I built Slow Runners Club because I'm one of its members. I've been running for sixteen years, I've never been fast, and a while ago I stopped apologising for it.
I run, mostly, to stay healthy — to keep fit, to feel well, to still be doing this in another sixteen years. And I run because I love the challenge of long distances: the slow build of training, the quiet satisfaction of covering ground that once seemed out of reach. My first marathon was sixteen years ago. Since then I've finished around eight half-marathons, a second full marathon, a 50k ultra through the forest, the odd muddy obstacle race that left me filthy and grinning, and long days on mountain trails where the view was the whole point. I've never won anything. I've never come close. I finish at the back, and I finish.
Here's the thing nobody tells you when you start running slowly and seriously: the sport isn't written for you. Every training plan, every fuelling guide, every article quietly assumes you're young, or fast, or both. They're built around three-and-a-half-hour marathons and athletes whose long runs take two hours, not five. Almost none of it accounts for the runner who's on their feet for six hours on race day — or who spends far longer in training than a quicker runner ever will.
So I worked it out the hard way. It took me years to figure out what actually works for me: how to fuel a long, slow effort when the standard advice leaves you running on empty; how to train by time on feet rather than pace; how to look after a body that's older than it once was and out there for hours at a stretch. I made the mistakes so I'd learn. What I never found was a single calm, plain-spoken source that just told a slow finisher what they needed to know.
I'm also not someone for whom running is everything. I do strength work, but nothing running-specific — running isn't my whole life, it's just something I genuinely enjoy. I think that matters, because so much running content assumes the sport is your entire identity. For most of us it isn't. It's one good thing among several, done for health and for the quiet challenge of it, fitted around a full life.
That's who Slow Runners Club is for. Not the beginner to be cheered across a first 5k — though you're welcome here — and not the runner chasing a personal best. It's for the person who runs long, finishes slow, and has made peace with the clock: someone who wants the honest, practical stuff that actually applies to a five- or six-hour day, written calmly and without the hype.
So I built the thing I spent sixteen years wishing existed. Calm, not loud. Serious about the craft, relaxed about the time. For people who understand that finishing slowly is still finishing — and that there's nothing lesser about a long day on your feet.
If that's you, you're already one of us.
Never first. Never fast. Never quit.
Made in New Zealand.