Two childhood best friends started the Inner City Running Club a year ago and are now taking 14 of their members to Rome to run their first marathon.
While the rest of the country was making banana bread and binging television shows, Dwayne Edgar and Karl Taaffe were starting up a new community project in Dublin’s inner city.
Dwayne told Today FM that the club was set up when he was laid off from work during the pandemic.
He told Alison Curtis: “Me and Karl were best pals since we were kids and we always kind of said to ourselves we’d love to have something together.
“So a long story short we put a video out on Instagram and that was in August.
“We said we’re going to start a running club and I think within three days it had 20,000 views.”
The pair had noticed that there had never been a club in inner city Dublin that encompassed running, swimming, and cycling.
Dwayne spoke about the club's first ever run: “36 people showed up for the first run which was absolutely amazing and we were only expecting five or six.
“From the minute we put the video out we had a massive following, a massive backing from the community.”
Karl said that some people that turned up for the running club, had never even run before.
He said: “Last year when we got the members up running, a lot of them had no running experience, never ran a day in their lives, couldn’t run the length of themselves.
“People don’t know it’s easy to run.”
When the pair started the club in lockdown, they knew it was not going to be a short term project. Dwayne said: “The club was never just set up for a couple of weeks.
“There was a five year plan in place.
“We said if we’re going to do this, we might as well put all our energy into the club.”
The running club now trains up to 700 people a week and is taking it one step further in September. Dwayne said: “The club is going for a year.
“We had 36 members. Out of those 36 people we’re taking 14 of those guys to Rome a year later to run their first ever marathon.”
Karl and Dwayne could not be more thankful and proud of their members and what they have accomplished. Karl said: “We couldn’t be more proud of anybody that’s took part.
“It’s given myself and Dwayne their time and their belief in us to get us where we are today.
“So all we can do is thank them.”
