It’s dark in predawn South Yarra, yet the footpaths are filling with tanned and toned types wearing Lycra and mesh. The amateur athletes converge quietly, like streams of water, pooling at the famous 3.8-kilometre Tan Track around Melbourne’s Royal Botanical Gardens.
And I’m sure Run South Yarra co-founders Tom Adair and Cameron Macdonald do, too, as I sit down –sweaty and stinking and spent – for coffee with them immediately afterwards. It’s not yet 7am and their amateur run club has completely overtaken the luxe cafes along Domain Road, because friendly connection over a post-run skinny latte is the highlight – perhaps the whole point – of this run club and others.
Run South Yarra co-founder Tom Adair is wary of any suggestion that run clubs are the new Tinder, yet relationships are born here, and side-by-side chats while jogging, he notes, are definitely less pressurised than face-to-face interactions. “It’s almost like a nightclub, but no one’s drunk, and you’re actually making meaningful conversation,” Adair concedes. “We’ve been hit up by dating apps to partner with them, but we’ve turned them away because it takes away from what we actually do.
But on the whole, she says, these groups fill a space previously occupied by church. The parallels are striking, from the religious fervour among the true believers to the weekly commune and effort required to bring your best self. “What else is there for that?” Bower asks. “We need those places where people can go to belong in a post-pandemic world.”
There’s seemingly a specific run club for everyone. Medical administrator Madeline Seiter, 30, is president of the Melbourne chapter of Achilles Australia, which hosts run clubs for the disabled. Seiter is blind and had never really run – in fact hated the idea of running – when she joined in 2017. She started out as a walker, and now runs with a volunteer guide, connected by a tether held in her hand.
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