About us
Athletics and Running is LSE’s one-stop-shop for all things road, track & field, and cross country. Whether you enjoy a casual 5k on a weekend or won gold at the 2012 London Olympics, we have something to offer. We’re an AU Gold Star club, hosting training sessions throughout the week and putting on a jam-packed social calendar.
As a member, you’ll have access to a 7-day-a-week schedule of expertly designed training, tailored to all abilities and disciplines. You can attend 5 days a week, once a month, or just whenever you feel like a run. It’s completely up to you and there’s absolutely no tryout. Anyone can join! We also host weekly socials (at a minimum), including watch parties, brunches, and pres for Sway!
Most importantly though, we’re here to make your time at LSE amazing. We’d like to think we’re a fun group to hang out with, and are happy to offer help in settling into university life. Our committee members are just a message away at all times, and we pride ourselves on being open to all. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions you have, even if they aren’t A&R-related, and even if you’ve never run in your life!
Membership
Standard Membership (£60)
The standard membership with A&R gives you access to our entire training schedule at no cost, including track, road, cross country, circuits, jumps and throws. It’s all included. If that wasn’t enough, we pay entry to all competitions throughout the year (Road Races / Cross Country / Track Meets), and heavily subsidise travel and accommodation for these trips.
Social Membership (£15)
The social membership with A&R gives you access to all trainings and socials that we organise! However, there is no entry to any competitons or races that we take part in if you purchase this membership.
What does training look like?
Track sessions are every Monday from 6:30-8:00pm, and Wednesday from 1:30-3:00pm. We mainly do interval sessions led by our Athletics Captain, who posts workout details in the WhatsApp group chat the day before, but feel free to suggest different workouts to him!
We do a 5km time trial during a Wednesday track session once every month for those who want to track their improvement.
Early Grind campus runs happen throughout the week (a partnership with the former Early Grind society), which happen around 8:00am before classes. These are primarily led by our Running Captain, but we will be opening up subcommittee positions in the two weeks following Give It A Go for an Early Grind Run Leader. Showers and lockers are available on campus for those who need to get to their lectures after!
Afternoon campus runs happen throughout the week. These are also primarily led by our Running Captain, but we will be opening up subcommittee positions in the two weeks following Give It A Go for a Campus Run Leader.
Hill sessions are a great form of trainings—we will be doing a joint, coached session with our partners in Serpentine on Thursdays at Primrose Hill at 7:00pm.
Parkruns on Saturdays
Long runs on a Sunday at 10:00am at one of Hyde Park or Regent’s Park, also led by our Running Captain. ‘Long’ runs are tailored to your ability, with the option to complete one or two laps (one lap is 6km), making them accessible to runners of all levels.
Competitions/Matches
We mainly participate in LUCA cross-country races which happen around once a month, as well as LUCA’s athletics events.
For races outside of LUCA, BUCS Cross Country Championships are a highlight of the season. We also participate in the Teddy Hall Oxford Relays and Hyde Park Relays which are good fun. Later in the year, we also plan on participating in the FT Nikkei UK Ekiden for the first time in club history.
Our club also takes on races internationally! This year, we will be entering the Malta Half Marathon as a club in February 2026.
You’ll be able to participate in these if you have a competitive membership, since we pay entry to all competitions throughout the year, and heavily subsidise travel and accommodation for these trips.
Aims
We mainly want to connect as many LSE students through a shared interest in running, no matter your background, age, or experience in running. To that end, we are striving to be as accessible as possible by catering to every level of fitness in our training schedule.
The best memories at A&R are made at the races that we compete in—ask any member from last year! Because of this, we really want to get as many of our members involved in competing.
Connecting our members and forming a community doesn’t just happen through trainings and matches. We aim to increase the amount and variety of socials throughout the year, not just through team dinners and weekly Wednesday pres, but through running-unique socials like running pub crawls, 'Runsgiving' (Thanksgiving), and a London Marathon watch party - where we can watch our very own Secretary, Sahel, compete!
More charity initiatives—we’re always looking to do our part, so we put on numerous fun runs and other charity events throughout the year. One of the highlights of the A&R year is the Christmas Lights half-marathon (running in Santa costumes for an overall great cause by raising money for LSESU Raising And Giving’s charity partners!)
Making team trips bigger and better are at the top of our agenda this year—we plan on organising a long weekend retreat/training camp in the UK countryside not only to do some trail runs, but to spend time with the A&R community. We also aim to do an organised international team trip to Malta for the half-marathon in February!
This year is also the first year we are working with our brand-new partner, Serpentine Triathlon and Running Club! This partnership grants members access to all their coached training sessions and races. We hope to make the first partnership year a success by getting our members as involved as possible!
Our outreach and speaker events will each focus on different aspects of running and are designed to align with our club’s overall philosophy—embracing diverse opinions and perspectives to create a more well-rounded, informed, and motivated athletics community. Though with some degree of ambition, these are the three sessions we have planned:
An event with a licensed physiotherapist that can walk us through injury prevention, exercises that prove beneficial for running
An event with an athlete, in the form most preferably of a group run but can do with a group talk and Q&A session;
An event with a running influencer/personality.
Contact Us
To join in please DM us on our Instagram