Our Mission

In Short:

Our mission is to engage people in running and build a supportive community for runners in and around Vancouver. We provide an open and inclusive environment for runners of all levels. We aim to promote running in natural environments as a way to inspire and enable an active, sustainable, social, and healthy lifestyle.

In Depth:

The primary objective of Fraser Street Run Club (FsRC) is to engage a broad spectrum of people in running and to promote their growth and development as runners by introducing them to new running related experiences.  These new experiences include feel good social runs, running at a slower pace for longer, running in new places, exploring urban trails, running trails in Squamish and on Vancouver’s North Shore, and racing.

Since its inception in Summer 2013 FSRC has initiated a number of activities which have been engaging runners and building community within Vancouver.  Through the use of social media, printed post cards, and word of mouth FSRC organizes regular feel good social runs to introduce participants to running with new people in new places.  This includes a weekly Friday 5k/10k run from the FSRC Clubhouse owned by group leader Mark Schellenberg, which is followed by a social hangout at the clubhouse and is regularly attended by thirty or more participants.  It also includes monthly trail runs on the North Shore followed by brunch.  These runs always include two distances to be inclusive of runners of different levels and maintain a mantra of ‘no one is left behind’.  Besides social runs, FSRC encourages its members to participate in both road and trail races, this serves as both a personal goal to be attained as well a celebration of all their hard work. In the lead up to these events FSRC organizes additional interval workouts at the track to help its members achieve their goals.  Based on these activities, FSRC has established a community of over 50 regular members and has involved over 150 individuals on social runs.  FSRC does not charge for any road or trail runs. Furthermore, FSRC members are encouraged to give back to the trail running community by participating as volunteers in local races and volunteering for ‘trail maintenance’ days to help protect our beautiful West Coast.

Through these activities FSRC aims to build and contribute to a running community in Vancouver.  This involves engaging runners of all levels and abilities by offering a range of running related activities and creating a welcoming and low barrier environment for all.  Further, the co-founders and more experienced members of the club make themselves available to other and particularly new members to share skills and information to help them run healthier, happier, and in many cases faster.  FSRC’s primary objective is to promote running in natural environments, as a way to inspire and enable an active, sustainable and healthy lifestyle. FSRC’s core belief is that an active lifestyle leads to physical, psychological and social wellbeing in ourselves as individuals and in communities.