Like clockwork, Lake Forest-Lake Bluff club remains on the run
by linda blaser lblaser@pioneerlocal.com February 21, 2012 1:20PM
Lake Forest- Runners of The Lake Forest Run Club take off on their weekly trek through the streets of Lake Forest as they have every Saturday for the past 30 years . | Joe Cyganowski ~ For Sun Times Media
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Updated: March 24, 2012 8:12AM
They have assembled every Saturday morning since 1981. Runners and walkers from Lake Forest, Lake Bluff and surrounding communities meet in the parking lot of the Lake Forest Western Avenue train station at 8 a.m. and join a lively group that embarks on a 6.2-mile course that wends its way through the city.
It’s the same route the founders of the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Running Club established more than 30 years ago. While the members have changed, the reasons why participants join the group every Saturday haven’t: Fun, friends and a good workout.
“They’re really great people,” Maureen Goodwin of Lake Forest said of her fellow runners.
Having moved to Lake Forest just over three years ago, Goodwin said she was having a bit of trouble making friends, until she found the running club.
“I ran in Lake Forest Days’ 5K three years ago and met some people who told me to go to the train station on Saturday morning,” she said.
Goodwin showed up the following Saturday and has been going back ever since, adding two to three more runs with club members every week.
“It’s such a welcoming group,” she said.
Newcomers shouldn’t be intimidated by the group’s pace, she said.
“There are so many options to run,” Goodwin said.
There are clutches that run fast, medium and slow — and everything in-between.
For those who like to walk, a group of older members, dog-walkers and stroller-pushers embarks on a shortened route.
‘In your blood’
Frank Waldeck of Lake Forest, 90, lives near Market Square and still likes to join the group, running one to two miles a day. Though he no longer takes on the full 6.2-mile route, Waldeck still keeps active.
Running, he said, “gets in your blood.”
Getting out and moving is the reason Barry Seiller of Lake Forest founded the group. A physician, a runner and volunteer chairman of the Lake County Heart Association, Seiller said he wanted to help people “become more physically fit.”
Seiller admits he never expected the group he started then to still exist today.
“It’s very unusual it’s lasted as long as it has,” Seiller said.
He thinks it’s the fellowship that keeps the group strong.
“It’s really like a family,” he said.
Members’ interactions extend beyond weekly runs.
“People care about each other,” he said.
Group members help each other’s chosen charities, lend a hand during illness and socialize together. A couple of members have even married.
Ed Zylka of Lake Forest started running with the group about 10 years ago, even though he always preferred running alone.
He was wrong.
“The companionship is great,” Zylka said. It’s a motivating factor, too. “You don’t want to let people down, so you’re a little more motivated to go.”
And go they do.
“There hasn’t been a time in 30 years where a group hasn’t been there at the train station on Saturday morning,” Seiller said. “Whether it’s 100 degrees or 17 below zero, they’re there.”
For more information on the Lake Forest-Lake Bluff Running Club, go to www.lflb.org.
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