Monday 12 August 2013

Sweatshop Running Community

A few months ago I registered with the Sweatshop Running Community and recently I finally got around to running my first session with them. I ran my first and second sessions with the Dartford branch as this is going to be my SRC home, my third run was at Rathbone Place, in London.

The process for signing up is simple, you just fill in the online form and they send you a welcome email containing your unique registration number.


When you arrive for your first ever run the store will issue you with your 'run record' card, which lasts for exactly 52 weeks, and a SRC wallet to hold it. Each week you can have your card stamped to record that you have run that week (you can run at as many sessions at as many different branches as you like but you can only have one stamp per week).

In order to encourage you to keep running, Sweatshop offer rewards for each milestone you hit within your 52 week period.

5 Weeks - Free Adidas Sweatshop Running Community technical t-shirt

Sweatshop Running Community technical t-shirt

25 Weeks - Free Lucozade nutrition pack (isotonic drink / 2 x dual fuel gels / jelly beans / yoghurt coated cereal bar / protein and carbohydrate bar - although it is possible that contents may vary)

the nutrition pack


30 Weeks - Free foam roller (worth £25)

new best friend?

50 Weeks - Free Garmin Forerunner 610 (worth £329.99)

garmin 610

Please note: The rewards above were current when I registered. I believe the current rewards system offers a foam roller at 30 weeks and a pair of running shoes at 50 weeks. Always double check with Sweatshop for the latest information.

You don't have to go to the same branch every week, but in order to qualify for the rewards you do need to have the card stamped each week - so it's a bit like parkrun's barcode system in the sense that you have to remember to bring it with you each week in order to have the run recorded.

The runs vary from branch to branch - you can see the full list here. Some branches have one all-ability run per week, some have a few different types of session and one branch (Trump Street, London) has three two runs per day from Monday to Friday - that's fifteen ten opportunities per week. With so many options it's tempting to start touring around the different Sweatshop branches, but I'll hold back on that for now.

For example, my former home run at Dartford which has closed (Bluewater is now my home store) did the same 5k route every Tuesday and I had set up a few strava segments to use for a spot of interval training. Rathbone Place do a Monday 5k (or even 6.9k if you take a wrong turn - whoops) for beginners and intermediate runners which always heads over to Regents Park, but doesn't always follow exactly the same route plus a few other sessions throughout the week.

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For the record, I ran the 50 runs without missing a week and was presented with my Garmin 610 at the Sweatshop store in July 2014.

50 week reward presentation




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