How do you find a running club that isn't intimidating?

"Running club" covers everything from serious athletes doing track sessions in the rain to six friends who run to a café on Sunday and stay for two hours. Most of the intimidation comes from picking the wrong kind for the evening you had in mind. So let's sort the kinds first.

The main kinds of club

• Traditional athletics clubs. Affiliated clubs with coaches, track nights, cross-country leagues and club vests. Often far friendlier than their reputation, especially if they have a dedicated beginners' or social section.
• Beginner and community groups. Led runs designed for people starting out or coming back, often with walk-run sessions. In England, for example, England Athletics' RunTogether lists groups by type: "Get Me Started" for beginners, "Keep Me Going" for people building on their running, and "Challenge Me" for experienced runners, with a postcode finder to search locally.
• Social run crews. Newer, city-based, often meeting at a shop, brewery or café. Big on music, coffee and chatting afterwards. Pace varies a great deal, so read the details.
• Shop runs. Running shops frequently host a weekly group run. Free, informal, and usually a gentle way in.
• Trail and off-road groups. Fewer people, more mud, lots of stopping to regroup at gates and viewpoints.

How to read a listing

The listing tells you almost everything if you read it like a detective.

Encouraging signs:

• "All abilities", "social pace", "no one gets left behind" or "no-drop".
• More than one pace group, with the slowest one named and described.
• A named person to contact, and an invitation to do so.
• Photos of people chatting, eating or laughing at the end.

Signs it may not be for you yet:

• Sessions described mostly by times and intervals.
• "Minimum pace" requirements with no slower option.
• A calendar entirely made of races.
• Nothing about what happens to newcomers.

None of these are bad clubs. They are just clubs with a different job.

Before your first night

Send a short message to the organiser: when you are coming, roughly how far and how fast you run now, and that it is your first time. You will usually get a warm reply and sometimes a promise that someone will run with you. That alone removes most of the dread.

Check practical things too: where to leave a bag, whether there is a fee or a free trial, and whether the route is road, path or trail.

First-night survival

• Arrive early, not on time. Early is when people chat. On time is when everyone is already in a huddle.
• Say it out loud. "Hi, it's my first time." Leaders are looking for exactly that sentence.
• Start in the slowest group. You can move up next week. Moving down mid-run is harder on the pride.
• Ask one question. Where people go afterwards, which route is their favourite, how long they've been coming. Running clubs are full of people who love to explain.
• Stay for the after bit. Coffee, a drink, the stretch in the car park. That is where you stop being new.