Call it a post-workout happy hour. Or a literal beer run.
Welcome to South Florida’s beer running clubs, where runners knock back refreshing pints of craft beer after finishing their 5Ks.
Local breweries, footwear companies and even hotels organize weekly jogs to celebrate the joys of exercise and beer drinking, enticing athletes to these clubs with promises of free brews, back massages, parlor games and low-calorie fruits and snacks. Socializing after the run is a major part of the draw.
The free beer is nice, but it always takes a back seat to general fitness, says Ashley Spurlock, who organizes the weekly Funky Fun Run, a 3.1-mile jog along A1A that ends with a pint of Funky Buddha beer on the pool deck of the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort.
“You don’t have a bunch of people standing around looking like they have a bunch of beer bellies,” Spurlock says. “These runners are pretty hardcore. When you have a healthy lifestyle, what’s one beer after a run, right?”
For runners, scenic backdrops are likewise part of the fun. Courses take joggers along the palm tree-lined A1A on Fort Lauderdale beach and through the mural-covered streets of the Wynwood art district.
Below are five beer running clubs in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties:
Funky Fun Run
Where and when: 6:30-8:30 p.m. every Thursday at Running Wild, 2563 E. Sunrise Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; RunningWild.com/Funky-Fun-Run
The course: Perhaps the most picturesque of the beer runs, runners depart from Running Wild, an athletic footwear store across the street from the Galleria Mall. The course then bends south along the breezy A1A drag and ends on the pool deck of the Westin Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort (321 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd., Fort Lauderdale). A Westin van then transports runners back to Running Wild.
The fun stuff: Westin’s hotel manager Bruce Roy started the Funky Fun Run after stopping by the shoe store, and hatched the running club with Running Wild owner Don Wennerstrom. Ashley Spurlock, the hotel’s spa and fitness director, organizes the Funky Fun Runs now, and says the club appeals as much to locals as hotel guests, who use the runs as a way to discover Fort Lauderdale’s beaches and restaurants.
“It’s a balance of the tranquil and the scenic,” Spurlock says of the Funky Fun Run. “You’re getting this fresh ocean air, and at the same time you’re getting into the heart of Fort Lauderdale.”
On average, 100 runners participate in weekly runs, which include a post-race pint of Funky Buddha beer on the Westin’s pool deck, along with fruit, nuts, water and sometimes back massages.
Full article here: http://www.southflorida.com/restaurants-and-bars/drinking/sf-beer-running-clubs-miami-fort-lauderdale-20170607-story.html
