NEW YORK — I’m fixing my hair in the bathroom of a West Village beer hall, my face covered in sweat and my bangs sticking to my forehead, but I’m not there to drink and dance at the bar; I’m here to join the most popular singles run club in New York City.
I’m not much of a runner. I ran cross country in middle school and joined the winter track team my senior year of high school, but I injured my ankle three times and haven’t been able to run since.
But when a video of two women attending a singles running club in New York City appeared on my feed, I was intrigued.
I grabbed a friend and we decided to join the Wednesday Lunge Run Club, which has grown from a group of 30 runners to more than 1,000 in two months, according to co-founders Rachel Lansing and Steve Cole, who also founded the Lunge dating app.
What is a Single Run Club?
The running club’s rules are simple: Single people wear black; married people wear colored clothing. Runners meet every Wednesday to run a three-mile course that finishes at a bar.
The Runge Run Club was founded with the aim of being “as inclusive as possible”, with Lansing saying the club is “people-centered first and running-centered second”.
“We wanted to create an event like this where it’s much easier to meet active, like-minded people,” Cole said.
“It’s like a real-life hinge.”
To accommodate the increased number of participants, on the day I attended, a mixed group of runners, joggers, and “hot girl walkers” set off from Washington Square Park and lined the length of Waverly Place in a sea of black.
It’s hard to have a proper conversation on the move, but when I got to the bar, a woman passing by told me it felt like the real-life Hinge.
She was right.
The record-breaking turnout made the lines outside Houston Hall unbearably long, made worse by the sweltering New York heat.
Once inside, I was thrown into a crowd of speed daters and headed straight for the bathroom. Once I was settled, I went outside to meet Allie Strauss.
Strauss has been a member of the club since May. “My roommate loves running, and she discovered Lunge on TikTok. We’re both single, so we thought we’d give it a try,” Strauss said. “It was my first time, and I had a lot of fun.”
Although she hasn’t yet gone on a date, she says she has “met a lot of great girls” and looks forward to going out with them every week.
Everyone is open to new connections
Most of the people I met were, on average, in their early to mid-20s, looking for ways to make new friends but also willing to date if they met the right person. They were a mix of native New Yorkers and people who had recently moved to the city.
Cole said many runners are running alone and find comfort in knowing they are in the “same boat” as other single people.
“We’re really a social club that’s run,” Cole says. “The underlying element that we all have in common is a willingness to get out there.”
Still, talking to new people sometimes felt unnatural.
On a normal night out, I’d be focused on hanging out with friends, but at the bar after my run, I was focused on assessing the dating scene.
Because I’d never attended a singles event, I was hyper-conscious that if I showed up to one and wore black, everyone knew I was single. Conversations that would feel natural on a night out sometimes felt unnatural. And even if no one particularly caught my eye, I would feel disheartened if I just stood there spending time not talking to a potential partner.
But the running club felt so safe and welcoming, which could be a much-needed respite for anyone wanting a break from dating apps.
“Dating apps require a lot of time, money and energy, and in return people have unsatisfying and sometimes even harmful experiences,” Jordan Pickell, a trauma and relationship therapist, previously told USA Today.
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As it turns out, people were looking for community more than dating.
Singles-run clubs are the next big thing, not because they’re trendy, but because of a desire for community. And the key is that you don’t have to go to a club. single Join a running club to experience it for yourself: studies have shown that a common activity helps maintain long-term relationships, and people have already met their partners or formed new friendships in running clubs.
But Cole and Lansing say the Run Run Club has already seen plenty of success stories: “We’ve had multiple testimonials saying, ‘I had the best date ever,'” Lansing says, adding that one couple told him they went on seven dates in two and a half weeks.
Still, I came away inspired by how many people were trying to find new connections in the real world. Even though I didn’t meet the love of my life, I went out for a run on Friday and made plans to join another running club with a friend next week.
