Founders set big goals for new Running Club
Pictured from left to right are junior Chloe Wesley, junior Roman Luckett, junior Ean Choi, junior Rushyendranath Reddy Nalamalapu, junior Lucianna Marquez and senior Jon Kiesel holding hands on IM Field at the first Running Club meeting. The club aims to help students earn wellness hours and develop a positive experience with running.
March 13, 2023
Four MSMS juniors wanted to get their fellow students up and running, and they decided the best way to do so was by getting a new club up and running.
The MSMS Running Club held its first-ever meeting on Feb. 6 after officers sent out interest forms, recruited members and completed paperwork to found the club. Officers include President Roman Luckett, Vice President Gavin Weinstein, Secretary Andrew Grieve and Treasurer Lucianna Marquez.
“After the cross-country season ended, I noticed not a lot of people were involved with running sports,” Luckett said. “There were only four people on the cross-country team. It was pretty small, so we wanted to get people more involved in running.”
Luckett quickly gathered an eager group of officers to help put together his vision. Weinstein said he intended for Running Club to be a fun, chill way for MSMS students to rack up wellness hours.
“I really liked the idea of having a welcoming and open environment for people of all different skill levels to participate in,” Weinstein said. “For now, our main goal with Running Club is to help people get wellness hours and just give them an all-around positive experience.”
After attending the first meeting, junior Vivian Peng said she believed the club achieved this goal. She said she had a great time playing Capture the Flag and Ultimate Frisbee with the club.
“Even though I wasn’t very good at either, I still really enjoyed it,” Peng said. “I hope that the club keeps doing games like this every once in a while, but I’m also excited for when we actually start running.”
Peng won’t have to wait long. Marquez shared some of the projects the officers, alongside the club sponsor Lauren Zarandona, have been working on, including a charity 5K, wellness seminar and group runs.
“[Zarandona] is working on planning out a safe route for running around campus,” Marquez said.
This is only the start for Running Club. Luckett said he has big hopes for the future of the club.
“I don’t know if we’ll have time to do any big events this year, but next year, we hope to do some big runs,” Luckett said. “We plan on working with the city of Columbus to participate in its marathons or even hosting our own marathon through the city. We’ve got some pretty big plans for the coming year.”
