How do you make a new runner?

Plus: my pre- and post-run fueling strategy, and my wildly inconsistent year of running to date

How to make new runners is something I think about deeply often as the lead coach for my Tuesday morning run crew.

My focus has always been on helping beginner runners and non-runners become lifelong runners, but the tentative enquiries I receive online always fixate on being too slow for the group. There’s a sense of inevitable failure, and the fear of that failure being public is very tangible.

It’s something that came up in conversation with Sidney Baptista when I interviewed him about Pioneers Run Crew last week.

“When we first started it was people from the neighborhood finding running and I was the only ‘real’ runner. I was doing everything from photos to emails to running. We’re a well-oiled machine now, and it intimidates people. Now we’re attracting people who are runners already and not necessarily creating new runners.”

“If I want to keep impacting my community, I can’t just focus on runners. I’ve got to create new runners. That’s the challenge that’s going on in Pioneers Run C…