Running used to be something you did alone. Now more people lace up to meet others, and the numbers keep climbing.
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On Thursday evenings in Amsterdam, runners gather at Jimmy Woo before the doors open for the night. 020 Run Culture, a run club founded in 2026, meets there every week to talk, run and party, and its sign-up page sums up the pitch: “Cheaper than therapy. Better than Hinge.”
It is a good snapshot of where running is heading. For years it was something you did alone, with headphones in. Now a growing number of people lace up because they want company.
The growth shows up clearly in Strava’s data. In its 2024 Year in Sport report, Strava recorded a 59% increase in running club participation worldwide and 18% more runs logged in groups of ten or more. The number of women joining a run club rose by 89% in the same year.
The 2025 report suggests the trend has not peaked. New clubs on Strava nearly quadrupled, taking the total to one million. Running clubs grew 3.5 times, and events organised by clubs rose 1.5 times year on year.
For many new members, the run is only part of the reason to show up. A LADbible Group survey of young adults in the UK found that 75% of Gen Z prefer to run with someone else, and 72% go to a run club to meet new people rather than to improve their performance.
Some of those meetings turn into more than friendship. Strava’s 2024 report found that nearly one in five Gen Z respondents had been on a date with someone they met through exercise. That helps explain why run clubs are often called the new nightclubs, a shift we also saw in music-driven group fitness.
In Amsterdam, the Amsterdam Coffee Run, started by expats who now call the city home, sets off from ASICS Amsterdam near Vondelpark on Thursday evenings and from a different café every Saturday.
A fixed weekly time does what a training plan on your phone rarely manages: it gets you out of the door. Because people expect you, skipping feels harder.
Good run clubs also make sure nobody is left behind. Running Junkies, an Amsterdam community founded in 2010, splits its social runs into pace groups. In Rotterdam, 010 Run Crew meets every Tuesday at 19:00 for 5 km at a social pace of around 6:30 per kilometre. Formats like these lower the fear of being too slow, which can keep beginners away.
A run club is usually free or close to it, so on its own it rarely pays the bills. Its value for a business lies elsewhere. Every week it brings in people who already move, already enjoy training in a group and are often working towards a race.
Some of them will want more than a social 5 km at some point: interval sessions, strength work for runners or a plan for their first half marathon. That is where personal trainers and running coaches come in, the same pattern we described in the rise of HYROX, where race preparation became a revenue stream for gyms.
For gyms and studios, a weekly group run can also be an easy first step for people who would never walk into a gym on their own.
We are giving it a go ourselves. On Tuesday 17 November, we are hosting our first group run with Club Strozzi: a relaxed 5K through the Zuidas, led by Thijmen Bierling. There is no pressure, just relaxed running. Afterwards there is time to hang out at Bar Valdi, with a drink sponsored by The Daily Drip.
The run starts at 17:30 at Barbara Strozzilaan 101 in Amsterdam. It is free, and both Club Strozzi members and non-members are welcome.
