{"id":68886,"date":"2024-09-11T07:51:19","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T11:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/?p=68886"},"modified":"2024-09-10T08:51:28","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T12:51:28","slug":"the-hottest-and-sweatiest-place-to-find-a-date-run-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/relationships\/the-hottest-and-sweatiest-place-to-find-a-date-run-club\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hottest (and Sweatiest) Place to Find a Date: Run Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of young, single adults were spotted out in Manhattan one recent night. They were dressed in black and looking for romance.<\/p>\n

And that is news, how?<\/p>\n

This was no normal outing. They were part of a running club: one that links jogging with finding a date. Held Wednesdays, there is one rule: wear black if you\u2019re single.<\/p>\n

After nearly two decades of enduring internet dating sites and apps, young adults are trying a more traditional face-to-face approach. Run clubs and other athletic groups across the country are working to attract new members with the tantalizing prospect of meeting significant others in the flesh, sweaty as it might be.<\/p>

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Attendees tell tales of success. And of awkwardness. But hey, at least you\u2019ve burned calories either way.<\/p>\n

In New York, the Lunge Run Club, which asks singles to don black to signal their status as available, has grown from 30 people at the first run in May to around 900 on a recent evening, when runners set off from Washington Square Park on a three-mile course while walkers could tackle a shorter stretch.<\/p>\n

For those wondering if it is easy to flirt while working up a sweat, the event includes a post-exercise shindig at a bar. \u201cI\u2019m not a big talker when I run,\u201d conceded 20-something attendee Slade Parson, who works in tech consulting. \u201cBut after the run, it is actually good to talk to people you spotted out during the run or meet new people that you didn\u2019t see.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Not just on the couch\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Belex Cheng and Reid Sherman met last March on a run along San Francisco\u2019s Embarcadero waterfront. They were both in the same run club. Sherman was promoting a race and asked for Cheng\u2019s number to see if she would be interested in being on a team for a 100-kilometer relay Sherman was doing with friends.<\/p>\n

Later that night, the two kept talking and realized they were in the same surfing group chat that had grown out of the run club. Both were hesitant to date within their club because they didn\u2019t want to fracture the group. But a couple nights later, they got pizza. Two days after that, they went to brunch. Within weeks, they were in a relationship.<\/p>

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\u201cWe joke around a lot that we joined a cult,\u201d Sherman, 33, said. \u201cYou see the same people out at bars. You do a lot of the same stuff together, a lot of social events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheng, 29, knows several couples who met through run clubs and friends have told her they joined run clubs to meet like-minded dates.<\/p>\n

\u201cRunning clubs filter in a way,\u201d Sherman said. \u201cI\u2019m only meeting people who run a couple miles.\u201d They\u2019re \u201cnot just on the couch watching Netflix.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s self-proclaimed \u201cmost unhinged run club\u201d is the Fat Boys Run Club. About a year and a half ago, Russell Denhert organized a run with a small group of friends. To his surprise, they wanted to do it again the next week, and the name he had jokingly suggested stuck.<\/p>\n

Fat Boys now has runs twice a week. Its group chat has about 300 people, Denhert said, and more than 1,500 follow its page on the fitness-tracking app Strava, which has gained a reputation as a dating app.<\/p>\n

\u2018Came for the girls\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Denhert, 36, said Fat Boys is a casual club where people come for a good time without romantic pressure. He can usually tell when people join with the sole intention of dating, and as the club\u2019s \u201ccoach\u201d sometimes finds it hard to maintain a comfortable atmosphere when knowing romance might be top of mind.<\/p>

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\u201cI feel like I can\u2019t, as the founder, be like, welcome to the meat market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Ryan Fritz didn\u2019t know anybody when he moved to San Francisco, so he joined Denhert\u2019s run club. He thought it would be a good way to meet new friends and potential dates.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is a terrible place to find romance,\u201d said Fritz, 28. \u201cI came for the girls and what I found instead was friendships and community.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was easy to make small talk but could be hard to gauge whether someone was interested. He went on a few dates but nothing stuck. Lunge Run Club\u2019s popularity \u2018shows that people are over the endless swiping,\u2019 a co-founder says.<\/p>\n

Fritz met his girlfriend on a dating app in March, and he doesn\u2019t regret trying to date through his run club. He\u2019s still an avid member.<\/p>\n

There is also the risk of awkwardness in sharing the same club if things don\u2019t pan out. Sarah Heartfield, 35, started seeing a member of her San Francisco run club in January. The first date went well. The second date went south after Heartfield accidentally tapped his car door against a fire hydrant.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis whole demeanor changed,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI couldn\u2019t wait for the date to be over.\u201d After the date, he stopped showing up at the run club.<\/p>\n

Fritz also knows people who stopped going to his club after they didn\u2019t find a romantic connection, or to avoid seeing someone they dated. He guessed they might be running in a different crowd now. \u201cJust like Tinder and\u00a0Bumble, you can switch between run clubs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

×<\/span><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fed up with \u2018endless swiping\u2019 on dating apps, single people are lacing up their sneakers to find romance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":68910,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"2normal","fbia_status":""},"categories":[28136,15661],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Hottest (and Sweatiest) Place to Find a Date: Run Club - FamilyToday<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/relationships\/the-hottest-and-sweatiest-place-to-find-a-date-run-club\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Hottest (and Sweatiest) Place to Find a Date: Run Club\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fed up with \u2018endless swiping\u2019 on dating apps, single people are lacing up their sneakers to find romance.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/relationships\/the-hottest-and-sweatiest-place-to-find-a-date-run-club\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FamilyToday\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-09-11T11:51:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-10T12:51:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.familytoday.com\/2024\/09\/run-club_credit-Adobe-Stock-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rachel Dewing\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"BN Media, LLC\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/famtoday\"],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wp-media.familytoday.com\/2020\/03\/bnmedia-logo-lg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/wp-media.familytoday.com\/2020\/03\/bnmedia-logo-lg.png\",\"width\":1315,\"height\":311,\"caption\":\"BN Media, LLC\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/\",\"name\":\"FamilyToday\",\"description\":\"Here today, better tomorrow.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/relationships\/the-hottest-and-sweatiest-place-to-find-a-date-run-club\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wp-media.familytoday.com\/2024\/09\/run-club_credit-Adobe-Stock-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/wp-media.familytoday.com\/2024\/09\/run-club_credit-Adobe-Stock-1.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":900,\"caption\":\"Adobe Stock\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/relationships\/the-hottest-and-sweatiest-place-to-find-a-date-run-club\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.familytoday.com\/relationships\/the-hottest-and-sweatiest-place-to-find-a-date-run-club\/\",\"name\":\"The Hottest (and Sweatiest) Place to Find a Date: Run Club - 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