This Couple Put a 5K on Their Wedding Program And Things Got Spicy

About 90 wedding guests in matching race shirts gathered in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on the morning of July 3 to run a 5K organized by a bride and groom who were getting married the next day. The start line sat in the parking lot of a private condo building, and by the time the first finishers came in, residents had filed a loitering complaint and were threatening to call the police. Marathon Handbook‘s Michael Doyle, a guest with a start-line assignment, talked them down, and the race finished without further incident.

The couple were Alex Cyr, Marathon Handbook’s senior gear editor and a 63-minute half marathoner, and Alexis D’Souza, his co-host on For Better or For Worse, the podcast on Marathon Handbook’s network that follows one experienced runner and one beginner through a training year. They married July 4 in front of about 200 guests, and they recapped the weekend, race included, in their wedding recap episode. The 5K was the Friday entry on a four-day program that also included an afternoon of Acadian fiddle and step dancing in Cyr’s home village of about 500 people and a 16-act talent show above a Charlottetown pub.

They are not the first couple to put a race on a wedding schedule. The New York Times reported in December 2024 that group runs had migrated from run clubs to birthdays, bachelor parties, and wedding weekends, and that the wedding 5K, typically optional, had become a recognizable part of the format. One Atlanta couple profiled in that story built the question into their RSVPs; 58 of 145 guests ran, and every one of them received a participation trophy.

Run Clubs Are Where Social Life Happens Now

The numbers explain why start lines keep appearing next to seating charts. In Strava’s 2024 Year in Sport report, running club participation rose 59 percent globally, and nearly one Gen Z respondent in five had dated someone they first met through exercise. The same group preferred meeting people mid-workout to meeting them at a bar by a factor of four.

The 2025 edition found running clubs on the platform growing 3.5x year over year, and 46 percent of respondents willing to accept a workout as a first date. For a growing number of couples, running is where their social lives already happen; the wedding program is catching up.

What a Wedding 5K Actually Looks Like

The Charlottetown edition showed what the genre involves in practice: no permit, no bibs, no timing mats, and a course that came up short. “It was hard for us to find an uninterrupted 5K course,” Cyr said on the episode. The out-and-back the couple settled on measured roughly 400 meters under distance and was marshaled by parents and family friends holding signs.

The field ran deeper than most local races. Alex Ullman, who ran 1:47.71 for 800m in 2014 according to World Athletics, won. The bride’s 12-year-old godson, a 1,500m specialist, led the opening surge. Two of Canada’s faster marathoners, Lee Wesselius (2:13:52) and Kieran McDonald (2:17:48), ran as guests, and had invited Cyr to join them for 32K at marathon pace on the morning of the ceremony itself. He declined, and finished the 5K in fourth. “Do you think they would do that on their wedding day?” he said of the marathoners. At the other end of the field, one of the bride’s best friends, a non-runner, covered the distance with walk breaks, and the bride’s uncle, well past 60 and retired from running, completed the whole thing in a fedora. Several finishers cooled off in the ocean until the first jellyfish appeared.

D’Souza, the beginner half of the podcast, ran the biggest mileage week of her life in the days before the wedding, four 5Ks alongside her sister, and credited the routine with keeping the week manageable. Not everyone is converted, though. The Times noted that wedding runs divide guests, with some treating them as a weekend highlight and others opting out or poking fun, and the show’s own promotion asked whether a wedding 5K is “fun or unhinged.”