SOCIAL MOVEMENT
RW’s Rick Pearson meets a London running community with big dreams (and excellent pastries)
SOMETHING REMARKABLE is happening outside a deli in south-east London. It doesn’t have anything to do with baked goods, although an excellent selection is available inside.
Instead, the Grove Lane Deli has become the meeting spot for a running crew whose numbers are rising faster than a loaf of sourdough.
A year ago, Grove Lane Runners (GLR) had three members; today, it has over 150. Keen to find out the recipe for its success, I headed to one of the club’s Wednesday evening sessions, a 10K run ending with a pint at The Bear pub in Camberwell. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.
The friendly and welcoming tone is set by GLR founder Harry Swinhoe, who greets newbies such as myself and outlines the evening’s itinerary. A graduate of Track Mafia, Swinhoe started GLR when he moved south of the river and wanted to recreate a similar sense of community. ‘I could see that there were lots of local runners around, but there wasn’t a local club or community,’ he says. ‘I wanted to start something where I could meet like-minded people.’
Such people are out in numbers tonight and, though the session is conducted at what Swinhoe calls ‘groovy pace’ (aka 9min/miling), GLR isn’t a club solely for beginners. I spend most of the 10K route talking to Alex, a sub-3:00 marathoner who could hold his own at any running club, but preferred to join one that values ‘the social side of the sport as much as the running one’.
Speaking about the club’s ethos, Swinhoe says, ‘It’s less about performance, how many races you’ve entered or your running pace. I wanted to create something where people could experience the benefits of community and belonging first-hand.’
The weekly schedule offers something for runners of every stripe. There’s a Monday night interval session at Southwark athletics track for those with the need for speed, a Wednesday evening 10K and a ‘friendly 5K’ on Sunday morning – a good place to start, says Swinhoe, for those new to the club or to running in general.
The recent injection of some seed funding will allow Swinhoe to build GLR further, with a focus
