From left) Bill Robb, Adil Orfi and Larry O’Neil take off on a 400-meter interval during a Tuesday evening Lawn Wranglers Running Club session.
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Sharing miles: Akron running clubs form community through training, races BY MANDY KRAYNAK FOR TDS
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any runners wear hightech running gear to races, but members of the Lawn Wranglers Running Club sport cotton T-shirts with iron-on logos of a push lawn mower with flames and their group name written in Sharpie. At the Burning River race last year, fellow runners jokingly asked them where their lawn equipment was, referencing a promotional video for the club featuring group members running with tools such as weedwackers and fertilizer spreaders. “We’re also goofy. We’re also kind of clownish,” said Larry O’Neil, a founder of the club. “We love the running community. We feel we’re a part of it, but we’re also kind of our own little subculture within the running community.” The Lawn Wranglers Running Club
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is one of many running clubs that make up a larger running community in Akron. Trails like the towpath and MetroParks, as well as events such as the FirstEnergy Akron Marathon, Half Marathon and relay keep everyone in Akron’s running community connected, said Michael Dilisio, the owner of the running store Second Sole Akrun. The Akron Marathon relay event is connected to the origin of the Lawn Wranglers Running Club and its group name. In 2010, a five-runner relay team that included a landscaper chose the team name “Lawn Wranglers,” which comes from the ‘90s comedy film Bottle Rocket. The group has grown since then, picking up steam in the past three-and-a-half to four years, O’Neil said. The club meets in Highland Square for group runs on Wednesdays and does weekly interval sessions at Bolich Middle School, as well as trail runs on
the weekends. The lightheartedness of the Lawn Wranglers Running Club stands out to Mike Nix, a member of the group who went to high school with O’Neil. “Everybody’s always rooting for everybody else — that’s the best part of it. And there’s always somebody to run with,” Nix said. About a decade-and-a-half ago, Bernie Rochford was running one morning with a nameless running group that had formed when two groups combined into one. As they were running along the canal, the group decided on the name Canal Rats, a name that Akron’s minor league baseball team had considered. The Canal Rats meet in the early hours of the morning, with weekday group runs starting between 5:20 and 5:50 a.m.
August 2021 · Vol 9 · Issue #8
The Friday morning runs, which are coffee Fridays, are the most popular group run days. The Canal Rats used to meet at Bruegger’s Bagels on Merriman Road. Now that the location has closed, Rochford brings carafes of coffee for the runners instead.
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“There’s nothing else that can get me up at that hour of the morning other S e than the Canal Rats and knowing that they will always be there,” group R e organizer Liz Tucci said.
T The Canal Rats include runners of various levels who call themselves the t H “Overachieving Rats,” or “OARs,” and the “Rats of Leisure,” or “ROLs.” p c M In addition to being a founding member of the Canal Rats, Rochford r is also a mentor for Running2bWell’s Akron group and the president of the T y organization’s board. R Running2bWell focuses on using thedevilstrip.com
