What is the Sunset Running Collective?

I was given the opportunity to train another year under my college coach Andrew Dorr, but unfortunately I was out of eligibility in the NCAA. I wanted to find out what I could do if I did one more year training harder than I ever have and see where I could go. At the end of the long track season last year, I had gone from struggling through 5ks and 3ks at Boston University, to running a 14:03 5k (almost 20 seconds faster than my previous PR). I wasn't just grinding through these races either, I was finishing my last mile in the 4:20s, my last 400m in the low 60s, and I felt so strong. I knew that I had so much left over and I wanted to try for something even more. So, the idea of a grassroots, local and art-focused running club came to be.

I am Owen White and I graduated last year from Roberts Wesleyan University with my B.S. in Music Education. I went to Roberts Wesleyan hoping to just get my degree and get straight to teaching, but I ended up breaking six of the school records, including my own about 4 times. I had fallen in love with pushing myself to the limit and wanting more each time. I had also fallen in love with the process of working myself to get there. I had no intentions of ever running after college until the past 2 years and now I am writing a blog post on the website of a running club I started.

Anyways, what is Sunset Running Collective? It is a group of people who are dedicated to inspiring people to move AND create. I have a good friend who is incredibly creative, but has no deadlines, no place to put the art, and it can be a bit hard to come up with ideas when there is every single possibility out there. I thought that it could be an amazing opportunity to prop up these artists and give them a place to be creative, with little pressure and a community that is caring. There are artists in the collective, as well as, runners. Runners do not have to be artists and vice versa, although that could be a cool prospect in the future. Each season the artists are given a prompt to give them a cohesive place to start. After they are done creating for that season, it is now the runners jobs to promote them. Each runner will get an article of clothing that this art is printed on and since they are going to races, or training, or just walking around, the runners only real job is to wear a nice shirt. This will spark more and more conversation around the community and give the Collective places to grow and inspire. I hope to grow this Collective into more mediums like short films, soundtracks, albums, fashion design, etc because it is always fascinating watching people be creative in the best way they know how.

One small branch of Sunset Running Collective is Sunset Running Elite. This will be a small group of runners that are able to train with me and some of the Roberts team almost every day. Like I said previously, I want to see how fast I can run and not only is it easier with others, but it is a lot more rewarding when you can see the group around you succeeding and growing. I have seen it in my 5 years at Roberts, and I would love to continue that with another group. The group will be named soon, as there are many moving parts, but I hope to create a small group of elite runners that are trying to be competitive on a regional or even national scale.

More to come!

Owen White

P.S. All the pictures of sunsets are of a very specific place in Rochester. Lemme know if you can figure it out.