In last Thursday night’s Mercedes-Benz Miami Corporate Run, many first-timers, along with some occasional runners, were motivated by their peers, co-workers and bosses to get up and hit the streets running.
Now that it is over, how do you keep yourself motivated to keep running and staying in shape?
Fitness has been on a steady rise and so have the number of people participating in running groups, according to Frankie Ruiz, the chief running officer at US Road Sports.
“We would like to say that running is not the best part. The best are the people that you will be running with. It is a non-intimidating setting,” Ruiz said.
“We don’t have a set distance, maybe three to four miles, and people can turn around when they want. It is a great place to get introduced or to keep your running going.”
Ruiz is one of the organizers with RUNCLUB, one of the largest of the groups, and they bring out more than 1,000 people of all backgrounds during their weekly runs.
“It is one of the best ways to fall in love with Miami, and at the same time you fall in love with the sport,” Ruiz said. “We get a lot of people who are not avid runners or they may not even call themselves runners.
“They just do it to put it in their weekly routine of fitness. We get a lot of cross-fitters, people going to the gym, those training for [triathlons], halves, and there are those that are just socially minded runners.”
Since their start on South Beach about 4 1/2 years ago, many other clubs have modeled after RUNCLUB.
“I always said I wanted to get Miami running, and what happened about a year after we started on South Beach we saw groups spring up all over the place,” Ruiz said. “They were what I called nontraditional running clubs. They weren’t structured, they were social in nature. They were consistent and never canceled, not even for rain. There are a lot of groups that have modeled what we are doing. You can find them on meetup.com or Google.”
Running is a great time to meditate and to focus in the solitude, but there are many benefits to running in a group.
“It is not so much that you have someone behind you yelling at you to keep running, but knowing that there is a group of people that continue to depend on you to keep the group going. Like we say at RUNCLUB: ‘Never run alone.’ ”
The biggest group of the week tends to be on Tuesday in Brickell where nearly 1,000 people meet at 7 p.m. at the Fortune International to go for an evening run.
If you are interested in joining up, you can find out more at: www.runclubnetwork.com.
WINGS FOR LIFE
On Sunday, the city of Sunrise will be one of only three U.S. cities to host the worldwide Wings for Life run.
Locally, the new concept run is expecting to bring 2,000 participants who will begin at 6 a.m. in Sunrise and end when the runners reach the Everglades or when the Catcher Cars pass them.
The start of the run will happen simultaneously in Denver and Santa Clarita, Calif., along with races in 30 countries and on six continents, at 10 a.m. UTC.
This is the first global sporting event that has moving finish lines that will be pursue the racers from behind instead of the racers running toward a set finish line.
Exactly 30 minutes after the runners set off around the world, official Catcher Cars will set off behind the packs in pursuit of the runners. When a Catcher Car passes a runner, their race is over. The last man and last woman running will be declared the winners.
For more information visit: www.wingsforlifeworldrunnewsroom.com.