Inside running golf equipment, LA’s latest hot dating trend – Latest News
Get off the apps, and lace up the Hokas.
Rumor has it, your subsequent romantic companion shall be discovered huffing and puffing as you jog alongside them.
That’s not fairly what I discovered, on this second installment of Harrison’s (mis-)adventures in dating.
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Runners participate within the Los Angeles Marathon on Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Downtown Los Angeles. Los Angeles Times through Getty Images
Others, although, appeared to take the chance — and the entire talking-while-exerting factor — in stride.
The second I set foot within the crowded parking zone on Dell Avenue the place the Venice Running Club convenes for his or her weekly 4.5-mile “Mobbin Wednesday” loop, I had an eerie feeling.
To me, this wasn’t a dating scene. It was the reincarnation of high faculty observe apply.
I’ve been running for a long time. I used to be the worst man on varsity cross nation in high faculty, and I ran membership nationals in school. In maturity, I’ve settled into the behavior of running a couple half marathons a 12 months (in addition to the sadistic twilight Dodgers Foundation 10K, whose steep hills within the darkness really places the “ravine” in Chavez Ravine).
The Venice Running Club convenes for his or her weekly 4.5-mile “Mobbin Wednesday” loop. Instagram/@venicerunclub
The factor about high faculty observe apply was that it was enjoyable within the second. But like most people, I actually have no need to relive the sensation of locker rooms and sweaty makeout classes with braces at homecoming dances within the fitness center.
But a lot of people have used the running membership system as a dating pool — typically, to notorious outcomes.
The sadly named Rawdawg Run Club in Austin — with the motto, “sexy faces and sexy paces” — notoriously turned a group menace, attracting upward of 800 shirtless dudes and scantily-clad gals on run days. The group, accused of disorderly conduct and working with out a allow, was banned by the Texas capital in 2024.
Time magazine just lately argued that some run golf equipment in locations as far afield as Lisbon, Portugal, had turn out to be “horrible places to date,” with all the identical issues as online dating.
(Turns out that poisonous relationships exist among the many cardiovascularly-endowed, too).
A run membership meets in Venice Beach. Instagram/@venicerunclub
Then there are the running “purists” slash run-club “haters,” who notice that run golf equipment typically clog bike paths, block site visitors and have a good time “phony” new-to-the-sport runners who simply appear to be in it for “the clout.”
Look, I’m not one to begrudge how people arrive at running, a healthy kind of train, however the haters could have a level.
Venice Run Club, based in 2020, hosts hundreds of runners on Mobbin Wednesdays, a crowd so dense that membership organizers are compelled to shout unintelligible instructions by way of a megaphone.
The runners then go on to clog up the road, then the Venice boardwalk, and each sidewalk in between Abbott Kinney and the Venice Canals.
As a primarily solo runner, I’d hate to be overtaken by the mob when alone, however swimming with the present was a bit like using whitewater rapids down the Grand Canyon.
Venice Run Club, based in 2020, hosts hundreds of runners on Mobbin Wednesdays. Instagram/@venicerunclub
Fun, with the added thrill of gentle hazard — or not so gentle, as runners weaved out and in of site visitors, whereas (principally) respecting site visitors indicators.
Now for some Richard Attenborough-styled observations: Some clusters of bros ran in formation. Gals often ran in pairs, armed with wingladies. Conversations tended to be confined within the female and male teams, respectively, not often breaking out between one another.
Only at stoplights, when the stampede slowed and gathered into a bottleneck, was there a likelihood for a stray look, a sharp greeting, a praise disguised as a neg.
For me, it was arduous to flirt with anybody, what with the respiration and all.
The Venice Beach run membership members mingle after a run. Instagram/@venicerunclub
Mobbin Wednesday wrapped up within the parking zone the place it started, the place a fleet of promotional vans handed out newfangled protein drinks and snacks.
Was this atmosphere, that includes the fitness-industrial advanced hawking “energy” merchandise on the finish of a street race, the correct setting to chat up a girl whose knee cartilage was as degraded as my own?
Given that my tank was drenched and my eyes sunken with a thousand-yard stare, it simply wasn’t going to occur for me that evening.
Run golf equipment just like the one in Venice help fill a social hole left by our digitally-distanced selves.
But I discovered the expertise an excessive amount of like a manner for runners to relive high faculty glory (or trauma) for me to turn out to be a common.
Maybe I’m a hater, however once I run I prefer to embrace the person zen I get by making my manner alone, one step at a time.
After the principle occasion, Venice Run Club directs members to the close by Baja Cantina for après-run drinks, a bit aggressive on condition that we’d solely jogged 4 miles and it was mid-week. (Ask me out on a date first, VRC!)
If the mingling magic was actual, the Cantina was in all probability the place it occurred, however on this event, I needed to run.
Harrison Blackman is an editorial assistant for The California Post.
