Updated: Apr 18, 2022
This is the second in a series of blogs written by London City Runner’s founder, Tim Navin-Jones, about the history of the club. In this instalment, he describes how LCR grew from an idea into one of the biggest running clubs in London…
THE START
When I moved to Bermondsey from Leeds, my brother, who I’d run with since I was small, took me for a run on the incredible route over Tower Bridge then back over Millenium. It’s hard not to be impressed on this run as through the sweat you soak up all the magnificence that is London. It never gets old. It’s the exact same loop our club has done for 10 years along the river so I’m guessing tens of thousands of people have followed in my brother’s footsteps.
Before I went it alone, I googled ‘running club near me’ with every variation of wording I could think of. I couldn’t find anything. The only clubs I could see were based near parks away from the city. In central London in 2010, there were just gyms with monthly payments and I didn’t think that’d be my scene, I wanted someone faster than me to train for a marathon with and to meet people with a similar interest in my area. I’d been in a gym once at university and remember seeing a bloke with a string vest staring at himself in the mirror while doing reps with a dumbbell – it put me off for life and I made a pact with myself never to go back in one!
I’d joined the Serpentines but they were miles away from where I lived, so I decided to go for it and start my own club. I remember thinking as long as more than one person turns up then that constitutes a club rather than a run with a friend! Having already had a background in marketing and recruitment, I designed a logo and from various potential names, I went with ‘London City Runners’…
Right from the start, it felt really exciting when anyone actually turned up! Initially I spread the word at work and through all my friends. I put up leaflets on the local community boards. I built a website and started trying to work out how to feature on Google and got registered on just about every running-related forum, and even random non-running related forums like Mumsnet! What became clear from the start was that there was a big geographical demand for a running club in central London. My poor housemate had to have his privacy interrupted each week with a whole load of sweaty runners dropping their bags. From the first run onwards the numbers pretty much just doubled every time. It soon became clear the club wouldn’t fit in my flat!
Very first run in May 2010 when Gordon Brown was prime minister! Long before Facebook and social media was a thing.
I managed to convince a pub round the corner called the Leather Exchange to let us leave the bags there. In return we would ensure they were selling a whole lot of drinks on a Tuesday. After a couple months you could see that our club wasn’t quite fitting with the pub’s business plan! Having people there on dates alongside smelly runners meant despite the large quantity of custom we were giving them, we understandably weren’t made to feel welcome. Like a lot of our venues I started getting it in the ear… tell them not to leave their bags there, tell them to dispose of their cups, we have an event on so you can’t attend this eve and need to find an alternative… it was then that we began to dream that one day, we might have our own space.
We wanted to be somewhere they appreciated the custom a bit more. The next venue was somewhere that we really bedded in. It was Shortwave Cinema, which was slap bang next to Bermondsey Square, and was ideal for big groups of runners to meet and drop their bags. This enabled me to generate a bit of a snowball effect around the club and really start promoting it.
It was fascinating watching Bermondsey Street bloom into what it’s now become from when the club started. When I first moved to into the area it felt a little bit stabby! The area has certainly come a long way since the 60s and it was quite a spectacle watching the Shard being built. As local residents, we even got invited up to the top for free.
SOCIAL SIDE
Initially I got a little grant that enabled me to build a more convincing website and get kit. We were then able to concentrate on our raison d’etre which was for it to be a really (genuinely) friendly welcoming place for people to run and have a laugh. I never minded orchestrating it on the side of my job. There were so many amazing people who appreciated what the club was about and wanted to help however they could. This theme has thankfully always carried through and the club has always been great at bringing the best out of the majority of people.
Sometimes people joke around with comments like ‘it’s a drinking club with a running problem’ but we meet after the run and socialise because bringing people together is one of the best bits. It started to become apparent that while many other clubs claim they have a social side because they feel they need to pay it lip service, at London City Runners it is absolutely at the heart of what we are all about. No one particularly remembers or places significance on what time you do a 5k in. Far more important is that you enjoy running and it’s a massive added bonus if you have good chat and are a pleasant person!
Friendships started to form, relationships started to flourish and this spurred me on to arrange regular socials and events and for it all to remain completely free of charge. In bringing everyone together in a communal place, it then just grew organically.
Bands have formed from the club and many people have found housemates and made connections. Most notably, to date, we’ve had over 10 marriages and over 15 babies (that we know of) that stemmed from meetings at the club.
The socials ranged from just about everything – from 118 themed fancy dress nights, to charity fund raisers and boat parties. Curries at Nawaz (nearby curry house) were the most popular and frequent.
EVENTS, RACES AND FOREIGN TRIPS
We’ve had trips all over the world with the club in Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Nice and Budapest, to name a few of the big ones. We also have a number of other ski trips and holidays and each year the London Marathon has always been a big event in our diary.
London Marathon 2018 Cheer Squad
We even had a private screening of a running film in Shortwave called ‘Town of Runners’ with an Ethiopian coach who trained countless Olympian medallists in a place called Bejoki. In 2012 we also managed to get our local MP Simon Hughes to start a 10k for us in Southwark Park to help generate some funds for the club.