talent. As if acknowledging it would diminish from what they do.