The New York Road Runners (NYRR) expects 26,000 athletes to participate in this weekend’s Brooklyn Half Marathon, confirming its status as the largest marathon race in the US and reflecting a difficult return to pre-Covid participation rates.
This year, the nonprofit athletics organization, which organizes 50 races a year, including the New York City Marathon, is deepening its focus on the mental health benefits of running to attract more participants. Although the NYRR itself is back on a healthier footing, the sport is not: the number of participants in the races in 2022 was 84% ​​compared to 2019 and is projected to remain soft in 2023, according to the Road Runners Club of America.
NYRR’s new executive director, Rob Simmelkjaer, a former broadcaster and media company executive at places like NBC and ESPN, believes that reinforcing an idea that people intuitively understand – exercise is good for the mind, spirit and body – will help the organization grow.
Simmelkjaer, a two-time marathon runner, says the stigma of mental health has weakened since COVID-19 and people are getting the message better. “It gets them off the couch and running.”
While some critics have accused the organization of being too corporate and focusing on the wealthy, Simmelkjaer says a prosperous NYRR is one that can better fulfill its mission of getting more people to exercise, especially inner-city kids.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Wealth: What is the connection between running and mental health?
I compare running to washing a wet sponge. As your day goes by, you get heavier and heavier from stress, work stuff, personal stuff and everything else going on in your life. So I think of running as a wringing sponge to get all that weight out and feel like a lighter, better person. If I can do something positive early in the day, it gives me a boost to do everything else.
It has long been known that exercise clears the mind and helps to blow off steam. What’s new here?
What is new is that now we can talk about it more. One of the things that has changed in our society since the pandemic is how much more acceptable it is to talk about mental health challenges. I’m not sure how acceptable a conversation that was in the past. So we say, ‘That’s the reason to run.’ People agree with it and it makes them get off the couch and run.
What tells you that runners want to hear this message from the NYRR?
The numbers tell us. So many people started running during the pandemic and continued. When I ask people, ‘Why are you running?’ or send out our survey after the TCS New York Marathon, the results always show that the main reason they run is to relieve stress, which is essentially mental health.
Specifically, what does this mean for NYRR’s programs and messages?
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we’re kicking it off with a program at our running center featuring Molly Seidel, a well-known long-distance runner who has been quite vocal about her mental health journey. We will have morning meditations online that will prepare people to get out and run with positive thoughts. A big part of the NYRR is to give people a reason to run.
Another part of your mission is to provide training and exercise programs to disadvantaged inner-city youth. How does the mental health message fit in there?
Just as we try to give adults a reason to run, we try to give kids the same reasons to play sports, to stay in sports, and to give parents a reason to take them to their first race. We can connect mental health and breaking the cycle of depression and anxiety that so many kids now face with running, especially after the pandemic. Much of the messaging is aimed at parents, so they understand that it can help their children be happier and more resilient.
Does this mental health initiative mean we’ll be seeing psychologists at your races with desks and ‘Doctor is here’ signs like Lucy in ‘Peanuts’?
I don’t think so. (Laughs.) We’re definitely exploring partnerships. I’ve heard from people in the mental health community, and even a few therapists have told me that they’ve advised clients to take up running. We won’t have someone like Lucy at the finish line, but we will certainly explore partnerships that can help us get involved in the community.
Your earlier career included long-term stints at ESPN and NBC Sports in business capacities and as a broadcast journalist and attorney. Why NYRR and the nonprofit world now?
In my career, I have always tried to find a balance between satisfying the business side, such as driving innovation, profit and shareholder value, and finding ways to serve. New York Road Runners is the perfect combination of those two things. We are a large sports organization with significant revenues, so we are a business. But community impact is also our bottom line. This is a much better feeling than having to go to shareholders; no offense to shareholders. I love shareholders. I am a shareholder myself.
So what do you say to the people who have long criticized the NYRR for becoming too corporate, too big with overpriced races, and too focused on affluent Manhattanites?
We are a ‘business’ in the sense that we want to generate income for our mission and that it is profitable. We could probably do a better job making sure people know what we’re doing in schools and what we’re doing with a program like Run for the Future. But those “corporate” activities that people see are what drive the mission and I hope people keep that in mind.
In November, you replaced an interim executive director who had to keep NYRR on hold after the pandemic hit revenues. There was also discontent among the ranks about opportunities for employees of color, which led to the departure of some executives in 2020. How do you think NYRR is doing today?
That period had two shocks with the pandemic, which caused major economic disruptions and organizational problems. My predecessor, Kerin Hempel, did a tremendous job leading NYRR through that difficult period. I’m happy that I came after the really hard work and tough decisions she made. I hear from the staff that we are turning the page from that era. Now we go on the attack again. We’re starting a long-term strategic planning process to think about Road Runners in five years and our big, hairy audacious goals for the organization. (In October 2024, the New York Times reported that an internal investigation acquitted Hempel’s predecessor, Michael Capiras, of charges of fostering a racist and sexist environment.)
We’re sitting at Tavern on the Green, near the finish line of the New York City Marathon, which you’ve called one of the happiest places on earth. What makes it so?
The finish line is one of my favorite places because people put in the effort. They battled through the hardships of running a marathon. When you see them reach the finish line, you see those emotions, you see happiness.
But it’s not always a happy place, I can attest. Don’t you ever cross the finish line and think, ‘I’m bad?’
That never happens. I always feel that I had what I had that day. But tennis is the opposite. I would say that nine times out of ten I hate myself when I leave the field.
