Q&A with Arete Women’s Running Club

Who are the Arete Women's Running Club?

Arete is a women’s running club mostly in California, but we spread across the country with our remote team, meaning you can live anywhere! We are for women who want to train, race, and run as fast as they personally can. We support each other in person through training, meet ups at various races and online through social media!

How did you get started and when?

Mary and Melissa started Arete in Santa Cruz in 2016 – both missed the high school/college teams they were on and wanted to recreate that atmosphere with other supportive women. The group grew from there with dedicated leaders starting chapters in Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco and Santa Barbara. There are about 400 on Arete now.

I am the Sacramento chapter leader – the largest chapter of Arete with over 120 on the team. We started in the fall of 2017. There is a robust running community in Sacramento, so adding Arete made sense and it has really taken off since we started. We attend most local races and enjoy our runs on the American River Parkway, a paved bike/running trail that stretches for miles.

What is your crew motto / what do you stand for?

At Arete we want to support each other – whatever your personal goals are. We don’t have a time standard as we want to be open to all. We know that running fast is a relative term. We do have folks working towards Boston Qualifiers, working to break 4:00 in the marathon, or 3:00 in the marathon. Whatever folks are working to achieve, we support them with access to training plans and more.