As all single people have heard from their not-single friends: You find someone when you’re not looking. And, at first, Sam wasn’t. “I actually wasn’t going to run clubs with the intention of dating,” she said, despite their recent reputation as a sweaty alternative to dating apps. Instead, running helped her cope with her grief after her mom died of cancer in November 2022. She found she wasn’t alone — through conversations with other runners, she learned that many of them had also turned to the sport to deal with various losses, big and small. In May 2024, as interest in run clubs around the country surged, Sam, who is 30, created Good Grief Run Club, an Austin-based community for runners coping with loss. Almost a year later, Sam says the group’s Monday morning runs regularly draw 100 to 250 runners.
