My vote is for the Whippets or Brooklyn Track Club
My vote is for the Whippets or Brooklyn Track Club
It sounds like you have something personal against either or both of those squads. DWRT has grown and improved more than any other men's team over the past 5-6 years and BTC is relatively new and has had great success in its short existence.
My beef with pretty much all NYC track clubs is that they're plagued by yuppies. Unfortunately, that's what the clubs seem to be attracting these days. Running should be dead simple and not that expensive. Instead we're seeing an obsession with overly expensive gear. For some reason people in these clubs always HAVE to have the hottest new Nike shoe or kit or whatever it is. I'm also looking at you, Tracksmith. You've really gone for the jugular and cornered the market on people who just gotta let you know they're affiliated with WASP culture *cough* NYAC *cough*. Also, an overabundance of "Yeah, I work in finance" types mixed with influencer types. It's becoming more about the status and social aspect than the, you know, actually running aspect. This isn't me saying that everyone in a club needs to eat, sleep, and breathe running like some of us do, but they've become hotspots for the type of people I actively avoid.
When you have thousands of members you lose continuity and just become mostly a group of people that just like wearing a particular singlet. If you're not one of the very best runners on DW or NBR or BKTC you don't matter. You're not getting any sort of individualized training, preferential treatment(race bibs) or anything like that, it's just a social club that allows you to easily find training partners. The best runners in these groups are usually ringers brought in from elsewhere, you're not seeing people progress and become one of the best on the team, that is rare. Anytime I find myself running with someone that's pretty good they inevitably tell me that they moved to the area from out West and ran D1 or D2, immediately recruited by X club. There's no way to remedy the situation unfortunately and I really don't see the point of paying to be part of some club that does next to 0 for the money.
If you're thinking about joining a giant NYRR run club don't do it. All you're doing is paying for a singlet. It's far better to create your own club with 5-10 people to start and attempt to rise in the ranks yourself. In one year if you have even just 3-5 decent hobbyjoggers for each gender you can at least make it to the upper half of the B division. If you have actual good runners you can go much farther as long as everyone is able to race often. Or you can just not give a damn about that nonsense and create a cool club.
ok boomer
Just because someone works in finance, wears Tracksmith, and/or is a Yuppie, doesn't mean they don't run for the love of it.
The greatest part about NYC running clubs is the diversity. I've met tons of people and made tons of friends I may not otherwise overlap with, just because we all love to run. I work in finance, own a couple items from Tracksmith and you might label me a yuppie, but you might also be surprised that we have things in common. I'm not running for "status" or because its "cool," I'm running because I love the sport, I love to be active, and I like the cameraderie.
Keep an open mind and appreciate the differences in other people. NYC would be an awful place to live if you didn't appreciate those differences.
Snatchsnatchsnatch wrote:
Just because someone works in finance, wears Tracksmith, and/or is a Yuppie, doesn't mean they don't run for the love of it.
The greatest part about NYC running clubs is the diversity. I've met tons of people and made tons of friends I may not otherwise overlap with, just because we all love to run. I work in finance, own a couple items from Tracksmith and you might label me a yuppie, but you might also be surprised that we have things in common. I'm not running for "status" or because its "cool," I'm running because I love the sport, I love to be active, and I like the cameraderie.
Keep an open mind and appreciate the differences in other people. NYC would be an awful place to live if you didn't appreciate those differences.
So you're telling me you met a bunch of other yuppies at yuppie club practice and one happened to not be white, so it's diverse, right?
Part of me feels bad because you're trying to preach openness and diversity, which is absolutely important and necessary and one of the reasons I love this city, but, you're so incredibly out of touch. NYC running clubs tend to be hyper homogeneous, just go look at any of their group photos. Many of the big clubs are 90% white people. Practice at McCarren Park/Prospect Park and returning to your newly-constructed apartment building in Greenpoint/Park Slope isn't exactly enjoying the melting pot, but, that's a scary amount of these club members. I want to be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with making friends through running and enjoying the camaraderie. There is something wrong when your friend group is more cookie cutter than the Pillsbury factory.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm too jaded. Maybe I've made one too many left turns in my life. I'll keep an open mind when meeting mid-twenties, upper middle class white men. All lives matter, am I right?