International Front Runners is an affiliation of GLBT running/walking clubs that have organized in many of larger cities around the world. Inspired by Patricia Nell Warren’s novel The Front Runner, the first FrontRunner club began in San Francisco in 1974, and other FR clubs quickly began forming in the United States then in Canada and abroad.

International Front Runners took a major step in becoming a more formal body by drafting and adopting a Mission Statement and Constitution at our International Front Runner Forum in September 1999.

There are currently about a hundred Frontrunner clubs around the world and they are as diverse as where they are situated. Some of the clubs have hundreds of members, some startups only a few. Many include walkers, not just runners, and at least one club has many more walkers than runners. Some of the clubs elect officers, have bylaws and a membership dues structure, many don’t. Most have regular weekly runs/walks and many also get together at local restaurants after their runs. And the fact that there are three different spellings of the name — FrontRunners, Front Runners and Frontrunners — is just a further example of the clubs’ diversity.