Garden State Track Club

I live in Brooklyn and hop in NJ races from time to time when I visit my family.

They are an impressive group. When I see them, there's always a big group of them warming up or warming down together. They have awesome uniforms. Seems like its quite an organized crew. You don't see that often. Email them and ask questions. Surely their email address in on their website or somewhere.

It's a fun club to run for. There's plenty of really good runners too. You will instantly make 10 new friends too!

I run for them. It's an amazing club. Great runners and just all around great people.

I'm a member and although the club has lots of elite runners, there are also many middle-of-the pack types. All ages and abilities are welcome and the club is a really friendly group of people. Join and you will have friends to run with every day. There are groups that meet up in many areas of NJ. They also have fun non-running social events so even if you are not out there winning races or even age groups, the club has a lot to offer you.

On the other hand, if you are someone who wants to train at a very high level, the club has runners who will push and challenge you. Individual coaching is available to all members and the club is an official Olympic Development Club. Recently, Adidas has begun sponsoring the club.

Hey GSTC - Bring back the Gorilla! WTF happened to it?

I'm a member too. It's a solid club! Especially if you're an elite. We have an army of sub-15 and sub-16 guys. It's a little unreal. On the girls side we also have a bunch of sub-18 and sub-19 types.

I'm a new member, but I have been around them and known of them for a while, so I'll give this a shot.

I unexpectedly had to join due to some issues on my college team, I decided I wasn't going to finish up my senior year of running with them. I reached out to my former coach that day, he's the VP of the club, and he wanted to take me in immediately. The president of the club called me later that night to iron out the details. Although his job is to recruit, he wanted to make sure that my head was in the right place and that I wasn't acting on impulse. That really meant a lot to me, can't say enough about the respect I have for the leaders they have in place.

My former coach, Ken Goglas, is one of two people that put together the Fall training plan for the club. It's comprehensive, it's awesome, and I know it works because a lot of it is what he used when he used to coach me. There are a handful of coaches, as I'm sure you saw on the website. I don't have experience with them, but I would recommend Goglas to anybody.

I've also already done some training with them, doing several runs with them over the summer while I was prepping for XC. I had some of the best runs of my life. The good thing is they have guys with varying skill levels: on a typical Sunday long run, you might have guys doing 16 at 6:00 pace, or guys doing 10 at 7:30 pace (and they always have a Sunday team run). You can always find somebody to run with you, and the Facebook group is nice for that communication.

They are really, really nice people. Chuck, the president, is an awesome guy. I joined on Tuesday night. By yesterday, I already had a uniform and I was registered to race with them this weekend. They'll care about you, they'll help you, and as far as clubs in the area go, this has to be in consideration as the best.

Again, this is just from my limited exposure. But as you can see, I've already seen plenty that I love. If you reach out to them via e-mail, or join the Facebook group, there are tons of people who would be willing to talk to you about it.

Hope you join! :)

Join if you love running.

I am not affiliated directly, but the president's brother told me about the GSTC before I was in high school and it has certainly earned any praise it receives. Many of the coaches and runners are familiar names to those who have grown through the new jersey system over the last decade. The connections to this group never cease to amaze me, whether its in my everyday life or business conferences in Orlando.

what do they offer runners who have run in USATF Chaampionships. Like someone who is fastest enough to make us champs, but can't get a shoe sponsor by themsleves?

This is the elite athlete page on our website

http://www.gardenstatetc.org/elite.html

We run fast!

Thanks for the responses! For those of you who are members, what's the situation like middle distance types like myself? (400-1000, mainly the 800)

You should probably check out Garmin instead - they're based in the Morristown area.

The GSTC meets a group of 400/800 athletes 2-3 times a week during the indoor/outdoor season. Guys from 1:50-2:02.

Garmin is a masters team for runners 40+ years old.

emerging Elite wrote:

what do they offer runners who have run in USATF Chaampionships. Like someone who is fastest enough to make us champs, but can't get a shoe sponsor by themsleves?

It depends. The best thing to do is to contact Chuck (the team's founder and president) at

and give him a rundown of your situation and times.

The best thing about this team is the overall atmosphere. It doesn't matter if you're a sub 15 min 5000 guy or 20 min one, guys like Chuck and Ken treat you with the same appreciation. I live in NYC and train often with guys from other teams and it seems to be a totally different atmosphere. GSTC has none of that crappy, elitist attitude that you'll often find with faster, competitive teams. The numbers speak for themselves. Since starting the team in 2010, tons of men and women have come on board and very few have left. And most of the ones that have left were absolute headcases.

Whether you're a post-collegiate fast guy, a 20something who isn't fast enough for your college team, a HS kid who doesn't like the system at your school, a master looking to run a PR or anyone else, you're not going to find a better team (at least not anywhere in NJ).

I am a middle of the fleet master with the team and have nothing but praise for the organization. The Leadership Team is extremely organized and works hard to make the club great. Absolutely none of that elitist nonsense. We do anonymous feedback surveys from time to time about what members like most - "The People" is the most common response. I agree.

I saw this club run really fast in the mile relay at Icahn Stadium this year. 3:09? 3:10? Fun to watch. Something seems to be good over there. They beat Central Park pretty easily. Nice to see a team with everything, not specialize in just one or two events.