William & Mary students build bonds by running

The Saturday Morning Running Group at William & Mary has been helping to create stronger bonds in the community.

The group was started by Anne Arseneau, associate director of student activity at William & Mary, to try and help her participate in more races. She started to invite friends and runners she knew to run with her on Saturday mornings. This expanded to an open call to anyone interested.

Currently, the group has 15 members including students, faculty and staff, who meet every Saturday morning for a 4-mile run through Colonial Williamsburg and the college's campus. After the 4 miles, anyone training for a longer race goes off without the group. During the run, individuals stay within sight of each other and there is an unofficial maximum of a 10-minute mile.

In the year and a half that the group has met, its membership has changed a lot. Members have had babies, gotten married, moved and died.

"That’s been really nice to look back and see the life cycle that we’ve gone through," Deb Boykin, assistant vice president for student affairs, said in the press release.

For many of the group's members, the greatest draw is not the run, but the chance to socialize with people.

"I really like the glow that we have from the social interaction," Jodi Fisler, assistant to Boykin, said in the release.

"We’ve learned a lot, we’ve shared a lot, we’ve talked a lot about just different things, so that’s been really, really helpful in ways I never, ever anticipated when I was just looking for someone to show up with," Arseneau said in the release.

Filed under: SCHOOLS