Halifax running club: More than just a running club
This Halifax club believes that running doesn’t have to be a solitary sport.
Before jumping into a busy week, the members the Halifax Running Club come together to run along the ocean through the south end of the city. Many of the 95 members show up every Sunday for the popular club organized long run. Without the club, their lives would probably never have intersected. Among them are accountants, marketers, doctors, students and runners who are now long retired. “We have every range of occupation,” organizer Erin McDonah says. “It always makes for interesting conversation.”
Their Sunday route along the peninsula starts at their clubhouse, a curling facility that’s been around since 1824. They typically run around Point Pleasant Park and along the Halifax Harbour, past the Seaport Market, Garrison Brewery and the historic properties area of the city. The club accommodates runners of different levels of fitness and ability. They have designed shorter 8 and 16k versions of the traditional 21k loop around the Halifax Harbour to accommodate newer and slower runners.
This all-inclusive attitude among club members “is part of what makes running with the Halifax Running Club special,” McDonah explains. She says that runners who come out to run along the peninsula all have different fitness goals. Some are competitive, but there are members who do not race. There are also members training for triathlons who will show up on Sundays with a bicycle.
Those who stick with the longest route will run past some of the cities’ most intriguing landmarks, including the North End’s Hydrostone District at the 14k mark. The café-lined trendy neighbourhood was built to house those displaced by the 1917 Halifax Explosion.
McDonah, a lifelong runner who has completed more than a dozen marathons, has been involved with the running group since it started in 2004. It all began when a small group of runners from Halifax went to the Boston Marathon. McDonah says that she noticed that there were many clubs that had travelled together to the race and supported each other as a team. Envying that connection, McDonah and many other Halifax athletes decided to start their own club. “We like the camaraderie of running together,” says McDonah. “It’s also social.” After their group runs, members will sit down together inside the curling club and sip on the coffee donated by local café Java Blend.
The club fosters a community environment by hosting events and spending time together outside of running. To keep things going in the dead of winter, they host an indoor track meet and their annual New Year’s community breakfast after their run. Usually, over 100 members and non-runners from the community turn up to start the year off right.