After Amy Washington returned to Cleveland from grad school at Miami University, she was professionally happy as the director of a thriving Crohn’s disease nonprofit. But personally, she was looking for something. How do you make friends as an adult, after all?
“I wanted to rebuild my social network and start running outside my community,” Washington, 40, said recently. “And the best way to do that was through run clubs.”
In 2024, sick of the scarcity of early morning groups for women, Washington formed her own, a club that convenes on Wednesdays in Gordon Square when most of Cleveland is just waking up. The 6:30 a.m. start plays into the name: Ready Set! Run, with java afterward at Ready Set! Coffee.
Mornings, it turned out, were a perfect time to meet people just as they are.
“They’re not wearing makeup. They’re not coming from work,” she said. “There’s a little bit of a different level of just feeling very comfortable rolling right out of bed and showing up.”
As in Dallas, Miami or New York City, Cleveland has seen a steady influx of new run clubs pop up in the past few years, leading to what can only be this year’s Run Club Summer with an option for all tastes. Hate waking at 6 a.m.? There are now clubs—any day of the week—for Black women, Jewish joggers, LGBTQ folks, hungover twentysomethings and those who’d rather just walk (Downtown or at Edgewater Beach).
Last year, according to runner’s bible Strava, there was a four-fold spike in running clubs around the world. And not just for diehards training for races. One in five Gen Z respondents to Strava’s same survey said they had gone on a date with someone they met at a run club; two out of five made new friends.
This shift pairs appropriately with Gen Z patterns. Survey takers said they were four times more likely to want to meet friends or lovers through exercise than over wine or cocktails at a bar or club.
After talking to a few heads of local groups, new and old, and running in a few myself, I’ve concluded that these clubs are the perfect signifier of a generational trend, a hobby is healthy, and one that is leagues away from dating app fatigue.
In other words, running is this generation’s social lubricant, whether those runners or the club heads that guide them realize it or not.
“I wouldn’t call us a social club,” Steph Floss, who founded Run With the Winners in 2014, said recently before the group’s typical Tuesday run in Ohio City. “We’re a run club with a bunch of social people.”
“A lot of the run club boom is coming from, you know, the quote-unquote social club,” he added. “I understand that, but I want people to always remember, keep the main thing the main thing.”
A post-pandemic balm for a lingering loneliness epidemic has taken form with in-person gatherings: salsa nights, line dancing, supper clubs, kickboxing demos. And, naturally, in-person events have allowed many to segue out of ambivalent feelings towards Hinge, Tinder or Bumble.
What may be unique to run clubs, or any activity that produces sweat, is that both its exercise and its social component produce happiness chemicals. One study found that the level “of euphoria was significantly increased after running,” all thanks to blood moving, endorphins secreting and endocannabinoids enlivening receptors. Exactly the cocktail that composes the runner’s high. And when anxiety briefly takes a back seat.
I found that to be the case when I joined up with Run With The Winners on a recent Tuesday. Before the run, tiny islands of twenty- or thirtysomethings stretched quietly in spandex or prepped Strava around Intro’s courtyard. As Floss guided us on a three-mile loop around Downtown and Ohio City, all of us began to open up, as if the ache of running was some sort of stress bond. Manuel recalled his old life in Mexico. Jason talked Middle East politics. Megan ranted about her new therapy job.
An hour later, sweat-covered and hearts beating, the 300 or so of us resembled more of an outdoor party waiting for its DJ than an exercise group mid-recovery. Some exchanged numbers. Others showed off Strava maps. At one point, Floss led a group for a round of pushups in the grass.
“People hang out here, they hang out outside the club,” he told me. He nodded to a couple standing in front Intro. “We’ve had people get engaged. We’ve had people get married.”
The growth in popularity is clear, whatever reason people show up.
“All this just gets me out and about,” Claudio Casiano, 25, told me. “Who knows if I meet someone here or not, and go on dates. That’s not my main goal.”
“It’s just, like, meeting new people, being outside,” Mitch Suter, 25, who ran cross country in high school, added. “It’s definitely better than, you know, sitting and doomscrolling on TikTok, or some shit like that.”
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