Highlands Roadrunners Club

Our motto:

"Are we gonna run,
Or are we gonna talk about it?!"

History

The Highlands Roadrunners Club was officially founded at an informal meeting held at the Highlands Civic Center by founder Richard Betz on August 5, 1995.  Although many area runners, from "amateur" to "elite," had been enjoying the superb climate and terrain of Highlands for years, they seldom ran as a group, and there was no network of communication.  At the initial meeting, the so-called "founding members" (dubbed "foundering" members by  one wag) discovered that there are many advantages to even a loose organization..  Runners began to form friendships and to run regularly with one another, as well as with visitors to Town.  To this day, the Club welcomes friends of runners, visitors, and beginning runners.

In 1999, the Club decided to become incorporated as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, and also to join the Road Runners Club of America.

Annual membership dues are $10.00.  A "monthly" newsletter is published sporadically, containing information on the exploits of members at area races, a calendar of events, advise on training and injuries, and general pleasantries.

Each year since 2000, the Club has sponsored a spring race in Highlands, the Mountain Lakes 5-K (SEE BELOW), not to be confused with a smaller 5-K formerly held in the fall and sponsored by the Highlands School PTO as a fundraiser.

An informative brochure on the HRC is available on request, and includes maps of several popular running routes marked with splits in Town.  Club members occasionally carpool to area races, including the Maggie Valley Moonlight Run, the Anderson Midnight Flight, and local runs in Rabun County, Franklin, and elsewhere.  Several of our members run in the Cooper Bridge Run in Charleston each year, and we have a lot of Boston Marathon alumni amongst us.  But we also enjoy slow, leisurely runs, paced for the non-competitive.  We encourage runners and running whoever they may be.

An annual awards dinner is held, usually the first Saturday iin December, for club  members.

1.    New Years Eve Awards Banquet at the Highlands Conference Center.

2.    New  Year's Resolution Run on January 1 each year at 9:00 a.m. in front of the Town Hall, open to the entire community at no cost.

Several intrepid club members have also made an annual April Fools Day run a tradition.  The 6-mile run begins at Town Hall, descends 1000 feet in elevation to the bottom of Horse Cove, and then returns to Town Hall again.  The Club's alternate motto comes to mind:  "You ought to be committed if you want to run with us."

Regularly-scheduled group runs begin almost every weekday afternoon at the Town Hall in Highlands, at 4:30 p.m. sharp; the distance is usually a single or double three-mile loop.  A Saturday morning run is the weekly long run for most of us, is generally more slowly-paced, and often makes several loops back to the Town Hall to accommodate various training distances and levels of fitness.  During the summer the Saturday morning runs often have more than twenty participants.

Links

There are many good running web sites available; the following offer advice and also have good race information:

For More Information

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