Are run clubs the new ‘third places’ we desperately need?
Run clubs are all the rage and they are doing more than just keeping people fit. Photo: Getty
“We kind of joke that it’s a cult, but everyone is very happily in the cult,” Tara Meakins, a freelance journalist and the co-founder of the Coogee Run Club, said.
These days in Sydney, if you’re up and out of the house early enough, you’ll probably spot a run club, or you’ll see one of your friends post about their run club on social media.
These runners will brave the weather to get their bodies moving, but it’s more than just a work out.
Meakins moved from Perth to Sydney in April 2022. Wanting to make new friends while keeping active, she tried to find a run club.
Instead she found Hannah, who was also searching for a run club in the Coogee area.
Just weeks after Meakins settled down in Sydney, Coogee Run Club was formed, but on the inaugural run, it was just her, Hannah, and two others.
Fast forward to 2024, there are now over 2000 members, the biggest run they ever did was in January this year, where over 250 people joined, but even now in winter, the group is still going strong.
More than running
Meakins has been going to gyms and pilates and yoga classes for 14 years, but never once has she made a friend there.
She hates the phrase “Covid times”, but she attributes the rise of the run club to the pandemic years, where people were forced to work out in ways that were accessible to them.
Gyms were closed, classes weren’t open, but people could run outside, but when restrictions rolled back, she suspects doing those sorts of physical activities were no longer enough.
“I think something changed in like this human condition, where going to a gym, doing a half-hour workout, doing an hour’s workout, and leaving – it doesn’t fill us with any sense of purpose or belonging,” she told TND.
“I think we need more in our lives now, and being part of a run club gives you so much more than just a workout.”
Coogee Run Club meets five times a week, but it has a “social first” philosophy, so after a run, the group will get coffee or dinner.
Meakins has seen people become more fit and active as they come week-after-week, some even tell her how they have lost weight. But the most rewarding part for her is hearing how the club has benefitted members’ mental health.
The mobile ‘third space’
The home is most people’s first place of connection, their work-place is their second, their third place could be anywhere they find social connection like a bar, cafe or church.
There has been discussion around the lack of “third spaces” over the past few years. Some would have disappeared thanks to Covid, but also due to the cost-of-living crisis, some people just aren’t accessing them because it’s costly.
In a way, run clubs have become a kind of mobile third space for those who partake.
“It’s definitely that third place where people can come and sort of escape the office or home,” Meakins said of her run club.
“It’s definitely become that place for a lot of people.”
She said this is especially true for many of the expats who have joined Coogee Run Club. The eastern suburbs are somewhat of a melting pot for people from around the world, Meakins even jokes Coogee could be the 33rd county of Ireland.
The streets of Coogee have become somewhat of a third space for the runners. Photo:Getty
“People come here [to the eastern suburbs] and they don’t have any family, best friends, uni friends. Same as me, I’m from Perth,” she said.
“I moved here, I lasted two or three weeks before I said ‘we should do run club’, because I was so desperate to find a community where I could make friends with people who are also very like minded in wanting to be healthy and fit and active.”
Together, the club has even celebrated holidays together and Meakins believes the friends she has made through running will be with her for the rest of her life.
“This is the number one thing that I’m most proud of, not just establishing the run club, but it’s seeing the effect that it has on people,” she said.
