INTERVIEW: Charlie Dark on lululemon, Run Dem Crew, and the Raptors

Charlie Dark, who was in Toronto over the weekend for the lululemon Toronto 10K, is the schoolteacher, yoga instructor, and former hard-partying DJ from east London who, in 2006, turned his new-found passion for running and healthy living into a mission. He founded Run Dem Crew, the subversive, night-time running crew for creative types and young people looking for better health and a sense of purpose. But Dark is not what you’d call a runner’s runner, and Run Dem Crew is not your typical run club–they’re both more interested in social change than in bettering their marathon PB’s. Which is exactly why Dark was such an attractive prospect to be lululemon’s first global running ambassador.

We caught up with Dark for an interview ahead of Saturday’s race (the morning after the Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship). The interview has been condensed.

RELATED: Highlights from the lululemon Toronto 10K

CR: Did you have any idea that [the NBA finals] were going on before you arrived? 

CD: Yeah, I’m a basketball fan. I watched the series.

CR: Were you rooting for Toronto?

CD: Of course! You know, I think it’s good for the city. I think it’s important, because it unites people. It brings people together, it generates income, it gives people hope, and belief, and when it hasn’t happened in a city before, it has more impact, it resonates more–more deeply. I think it’s important. It’s good.

CR: Have you been to Toronto before?

CD: I have been, many times. I’ve been back and forth to Toronto for probably about the last 20 years.

CR: What has brought you here in the past?

CD: Music. Music and rare records. There are some great record shops in Toronto. So when I was deep in my music career I was traveling back and forth…

CR: Now that’s all over?

CD: It’s not over, it’s just kind of balanced out with being a yoga teacher and running.

CR: You’ve said that running saved your life. What did that mean for you at the time?

CD: Running just arrived in my life at a time when I needed something that would allow me to reconnect with people. Secondly, to explore my city, and thirdly, to remind me of my potential. So I feel like, you know, a long time in the music industry had in some ways dulled my senses, so my musical ears were great, but my sense of wellbeing was quite low. My self-worth was quite low, my mental health was suffering… my purpose had kind of been lost. And so running arrived at a really good time. It opened up some new doors and connections and conversations that I needed to have.

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CR: How did that happen?

CD: I discovered running through lack of finances or confidence to go to the gym. I think the climate of when I started running, which was around 2006 or 2007, was that it wasn’t cool to be seen to be exercising or taking care of yourself… Most of the people that were going to gyms, they weren’t necessarily the type of people you wanted to kind of hang out with. And so running was a thing that I kind of came to because it was cheap. And it didn’t require the dependence on other people. It didn’t require a team, equipment, any form of vehicle, and it was something that wasn’t time-dependent–it could be done at any time, and that was really important–to be able to do something that didn’t have any opening or closing hours.

CR: And how did the connection between running and helping young people come about?

CD: I’ve always worked within the school system–I teach poetry and creative writing. From 2000 to 2006 I was doing the kind of work in schools with children from, you know, quite difficult backgrounds who were struggling with their education. And what I noticed was they really loved sport. And they loved the language around sport. And that’s what they were really excited about… I find people talk about sport in a very poetic way, so it translates well into the classroom, and that was something that the kids could identify with.

Also, we have a problem in the UK around post codes–around people being born or living in certain areas and not being able to travel or go to other areas. And these post code divisions were getting smaller and smaller, so now people were being divided by streets–so it would be like you live on this side of the road and you’re not going to go to the playground. Literally–you can see it but you can’t go. And so running was a way of helping people to transport themselves safely from one area to another, because they’re doing it as a group, as opposed to one. If you see 20 kids running towards you with backpacks or hoodies on, you might be a bit scared. But if they come past you with running kit, you’re most likely to applaud. So it’s like we’re trying to change the language around people’s perceptions of young people. Like–this guy’s run a marathon. He may not have the educational qualifications for the job that you require, but he definitely has something in himself…

And I think there’s this amazing sense of confidence and self-belief that occurs in people when training for a goal. I also think they start to reverberate around immediate friends and family and subsequently back into their community. So everyone starts looking at themselves a bit more positively and their self-esteem starts to rise. And what I also find is that the quest for materialism starts to change, because it’s like, I trained for a marathon or I trained for a 10K and I wasn’t wearing the most expensive trainers, and it was just me. Because ultimately at every race you do, it’s me, myself and I. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, or who your’e with, it becomes a conversation between your head and your heart. Because regardless of whether you’re running it in two hours or running it in seven hours, there is a point where it becomes hard.

So it was just really empowering to bring young people together into this environment, and this idea of informally mentoring young people, and allowing them to spend time in an intergenerational environment. So it wasn’t just a case of this group of 17-year-olds who are hanging out with just other 17-year-olds, but actually, here’s a group of 17-year-olds who are hanging out with a group of 27-year-olds, who are hanging out with some 57-year-olds–people of different ages and different classes and walks of life and sexualities and religions and so on and so forth… kind of recreating what I was doing on the dance floors and nightclubs, but bringing people together in a different way, not through music now, but through running. And it started as an experiment.

I live in East London, and the [2012] Olympics were on the way. There was a lot of talk about the legacy of the Olympics, and how the Olympics would come, and it would motivate and galvanize communities to start taking better care of themselves. And I was just like, but we don’t have a tradition of that. And so, what I didn’t want to have was a great big Olympic stadium and all these facilities on my doorstep, you know, that no one was using. So I woke up one day, and I gathered a few of my friends, and it was like, let’s go and do it. And Run Dem Crew was born.

CR: I know you’ve worked with different brands, and at one point you became disillusioned and decided to shut [Run Dem Crew] down for a while, and now you’re back and you’re working with lululemon. Are you concerned that this might compromise the crew’s independence?

CD: No, I think of all the brands I’ve worked with, their philosophies and everything that they build on really align with the Run Dem Crew culture. So it’s kind of a really nice marriage at the moment, you know? And we’ve been able to unlock some things with Run Dem Crew that we haven’t been able to do with any other brand, because they haven’t been interested. But lululemon comes from a place that we’re trying to get people to, this idea of being more mindful, being more caring, taking care of your body, really looking within yourself to discover your full potential. The idea of working for a brand that’s concerned with helping you become a better person so that you can help your community become better, as opposed to “we just want to sell lots of product.”

Because Run Dem Crew is quite influential, and I have quite a loud voice that people listen to, it’s nice to be in a space where I can be, you know, actually you might want to do a bit of yoga to go with your marathon training, because you want to be able to run when you’re 60 because you love it, you know, as opposed to Run as fast as you can because you’re 21 and that’s what you can do. There’s no need for you to stretch. Don’t worry about that. And that’s coming from someone who was a victim of that, who was I don’t need to stretch, why do I want to do that? You know, it’s an important conversation I’m having.

CR: What message do you bring to the runners at the lululemon Waterfront 10K?

CD: Running doesn’t have to be about just time, and distance, and medals… but can actually be about taking care of yourself, and other people, and your environment, just a new way of looking at running, because running still has a very old-school perception. You know–marathon runners look like this, if you’re not running this time, you’re not really a runner, or you’re not really serious. What I like about when I do lululemon events–the amount of women that run? the participation of women that run at lululemon events is really high. As someone who’s a father of a young daughter, you know, who loved sport before she went into the school system… especially at lululemon events, where women’s participation is very high, I think it’s really important to see different types of women running. And that these people are all supporting each other. It’s a very supportive environment. That’s what I really like.

I just think that, basically, running is a really beautiful sport, it’s a beautiful pastime, I think it’s something that everyone should do, and I think it should just be as normal to people as brushing your teeth in the morning. And, whether you’re running for five minutes or five hours, or five hundred hours, just the idea of that, making a point every day, put your shoes on and go out and run. Because it makes you happy. It changed my life, and over the last 13 years I’ve seen it change the lives of many different people, and I just want to share that with as many people around the world as possible.