Welcome to the University Press’ revamped weekly club feature series, spotlighting lesser known student organizations on campus.

This week: the FAU Running Club.

The club looks to promote healthy living while building a community of members who are interested in running, jogging, or walking races.

The UP sat down with club President Rogelio Nunez Alduncin and Vice President Trey Brauch to get an idea of the club’s mission and upcoming goals.

UP: What is the FAU Running Club?

Alduncin: Basically, the Runner’s Club is a place that you can come and find a group of people that have a common goal, a common interest in running.

We’re going to make friends, we’re going to make a group that will practice together, that will learn to run smart, we can share advice and have a group of people that will teach and help you. Running is one of those sports where the only way to get better is to keep running.

The goal of the club is to promote a healthier lifestyle and take an active role in the community, participating in 10Ks, 5Ks, and do the fundraising events. In the future, we may be looking at hosting a 5K right here on campus.

UP: I know that in the past, the FAU Running Club has participated in many 10Ks and 5Ks, are you looking to do any this semester? Should new members expect to run those while in the club?

Alduncin: We are actually looking to participate in the Embrace Race on Sunday here on campus. I think that, when people see the club, they think twice before they’re in the club, they think they’ll find a bunch of people who can run a lot, and will fall behind, but that’s not the point of the club.

The idea is that if you’re here, the officers have the duty of improving everyone as a runner.

We can share advice, do warm ups before racing, and stretches afterwards to help out. All of the races and marathons we attend have a walking option. It doesn’t matter if you don’t run/if you just want to walk, as long as you’re a part of the club and you’re going to contribute, you’re going to have a purpose. That’s why I [run]. You pay your entrance fee, you run, you have a good time, and you know that the money you gave is going to go towards something greater, it isn’t wasted.  

UP: Is the club new to campus?

Alduncin: The Running Club has been on campus since 2010, actually.

Brauch: We’re trying to rebuild, since in the past, the other presidents have struggled to get off the ground. Our goal is to gain more members through reaching out through things like the newspaper.

Alduncin: We’re looking at completely redoing our mission, our purpose, our goals. Right now, we’re building it from scratch. We took a step forward after the last officer stepped down last semester and we were faced with nobody to fill in.

A lot of it is due to the fact that you may like running, but to be running on specific days at specific times, we understand it is kind of hard. Maybe you can’t make it to every meeting, but the idea is to aim to run together at least once a week.

UP: How can students get involved/join FAU Running Club?

Alduncin: They need to contact us through email via Owl Central, as they need to request and submit a waiver in order to practice and run with the club. In addition, we have an FAU Running Club Facebook page and are starting up an Instagram page.

UP: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Brauch: Since we’re building this from scratch, we have to take everything one step at a time. We want to be flexible with everyone’s schedules. If we want to run in the morning, we can go trail running, if we want to swim, we can set that up.

Alduncin: If we want to go weekend running, or maybe we’d want to get a group of people together to do a bike trail, we can get a group together to do those things. We’d provide transport to different events if students can’t make it to various events as well.

There’s someone who wanted to join the club, and we said, “You should run with us, it’d be fun together,” and she said, “I can’t, I can only run 10 minutes before I tap out.” I said, “I don’t care. We’ll keep our pace together, and when you feel like you can’t run anymore, we’ll slow down and walk the rest of the race together. Give advice on breathing, how to stretch post-race.” We will grow with you, together.

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The club meets on Mondays at 7 p.m. and Wednesdays and Fridays at 6 p.m. on the Boca campus running track.

Interested students can email Alduncin at [email protected] or through Owl Central.

Devin Perry is a contributing writer with the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @DevinTPerry.