The Run Club is Booming- But What Comes Next?
Run clubs are no longer a fringe part of running culture, they’ve become one of its most dominant structures.
Across Substack, Strava, podcasts and mainstream media, the message is consistent: the run club boom isn’t slowing down.
And having spent over a decade building and leading one, I can see exactly why.
But the idea of what a “community” is, and how it’s built, is changing. What was once organic is now increasingly intentional. What was once informal is now being structured, scaled, and in many cases, monetised.
Yet one question remains largely unasked, are the structures needed to support these communities evolving at the same pace? Because while the idea of a running community is often framed as something as simple as people finding each other through running, the reality of what it takes to sustain those communities is far less visible, and far less talked about.
One element of this is safeguarding, and why good intentions and inclusive vibes aren’t enough, which I explored in some depth a few weeks ago - you can read that post here: Why “All Paces Welcome” Isn’t the Same as Inclusive.
Yet the recent creation of Whistle Runner, (an anonymous reporting system for runners), a 2025 initiative set up by three women in Berlin in response to harmful experiences within running communities, alongside the introduction of mandatory Club Standards for England Athletics re-affiliating clubs, and emerging UK-based initiatives such as BOLDLI Runs reinforces the sense that run club culture is approaching a turning point.
But let’s rewind to 2023, when the tone around run clubs was still primarily celebratory as groups were being described as grassroots cultural spaces, growing communities shaped by shared identity and inspirational local leadership.
There was this idealistic and romantic idea of run clubs and crews popping up on every street corner. No one to run with? No problem. Start your own crew. The more the merrier.
But as participation has grown over the last two to three years, there has been a significant shift in the language surrounding running communities. Questions are now being raised about whether communities can be optimised, similarly to the quantitative layers within running itself. Just like
Nutrition & Fuel
Training & Performance
Strength & Mobility
Running Form & Mechanics
Recovery & Sleep
Psychological Resilience
And now, increasingly, “let’s optimise your running community”.
To me, it feels a bit like the Super-Size Me moment in the early noughties; that point where something familiar starts to tip into excess.
And if optimisation is now being applied to building communities, what happens after the onboarding?
Because growth is easy to sell, it’s seductive and promising, sustainability not so much. And yet sustainability is the part that determines whether the run club continues to boom…or busts!
Opinion on this is divided, writer and commentator Zoë Rom recently argued that community is not something that can be optimised; communities emerge through relationships, shared experiences and the slow accumulation of trust.
I feel the genie is already out of the bottle as workshops, platforms and online creators are now actively recruiting, targeting and teaching people just how to build, scale and optimise their street corner of a run club. Whilst simultaneously brands are increasingly partnering with run clubs through events, launches and sponsorships, now openly recognising the influence these groups hold.
A growing ecosystem now sits around this shift, with a clear focus and narrative, growth, visibility and monetisation.
Across many of these conversations, the emphasis sits firmly on visibility, expansion and monetisation. Belonging is positioned as something that can be intentionally designed, structured and scaled.
What receives far less attention are the systems required to support that growth.
Safeguarding, duty of care and governance tend to appear only briefly, if at all. Conflict is often framed as something occasional and manageable, rather than an inevitable feature of any growing group of people.
This creates a subtle but important imbalance.
In one sense, this reflects the remarkable success of the movement - running communities have grown to be so influential that businesses, creators and platforms now recognise their cultural and commercial power.
But the language of optimisation sits uneasily beside the original, romantic idea that run clubs are simply organic gatherings of people who show up to run together.
Suddenly, building communities with the promise of how to design “belonging” starts to look less like connection and more like a familiar sales funnel.
These sales pitches’ feel uncomfortably similar to the 1980s timeshare presentations on the Costa del Sol, with glossy promises of lifestyle and opportunity, and far less discussion about the responsibilities, risks and labour required to sustain what is being sold.
Sadly, belonging can be marketed far more easily than the governance, safeguarding and the hidden work required to protect the people running and inside these communities.
And this is where the model begins to strain, run clubs are no longer social gatherings, they have become cultural hubs, marketing platforms, training groups, businesses and identity spaces all at once.
Instead, the conversation continues to focus on growth, which brings us back to the central tension.
From the outside, everything looks effortless, seductive and full of possibility. But from the inside, sustainability is so fragile. Because no matter how good the systems or platforms, it is individuals who must navigate the tensions between community and organisational responsibility, often without the institutional backing that more formal sport has spent decades developing.
This is precisely the gap governing bodies are now trying to address as England Athletics’ move towards mandatory Club Standards reflects the recognition that participation has grown to a scale where goodwill and informal problem-solving are no longer enough.
Sadly, the necessity of initiatives such as Whistle Runner suggests there is a growing awareness in the informal run club community that there’s no “guardianship” or safety net to protect informal run clubs. What happens when there’s no one to turn to after the initial excitement of designing your belonging? People are struggling to find a pathway to respond to when issues arise.
As communities expand rapidly, expectations also increase. At what size does a group reach the point where maintaining safety, accountability, and responsibility requires more than simply having a private conversation with one person?
On the flip side, some communities begin as structured groups or businesses, built around coaching, organisation or leadership. But as they grow, something else begins to form, as Zoë Rom suggests, relationships develop slowly, with trust building independently of the structure that first created them.
And this reveals another complex layer at the heart of many community-led models; the stronger the relationships between members become, the less central the original structure can appear.
In some cases, the community begins to outgrow the business that built it, and this growth does not always reinforce the original model, sometimes, it quietly replaces it.
And when that happens, the question is no longer how to build a community because it happens organically, but then who is responsible for holding it together.
There is a clear concern that informal, joyful spaces are at risk of becoming over-structured or controlled. But regardless of whether communities form organically or are intentionally designed, the elephant in the room is no longer control, it’s responsibility.
Because while community can emerge, and belonging can be built, responsibility rarely follows.
Recently, I came across a useful distinction between an audience and a community. An audience gathers around a source, a brand, a coach, a creator, whilst a community forms when relationships begin to exist independently of that source.
If you remove the brand, coach, or creator and ask what remains - if people disperse, you were looking at an audience, but if they continue to show up for each other, then something closer to a community has taken root.
If this is the test, then a further question follows, if relationships continue, who holds responsibility for the infrastructure that allowed them to form in the first place?
The run club boom has already reshaped the culture of running, but it’s clear the systems required to support that growth is still so far behind.
The timeshare boom followed a similar pattern, built on the promise of lifestyle, belonging and access, a way of buying into something bigger than a single holiday (run).
Over time, the reality became harder to sustain as behind the scenes high maintenance costs, complex ownership structures and limited exit options left many people tied into systems that no longer reflected the value they were promised. Some adapted, others quietly unravelled
It’s not a perfect comparison but….
What happens after the build?
Because building a run club is only the beginning, what comes next is where the real work begins, sustaining relationships, managing responsibility, and holding the structures that keep people safe.
PS - I’m also interested in hearing from other run club founders or organisers who have experienced the less visible side of grassroots running and community building.
If you’ve navigated leadership tensions, sustainability challenges or the complexities of running a community over time, feel free to get in touch. I’m exploring this topic further and would value hearing a range of perspectives.