Four hundred people, six days a week, no entry fee. The fastest growing club in the city has no clubhouse.
They meet under the east arch of the bridge at 05:55. Nobody takes a register. At 06:00 someone says "right then" and four hundred people start running along the river.
The club has no clubhouse, no kit and no fee. Two years ago it was eleven friends. It is now the largest running group in the city.
Why six
The founders picked the hour because it was the only one none of them could find an excuse for. The path is empty, the day has not started and the run is finished before anyone's first meeting.
"At six there is nothing else you are supposed to be doing," one of them said. "That is the whole idea."
The route never changes: out to the lock, back to the bridge, 7.2 kilometres. Fast runners loop back for the slow ones at the turn.
Who turns up
- Nurses coming off night shift
- Parents who will be at a school gate by 08:30
- A group of bakers, who consider it late
- Around thirty people over seventy
The slowest finisher gets the same cheer as the first, which regulars say is the reason they came back a second time.
Growing pains
Four hundred people on a towpath is a lot. Rowers and cyclists have complained, and the council has asked the club to split into waves.
The club agreed, on one condition: no sign-up forms. Runners now sort themselves by standing left, middle or right of the arch.
Winter
Numbers halve in January and the founders consider that a success. The run has not been cancelled once. On the morning the river froze, they walked it.
