Roanoke Pub Runs are about exercise, friendship - and a beer 

An hour after completing a 5-mile run Tuesday evening, Adam Grieco was still beaming.

Some credit, no doubt, could go to the well-documented runner’s high, the feeling of euphoria when exercise triggers the release of endorphins into the brain.

Some credit, likely, also belonged to the chilly beverage Grieco had just downed at Fork in the City.

“I love drinking beer after running,” Grieco laughed.

And he had plenty of company.

About 100 people turned out for Roanoke’s weekly Pub Run, and several dozen had stuck around after their run to enjoy a little post-effort refueling and socializing at Fork in the City.

Fleet Feet Sports started offering the pub runs just more than a year ago, and the events have boomed.

“Three out of the past four weeks we’ve had more than 100 participants,” said Andrew Holbrook, the store’s manager and the man who helped get the program rolling.

The runs attract a diverse crowd, from just-getting-started joggers to serious racers.

“My favorite thing is seeing all the different kinds of people,” Holbrook said.

The runs have helped runners get into better shape and create new friendships.

Last summer Ben Hoyt showed up at a run and met Kathryn Conrad through mutual friends.

“I never went there expecting to meet someone,” Hoyt said.

The two have been dating ever since.

“She’s even got me started on this crazy challenge where we’re trying to run 1,000 miles this year,” said Hoyt, a 25-year-old who works in finance at The North Cross School.

Holbrook doesn’t claim to have invented the pub run idea.

When he lived in Murfreesboro, Tenn., the town’s Fleet Feet hosted pub runs that attracted 20 to 30 people a week.

“It was cool,” said Holbrook, who said the events had a natural appeal to him. “I like to run, and I like beer.”

Holbrook, a competitive racer who recently clocked a 2:56 marathon, approached Fleet Feet owners Blaine and Robin Lewis with a pub run proposal in the winter of 2012.

The runs started a few months later.

“I was hoping to get 30 people a week,” said Holbrook, who said he had no idea that area cyclists had been gathering on Tuesday evenings in Roanoke for what they call the Famous Tuesday Night Beer Ride.

A recent run drew a record crowd of 114 participants.

Dave Feron, a 55-year-old from Roanoke, is a regular.

“I started attending these to meet people and to just get out,” said Feron, who moved to Roanoke from Northern Virginia about a year-and-a-half ago.

The approach worked.

Sitting and laughing with a group of friends at Fork in the City this past Tuesday after the run, Feron hardly looked like a new guy in town.

The runs are free, and participants of all abilities are welcome. They are asked to sign a waiver and to carry identification.

When the runs started last summer, they were held every other week, alternating with trail runs.

The pub runs became such a hit that Fleet Feet started offering them weekly, alternating between Fork in the City and the Wasena City Tap Room.

The runs we nt on through the winter except on the worst weather days, with participants running in the dark with head lamps.

The shop also is hosting trail runs on Mill Mountain every other week through the summer.

At the pub runs, routes of either 3 or 5 miles are offered, with much of the distance on the Roanoke River Greenway.

Trina Mitchell of Salem said she started attending the pub runs after completing Fleet Feet’s No Boundaries training programs for novice runners.

The fit was natural because Tuesday evenings feature No Boundaries group training runs.

“You get to know people,” said Mitchell, who is 55 and works at Roanoke College. “It becomes a community thing.

“You see the different ages. There are people in their 60s, and we’ve had teenagers, too.”

Getting the word out has largely been an organic process.

Fleet Feet sends out group emails, and also posts notices of upcoming pub runs on its Facebook page.

Unofficial ambassadors also do their part to spread the word.

“I’m telling people all the time, ‘Come do this,’” Mitchell said.

Grieco, who lives in Fredericksburg and is in Roanoke helping to renovate a house, was walking past Fork in the City on Tuesday after work when he spotted runners massing.

He asked Holbrook what was going on.

“After I told him about the pub run he said, ‘I’m going to go put on a pair of shorts,’” Holbrook said, laughing.

Grieco, 42, ended up being one of the group’s front runners that evening.

Fitness isn’t the only perk of the runs.

The host restaurants offer food and beverage specials for runners.

Fleet Feet vendors often attend, offering products for runners to try out and prizes for raffles.

Sometimes shoe company representatives bring shoes for runners to try.

“I wanted to make the runs more interactive,” Holbrook said. “Some people don’t realize how bad their shoes are until they try a new pair.”

Asics representative Michaela Courtney was impressed by the turnout at a recent run at the Wasena City Tap Room.

“I don’t think I’ve had too many events as big as this one,” said Courtney, noting that about 30 runners tried out Asics shoes on the run.

But while there is a business benefit for Fleet Feet, that’s not the primary driver, Holbrook said.

“It’s something we felt we could do to build the running community,” Holbrook said. “Something to get more like-minded people together.”

Grieco, who has been running on his own around Roanoke, was glad to have stumbled onto the event.

“I was hoping to find a crew,” he said.

And he did.

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