Club Scene
Greater Moncton Running Club, N.B.
It would be a fair statement to say the emergence of social media has helped runners find community both at home and abroad. This couldn’t be truer for The Greater Moncton Running Club ( gmrc). Five years ago, friends Colin McQuade, Dan Leblanc and Yves Bourque were meeting semi-regularly to talk about their training goals for upcoming marathons. In addition to meeting in person, they decided to start a private Facebook group for their discussions and were soon inundated by other local runners requesting to join the group in order to “talk shop” and get training tips. What started as a small private group of t hree r u nni ng ent husi a st s blos somed into more than 500 active members in the span of a few years. According to one of the group’s moderators and unofficial leaders, Lindsay Laltoo, “the initial idea for the club was to provide a group for runners who are looking to push their limits and become more competitive runners. There are a lot of groups and programs available to help get people started as runners, we wanted to have a club for people who are chasing specific goals and results.” She also notes that “all capabilities are welcomed into the club.”
Unlike most run clubs out there, gmrc does not have a president or head coach nor are there any strict training schedules or any fees to join. Different members of the club step up to f ill unofficial roles. “I organize singlet and clothing orders, my husband and I run a Tuesday morning workout group and organise team events, John Dallaire runs a Saturday morning social run and many of us work together to host local races. But our group’s structure is best described as ‘unstructured,’” she explains. Anyone in the gmrc Facebook group is welcome to post a work out, a training plan or a race they’re interested in doing, allowing for more diversity in the group. However, due to the club’s popularity, they recently formed a committee of six runners who help oversee the club’s bigger events and plan out gmrc initiatives like social beer runs or the Resurgo Marathon, the city’s only marathon in 2019.
Simply put , t he club would not exist wit hout t he presence of soc ia l media, confirms Laltoo. “It wasn’t until the Facebook group started and grew that runners in the area started realizing they weren’t alone in their training. People started posting workouts and long runs they had planned, and meeting new people when strangers turned up to join them. The Facebook group is our bulletin board, our public forum, our kitchen table and our coffee house,” she says.
These days, the gmrc is composed of several subgroups: the Dawnbreakers meet at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesdays for intervals, the Thursday Trail Runners link up at 6 p.m. on Thursdays for a 6–12k trail run, the 8@8 meets every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. and the long run group meets every Sunday at 8 a.m. Run locations and details are always communicated via Facebook of course.
With such a variety of running clubs in the Maritimes, Laltoo believes that one of the club’s greatest strengths is the support every member gives each other. “Everyone can be the coach or be coached, the person learning or the person giving advice,” she says. “Anyone can take the lead on an event or a run, it’s a club that’s still evolving and changing, almost as quickly as technology changes and it makes it exciting to think about where we might be in five more years.”