About a thousand singles, mostly wearing black, flooded New York City's Washington Square Park on Wednesday to run or fast-walk during a new run club meet, quickly becoming the city's most popular place to find new love or friendships.
Lunge Run Club is a free running group geared for those interested in meeting new people, whether it be for dating or finding friends. The club was founded in May by 28-year-old New York native Steven Cole, the creator of Lunge, which is a fitness dating app to match singles working out in similar gyms.
Rachael Lansing is the head of Lunge Run Club and says the group started with about 30 participants, rapidly gaining attention across the boroughs with the last meet-up having about 1,000 guests.
"We're basically a social run club. We do a 3-mile run or a 1.5-mile hot walk. People come alone or they come with friends. You wear all black if you're single. You wear colors if you're taken, and then we get #beersafter the run," Lansing told NBC New York before Wednesday's run kicked off.
Anyone is welcome to join the free weekly runs every Wednesday at 6:45 p.m. The location and updates for each week are available on the club's Instagram handle, @lungerunclub.
Cole says what makes this dating experience unique is that those who meet at the run location can later match over the Lunge social app to help continue the conversation.
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"Lunge dating app you can match exclusively to people in the same workout location. We'll match everyone from Lunge Run Club exclusively with each other on the app, so we try to help you meet people with a lot in common that makes us different," said Cole to News 4.
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The run or fast walk ends around 8:00 p.m. at a designated bar location, such as Houston Hall, where can runners grab drinks and have a chance to socialize past the exercise.
