My entire life I have always played sports, so when I got to Barnard, I was looking for a way to stay involved. I decided to join Columbia University Roadrunners, our school’s running club affiliated with New York Roadrunners. The club has a great relationship with New York Roadrunners, who lets us each run four races per semester for free (and a reduced price if we want to run more than that). Its a huge club, so you can get as involved as you want- some people run one race a year, others run every single one.
Last weekend I competed in my final CU Roadrunners event of the semester, a four mile race in Central Park to benefit Lung Cancer research. It was a great morning, and the weather was absolutely perfect. There were about twenty students from Columbia running, so we all met up at the sundial (a common meeting place on campus- kind of like our version of the clock at Grand Central) to head over to the race together. It was a huge event- there were several thousand participants running. Its always so much fun to see everyone running together from so many different age groups and backgrounds. We all ended up finishing the race, and headed back to school just as all of our classmates were waking up (Its always funny to see other students’ faces when they find out everything we’ve had time to do before 10am).
These races are always a great opportunity to catch up with friends I don’t normally get to see during the week. It is such a supportive and encouraging environment that everyone feels welcome. Roadrunners is a great way to continue my hobby without the competitiveness of a varsity sport. I definitely would recommend it to anyone interested in staying involved with athletics at Columbia.
As always, don’t hesitate to comment or shoot me an email if you have any questions!
Kelly Ann
Filed under: Barnard/Columbia Connections
