We Run West Bringing Interval Running to Gothenburg Slottsskogen

A Gap in the City and the Woman Who Filled It

There is a particular stretch of Gothenburg's west side, around the edges of Slottsskogen, where the park opens up into something that feels less urban and more honest. Tall trees, open paths, the kind of space that rewards people who show up for it regularly. It was into this setting that Sara Asmoarp returned in 2021, after years spent living in London. She came back with a clear sense of what a running collective could look like, and a growing awareness that Gothenburg, for all its charms, did not yet have many of them. The city's running culture existed, of course, but the kind of informal, community-driven crew scene she had experienced abroad was largely absent. Rather than wait for someone else to fill that gap, Sara decided to do it herself. That decision, made in June 2021, became We Run West. From the start, Sara brought in her friend Caroline Norin as co-founder, and the two of them built the crew together. They designed the sessions, set the rhythm, and showed up every week to captain a group that, at the time, was just beginning to find its footing. Building something from nothing requires a particular patience. You have to believe in the idea before the idea has any proof of working. Sara and Caroline believed, and they kept showing up, and gradually so did others.

The Logic Behind Time-Based Intervals

The most distinctive element of a We Run West session is not the route or the setting, though both are good. It is the structure. Where most group runs are organised around distance, with faster runners finishing earlier and slower ones catching up later, We Run West runs on time. Everyone starts together, everyone stops together. The intervals are measured in minutes, not kilometres. This is not a trivial distinction. In a distance-based group run, pace becomes a sorting mechanism almost immediately. Runners spread out, gaps open, and the sense of running as a shared experience quietly dissolves. In a time-based format, none of that happens. When the interval ends, it ends for everyone at once. When it begins again, everyone goes together. The result is a session that genuinely feels collective, where a runner covering four kilometres in a given interval and a runner covering six are still, in a meaningful sense, doing the same workout. Between intervals, there are high fives. This sounds like a small thing, and in isolation it is. But it signals something important about the culture Sara and Caroline built: acknowledgement matters, effort is noticed, and encouragement is not conditional on speed. Those high fives are a shorthand for everything We Run West stands for.

Slottsskogsvallen and the Thursday Ritual

Every Thursday at 18:30, We Run West gathers near Slottsskogsvallen, the athletics venue that sits at the edge of Slottsskogen park in Gothenburg's west end. The location is fitting. Slottsskogen is one of the city's most beloved green spaces, a place where locals walk, cycle, and run year-round, and Slottsskogsvallen itself has a long history as a site for organised athletics. There is something grounding about training in a place that has hosted serious sport for generations, even if your goal is simply to finish the interval strong and earn your high five. The Thursday session runs throughout the year, which means We Run West shows up in the long, bright evenings of a Swedish summer and in the cold, dark Thursdays of January when the motivation to get off the couch requires something extra. The crew provides that something extra. Knowing that a small group of people is already gathering, already lacing up, is often enough to tip the balance. It is worth noting that the exact meeting spot can shift from week to week. Sara and the crew share location updates on their Instagram account, so anyone planning to join is encouraged to check in before heading out. The Thursday session is the anchor of the week, but We Run West also organises additional sessions and participates in races together, giving members more touchpoints throughout the calendar.

A Small Crew with Room to Grow

We Run West is, at this point, a small crew. That is not a weakness. Small running groups often have something that larger ones struggle to maintain: the sense that everyone knows each other, that your presence is noticed, that the group is genuinely affected by whether you show up or not. In a crew of that scale, you are not anonymous. You are a regular face, a known quantity, someone whose absence gets remarked upon and whose return is welcomed. The membership is open to everyone, with no fees and no prerequisites beyond the willingness to show up on a Thursday evening and run intervals in the park. Gothenburg's west side has a neighbourly, residential character that suits this kind of grassroots community well. The area around Slottsskogen attracts people who are drawn to active outdoor life without needing it to be a production. We Run West fits that sensibility precisely. For anyone curious about the crew's activity or wanting to track sessions and connect with members through Strava, the crew maintains a Strava club where runs are logged and the community stays visible between Thursdays.

What Sara and Caroline Started Still Stands

Running crews, like most community projects, tend to reflect the values of the people who started them. We Run West reflects Sara's experience of what a running collective can be at its best: inclusive in structure, consistent in practice, and warm in its treatment of people regardless of where they land in the pace spectrum. The time-based interval format is the clearest expression of that philosophy, but it runs through everything the crew does. Caroline's co-captainship in those early sessions gave the crew a collaborative foundation from the beginning. Two people building something together creates a different energy than one person building it alone, and that collaborative spirit has remained part of the We Run West identity. The crew does not belong to a single person's vision; it belongs to the people who show up for it each Thursday. Gothenburg's running scene has grown since 2021, and We Run West has grown with it. The city now has more collectives, more organised community runs, more people discovering that running in company is a different thing entirely from running alone. We Run West was among the first to make that case on the west side of the city, and it continues to make it every Thursday evening near the park, at 18:30, high fives ready.