The Shore Runs for Nature Lovers and History Buffs to Put on Their Bucket Lists

Photo courtesy RunCape

If the Shore is your second home in the summer, go ahead and put one of these running tours on your summertime to-do list: RunCape, a newly launched running tour business helmed by two Jersey runners, is offering a slew of three-mile running tours throughout the summer that will seriously up your knowledge about the history and nature of Cape May while helping you get your runner’s high on.

As RunCape co-founder Diane Stopyra, a freelance journalist who’s written for Runner’s World (fittingly), says in a press release, “Cape May has come back from the dead. It’s gone from boom to bust to boom again. People see our pretty Victorian architecture and quaint horse-led carriages and they don’t realize the depth of the story here. You don’t get to be the crown jewel of the Jersey Shore without some bumps along the way — monster storms, devastating fires, pirate raids, even national scandals. We want to give people what they won’t read in the brochures.” I don’t know about you, but I can totally get down with never (ever) reading a brochure again.

Stopyra and her RunCape co-founder Kashi Davis, a biologist with the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, are starting off with just two types of running tours going down on Saturdays and Sundays: their Cape May City 5K and their Cape May Point 5K. Their goal is to add more specialty tours — think: run-with-your-dog tours, ghost tours (apparently Cape May is quite the spooky town), and Gatorita tours (that’s a margarita made with Gatorade, duh) — in July. During the tours, runners can expect to hear about the history of Cape May, as well as the natural wonders of the beach town. As Davis says, “You don’t have to consider yourself an environmentalist to be enchanted by what this place offers in terms of nature. Once they know what they’re looking at — whether it’s a bird mating ritual, a butterfly migration, or a storied stretch of dune — people get the bug.”

And note: Newbie runners are totally welcome. Per the website, the tours won’t go any faster than a 10-minute mile, plus there’s plenty of stopping and starting to squeeze in the informational  side of things. All of the tours are $25 per person, and signing up ahead of time is suggested, though you’re welcome to hop in on a tour if there’s room. You can see all of the tour dates RunCape has scheduled for the summer (so far) here. Happy exploring on foot, friends!

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