Every Tuesday after work, whatever the weather, Emily* pulled on a pair of leggings, threw on a tank top and laced her feet into running trainers. She’d just moved to London from the North and didn’t know anyone in the city. Social media was awash with talk of how running clubs were the new bars (places in which to meet new people) and how joining a group made it safer for women than running solo. The club quickly became Emily’s whole life: she hung out with the community four days a week, be it at runs in their local area, bigger races, dinners, brunches and even holidays.
But over time, Emily began to feel on edge around one of the club’s coaches, Rory*. Rory was a big name in the running world, often landing sponsorship deals from brands and positioning himself as the main character of the group. Emily felt a need to impress him, and paid for one-on-one training for a while.
Then the flirtatious messages started. Emily didn’t know how to respond. Elsewhere, Rory would pit members of the group against one another, get drunk at events and make inappropriate comments about women’s bodies, and when she didn’t return the interest in him, Emily was pushed out of the inner circle. No event invitations, races or brand partnerships. Rory made it plain she was ostracised.
Emily was crushed.
It wasn’t until years later, while on a mandatory sexual harassment training course at work, that she realised Rory had taken advantage of their relationship’s power imbalance. “I was like ‘Oh my gosh, this is what it was’. He was using his position of power to speak to women [inappropriately]’. It made me realise that’s why I got pushed out.”
“It’s tricky because the coaches who lead these communities are also friends with the people in them, understandably,” she says. “But if you’re appointing yourself as a coach, you also have to set boundaries.”
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Emily has since joined a new running club and is a coach herself, saying she enjoys supporting the women in her new group.
As many as 68% of female runners report experiencing harassment while running, ranging from wolf whistling to physical assaults. Run clubs have been framed as a safer way to exercise, protected from the hassle so often experienced when solo on the road. Many are packaged up as shiny, inclusive utopias on social media, with the run leads and coaches amassing thousands of followers online – and they’re booming in popularity (more than tripling in number last year).
They’ve even been posited as an alternative way to meet a romantic partner, with a Strava report finding 39% more Gen Z than Gen X use fitness as a way to meet people – and almost one in five have been on a date with someone they met through exercise. We’ve also seen dating apps tapping into the trend, with Tinder launching its own run club and singles’ profiles that mention ‘parkrun’ increasing 90% between 2023 and 2025. London City Runners’ founder, Tim Navin-Jones, even told CNN there have been 20 marriages born from his club.
But, says Georgia Theodoulou, sports lead at the anti-harassment campaign group Our Streets Now, harassment within the clubs themselves is a growing problem she’s observed through her work. “We knew that sexual harassment within the running community was a growing problem, however it wasn’t until we started working directly with runners and run club leads that we realised the scale and the severity.”
While there’s not yet hard data, anecdotally Our Streets Now says it is noticing a significant number of women accusing running club founders and coaches of abusing power dynamics.
From a grassroots level through to elite runners competing with big-brand sponsorship at top marathons, Theodoulou described the sexual harassment of women and marginalised genders within sports as systemic. “As is the lack of accountability of those in positions of power who are meant to protect, but all too often perpetrate or turn a blind eye to the harm caused,” she adds. “The running community has a real lack of robust safeguarding, effective disciplinary procedures and structures.”
After all, anyone with a pair of trainers and a decent Instagram following can start a club, often bypassing the safeguarding checks required by national governing bodies like England Athletics.
If something does go wrong, such as unwanted attention or inappropriate messaging, those at the top can be ill-equipped or too afraid of jeopardising the club’s reputation to properly deal with it. Some coaches, Cosmopolitan UK has been told (by women who say they’ve experienced issues firsthand) appear to have ignored concerns due to fear they’ll lose clout or brand deals if anything were to get out. The club’s reputation, they feel, comes first.
“There are lots of young women who move to big cities and don’t have many friends or a community yet, so when they get sexually harassed, who do they have to turn to?” Theodoulou points out. “Most clubs don’t do a good enough job at opening these conversations, let alone deal with them, and we know that there are so many barriers to women reporting.”
THE DOWNSIDE OF RUN CLUBS
On Reddit, one thread, sees a woman seeking advice on joining a running club after hearing from friends that they’ve been hit on or harassed. While many responded with hugely positive experiences regarding mixed-gender running spaces, others had contrasting stories.
“I’ve run with three formal run clubs over the course of almost two decades. In one of them, the coach would actively prey on vulnerable women, often new members and frequently women who were, in one way or another, in a transition period of life or needing support for a personal challenge. It was disgusting,” wrote one commenter, adding: “I did meet my best friend in the first run club I joined, so I am grateful for that. But these groups can be so insular and toxic (at least where I live) that running with them tainted all the joy I had for running.”
Another added, “I’m currently avoiding my otherwise incredibly wonderful run club largely because of one guy making me uncomfortable. I know I should speak up, but I keep thinking that maybe I’m overreacting. I don’t want to kill the vibe, he seems to get along with everyone else etc.”
Kate Dale, director of Marketing at Sport England and This Girl Can, says her organisation is also aware of the problem: “The growth of running amongst women and girls remains a hugely positive story of recent years,” she says, but adds that “Incidents of harassment and assault are completely unacceptable. Every woman has the right to be safe and confident in knowing any reports will be taken seriously and investigated. Running clubs and organisers have a duty of care to their participants – and therefore have a responsibility to create safe, inviting environments for all while stamping out ill behaviours.”
For Cara*, a marketing specialist and long-term running fanatic, her experience with a run crew leader, whose behaviour the police later confirmed constituted harassment, resulted in her quitting marathon training for two years.
“Mark*, a male run crew leader and club founder, retaliated after I raised legitimate safeguarding concerns about Toby*, another male runner who made myself and three other women feel deeply uncomfortable when we were arranging to travel together for an overseas endurance race,” Cara tells Cosmopolitan UK, explaining that Toby would challenge the women anytime they tried to take authority in the group chat, told one woman that an all-team planning meeting was cancelled when it wasn’t and would try to schedule unnecessary one-on-one meetings solely with the women, for no clear reason.
Things came to a head when the four women complained to Mark about Toby’s unsettling behaviour. Mark, the trip’s organiser, dismissed their concerns outright, telling them to “chill out” and said Toby would continue to travel and race with them. All as part of a trip billed as being centered on ‘female empowerment’.
It would later transpire that Toby was already involved in several workplace tribunals; he also referenced getting sacked from his last job due to ‘verbal abuse’ while on the trip, without elaborating further.
When Cara later confronted Mark about his failure to protect the women he was leading on that trip, he retaliated by scrubbing her from the run club’s digital spaces and launched a smear campaign, going so far as to contact her professional network and claim Cara was the one "harassing" him, positioning himself as the victim (a tactic known as DARVO, often deployed by abusers). She believes there are ‘thousands of others out there’ who’ve faced a similar issue of letting a running coach know they feel unsafe around a fellow athlete and being dismissed or punished as a result.
The fallout of this manipulation extended to major professional and athletic losses for Cara, including being dropped from a high-profile marathon hospitality event by a global sports brand that chose to protect the ‘community leader’ over her, the whistleblower. Cara details that she has run with many clubs and crews over the years, having ample positive experiences, and it is only recently she has noticed them overtly cashing in on our collective running obsession.
The problem, Cara thinks, is worsened by the promise of brand sponsorship. “If you're the run club lead and the problem, you’re not exactly going to tell brands sponsoring you about your own behaviour – and for brands that are aware, accepting someone’s behaviour because they are important for your marketing channels is giving silent consent. I know of at least five known-to-be-problematic run club leads within the industry right now, who routinely get brand deals and who have large followings.”
So, should we all be avoiding any run club with a male lead? Absolutely not – many are well-managed and offer up a hugely positive experience for those involved – but that also doesn’t mean we should stay quiet about those not being properly managed, leaving women feeling awkward, unsafe or worse.
Cara advocates for co-gendered run club leadership and Our Streets Now, which provides training to sports clubs of all kinds, states it’s always worth asking questions, such as ‘Do you have a written Code of Conduct?’ or ‘Who is your designated safeguarding lead?’ before joining a community, too. A well-operated one will only be all too happy to answer.
Ultimately, the patterns emerging in the running world reflect a broader societal issue: the risks that arise when individuals within social groups acquire immense status and power in unregulated environments – particularly over a short period of time. And until we normalise calling out failures and demanding changes when that does happen, this will sadly just continue.
* Name has been changed
Follow Cosmopolitan's Features Editor, Jennifer Savin, on Instagram
Jennifer Savin is Cosmopolitan UK's multiple award-winning Features Editor, who was crowned Digital Journalist of the Year for her work tackling the issues most important to young women. She regularly covers breaking news, cultural trends, health, the royals and more, using her esteemed connections to access the best experts along the way. She's grilled everyone from high-profile politicians to A-list celebrities, and has sensitively interviewed hundreds of people about their real life stories. In addition to this, Jennifer is widely known for her own undercover investigations and campaign work, which includes successfully petitioning the government for change around topics like abortion rights and image-based sexual abuse. Jennifer is also a published author, documentary consultant (helping to create BBC’s Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next?) and a patron for Y.E.S. (a youth services charity). Alongside Cosmopolitan, Jennifer has written for The Times, Women’s Health, ELLE and numerous other publications, appeared on podcasts, and spoken on (and hosted) panels for the Women of the World Festival, the University of Manchester and more. In her spare time, Jennifer is a big fan of lipstick, leopard print and over-ordering at dinner. Follow Jennifer on Instagram, X or LinkedIn.
