The Runner's Rundown

Need a little motivation to start sprinting around Prospect Park this spring? There’s plenty of help here in Park Slope. The neighborhood is chock full of running groups for everyone from beginners looking for a good workout, to more advanced athletes training for a marathon.

The 20-year old Brooklyn Road Runners Club offers group runs four times a week, year-round for its 200 members. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, members meet at 6:45 p.m. at Prospect Park West and 9th Street; Saturdays and Sundays group members meet at at 9 a.m. at Prospect Park West and 15th Street. Group runs are typically a minimum of one loop in the park (3.3 miles) but usually end up being around five miles, two loops or more. While the majority of runs are in Prospect Park, on weekends group members will often venture across the Brooklyn Bridge or into Coney Island.

“Members who show up consistently to our group runs will benefit from the experience of our members, who include sub-three-hour marathon runners,” said longtime club member Michael Balbos, who joined 18 years ago. “I've met some really great people, a few who I invited to my wedding and some who I meet regularly for non-running events,” he said. 

Membership is $20 a year, $30 for a two-year membership and $25 for a one-year family membership.

“The great thing is that no matter when I run in Prospect Park if I'm not running with the group, I usually meet one, two or three people from the club,” said Balbos.

The Prospect Park Track Club, which has about 400 members, was founded over 30 years ago and is Brooklyn's largest and most active running club. The club’s membership extends well beyond the neighborhoods surrounding Prospect Park. The club organizes the 10-mile Cherry Tree run each spring and a five-mile turkey trot on Thanksgiving Day. In the summer, the club hosts a six-race speed series on Wednesday nights. For marathoners, it holds an organized running tour of the last 10 miles of the New York City Marathon course, provides a bus to the marathon start from Brooklyn, and has an indoor meeting area and party near the finish line at Central Park.

“Our club makes a point to be for every runner,” said Michael Ring, the club’s membership coordinator, who joined the club in the early 1990s. “We are not ‘elite.’”

After Ring ran his first race with New York Road Runners — a New York group that organizes races in the city — as a Prospect Park Track Club member, the president of the club called him up to see how the race went. 

“He just wanted to congratulate me on finishing and ask me if I had a good time,” Ring said.

Years later, when training for the New York Marathon in Prospect Park, a fellow club member riding his bike saw Ring pushing hard and rode to a nearby deli to buy him a Gatorade. It’s that personal touch, and support from fellow group members, that has kept him a member for so long. 

The group meets at Grand Army Plaza at 8 a.m. on Saturdays, 9 a.m. on Sundays and 7:15 p.m. on Wednesdays for its group training runs. Distances and paces are by consensus. Weekend runs sometimes extend across the Brooklyn Bridge and into Manhattan or down Ocean Parkway to Coney Island. 
Membership is $25 a year for an individual and $125 for five years; for a household it’s $35 a year and $175 for five years.

The North Brooklyn Runners group was founded in 2009 and offers multiple group runs, six days a week. Monday’s early three-to-six mile “morning after” run starts at 6:15 a.m. at Grand Army Plaza and stretches for a loop or two in the park. The group does not charge a membership fee. Organizers suggest just showing up to group runs and races after signing up for the group’s Google group and Facebook page.

JackRabbit Sports on Seventh Avenue between Carroll and Garfield Streets organizes group runs in the park every Wednesday evening, led by one or more  JackRabbit staff members. Runners meet at the store at 7 p.m. for the three to five mile outing. Leaders keep the run at a “conversational” pace and all fitness levels are welcome, though they recommend participants be able to comfortably run three miles continuously. Runners can use the store’s fitting rooms to change into their running gear and stash their belongings at the store during their park outing.

The Brooklyn Hash House Harriers hold weekly runs that end with imbibing  at a local bar. Runners meet at 7 p.m. on Mondays in Brooklyn at a location posted on the group’s web site; the meeting site is often near Prospect Park. Runners then follow a trail that group leaders mark in advance with chalk or flour on sidewalks.

“Hashing . . . it's a mixture of athleticism and sociability, hedonism and hard work; a refreshing break from the nine-to-five routine,” according to the group's web site.

Runs are often about five miles and can be on challenging terrain—into the woods and up hills in the park. The Hash Harriers have local clubs around the world. The group is known as “a drinking club with a running problem.”