Amy Dykstra just started running on a treadmill roughly a decade ago when she decided the Oak Forest Fleadh would be her first 5K. She recently had moved to the southwest suburb, saw a write-up in the city’s newsletter about a group training for the run and thought it might be an opportunity to make some new friends.
“I originally joined just to train for a 5K; then, I met a group of people,” Dykstra said. “Not only did we run in the group; we also met for Saturday runs and outside runs. Since joining the group, I’ve run eight marathons.”
The group, dubbed Run to the Pub, has also had its fair share of adult beverages. The brainchild of registered dietitian Kelly Devine Rickert, of Oak Forest, the group launched in conjunction with that year’s Fleadh. Devine Rickert said the original idea was to start a training program in which participants could go back to Blarney Stone afterward for a drink. Roughly 24 people joined.
“Everyone loved it,” Devine Rickert said. “It just blew up from there.”
The runs became a summer series that included runs to six bars down Oak Park Avenue in Tinley Park. Then, she offered a fall one.
“Everyone loved the concept of running and training for something but also socializing afterward,” Devine Rickert said. “I would say we’re a drinking club with a running problem.”
Run to the Pub now includes nine groups across three states. Devine Rickert has a hand in all of them but hires managers to work with the satellite groups. The training focus remains, and Run to the Pub tends to attract newer runners who have never run a 5K before, people who used to run but lapsed, parents trying to get back into shape and couples.
“It’s such a supportive group,” Dykstra said. “Runners, in general, are supportive, but honestly this group doesn’t care if you finish a 5K in an hour or if you can run it in 17 minutes. Everyone cheers for each other for every milestone. … We actually want to see each other succeed.”
That is why Dykstra is still running with the group nearly 10 years after joining. Of course, the opportunity to have a couple of beers and dinner with fellow participants after a run does not hurt. Run to the Pub has led her to bars and restaurants she otherwise may never have visited.
“It’s become basically my social life,” Dykstra said. “It’s become my core group of friends.”
The original Oak Forest group has grown to about 60 strong, though Devine Rickert said some 2,000 people have participated over the last decade, including a few who have done the full 10 years. Some folks just come seasonally, with some runners only doing summer events while others favor fall runs.
The weekly Run to the Pub events all start and end at a pub and are led by coaches. When participants make it back to the bar, they get a beer and raffle ticket for prizes related to nutrition, beer or running.
Devine Rickert creates themed series over the course of the year, such as the Irish series, through which participants visited six different Irish bars in February and March. She also holds one-time events, such as historical runs through places such as Bachelor’s Grove Forest Preserve. There are no expectations at any event, she insisted, but people in the group have encouraged each other to run 10Ks, half marathons and more.
“They’re training for all of these races they never thought they’d do the year before,” Devine Rickert said. “It’s really cool to see all the people make friends and meet up for runs on the weekends.”
Devine Rickert grew up in a running family. Her father owned a company that printed race shirts, so she was always around the sport. It is what led her to become a dietitian. When it comes to health, she has seen some “quite remarkable” weight loss, people breaking personal records and winning their age groups in races after joining Run to the Pub. She thinks that more than makes up for having a couple of brewskis.
“Everything in moderation,” Devine Rickert said. “I would say one or two drinks after a run is fine. I’ve had a lot of people lose weight and get a lot healthier after joining Run to the Pub, because now they’re working out a few times a week, training for races. … If it gets someone who is sedentary out of the house, starting to run and meeting people and doing races, having a couple beers one night a week definitely (is offset by) that increased activity.”
The Run Club returns
Devine Rickert is not alone in recognizing the power of drink and socialization when it comes to people leading more active lives. Patrick Bisch, who co-owns The Open Bottle, said the craft beer lifestyle can too often be sedentary. So his Tinley Park store launched a Run Club in 2017, offering monthly 3-mile group runs that end with a draft beer inside the tap room.
“We wanted to bring the spotlight on having a more athletic lifestyle event in the mix,” Bisch said. “Any time we do an event, it’ll be based around beer, but [for] the Run Club we wanted it to be more about athletics with beer than necessarily about beer itself.”
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The Lockport branch of the store, which opened in February 2021, offered an additional monthly run last year. The Open Bottle had roughly 50 registered participants across both locations, with some overlapping. Bisch said he has seen customers join the club and become runners, and he has also seen runners find his stores because of the events.
“It’s a cool, symbiotic thing that happens,” he said.
The club is active from April to October, and members have to buy a club shirt before they can tap into the rewards, including a beer at the end of each run and other benefits. But people need not buy shirts to run.
“Anyone can show up,” Bisch said. “Anyone can run.”
The idea is simply to have some fun and help keep each other accountable while trying to get more active, according to Bisch.
“I think it just helps people stay in shape,” he said. “It gets them down to a schedule. … People get to know each other over time. There’s this social aspect to it that keeps people coming back.”
Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.