Venture down to the Lied Recreation Center on any given day at noon — you can find one of Iowa State’s most dedicated groups of athletes.

No medals or awards are on the line when these runners begin their training, but you can be sure that they are out there every day, working as hard as anyone.

These athletes are a group of professors who spend a portion of the day exercising around Ames.

This group of runners, known to some as the Blue Shirts, have been in existence since the late 1970s. Their informal name comes from the uniform they wear, which consists of either a blue or gray shirt and blue shorts.

Michael Whiteford, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has been running with one of the groups since the late 1980s.

“Over the years, there have been a number of noontime running groups,” Whiteford said. “For the past 10 years I have been running with a group that, up until five years ago, at any noon there would have been eight or nine of us that went out for a run.

“The group that I have been running with, I joined up with in 1989. The people in that group have run at least 100 marathons [collectively], so there were some pretty heavy runners.”

Another longtime runner is Judy Vance, professor and chairwoman of mechanical engineering, who has been running in the groups for 11 years.

“I had been running since my youngest kid was born in ’84 and had been running by myself,” Vance said. “I saw the Blue Shirts running and finally one day someone said, ‘We see you running at noon; why don’t you join us?’

“It’s really great getting out at noon. [It’s] a break in the day to get outside and out of the office.”

The Blue Shirts aren’t an organized group, but a collection of faculty who are out to better themselves, physically and mentally.

“We’re not a club and we’re unorganized in the sense that if you get over there at about quarter till 12 there will be people there getting dressed,” Whiteford said. “Running is important for the exercise and the camaraderie; for the physical exercise, mental exercise [and] mental health.”

Vance said she sees a special bond within the group as well.

“We’re a really close group, and not just the people who run but their spouses have become friends and their kids have grown up together. It is very much a group that has turned into a bunch of very close friends who would do anything for anybody. It’s a great group to, in the middle of the day, let loose.”

Running isn’t just a seasonal thing for this group of faculty, either. Members are out rain or shine, spring, summer, fall and winter. The cold of winter doesn’t bother Whiteford and those he runs with.

“The last several winters, we have only run indoors a handful of times,” Whiteford said. “It’s not the cold — if it’s really snowing and windy we might run indoors. In some respects it’s easier to run in cold, winter weather then in hot, summer weather. [When it’s cold] we bundle up and run just a little slower.”

Vance is one on the way back from an injury, having had ankle surgery in July.

Runners begin gathering at about 11:45 a.m. when they make one of the most important decisions of the day: which course to run.

The groups have multiple courses to choose from that take them around Ames. For example, the K-Mart Six is a six-mile route that works its way to Hy-Vee on West Lincoln Way and was first run when, as the name indicates, K-Mart stood where HyVee now does.

Groups also run the ISU cross country course, a track that Whiteford calls a “beautiful, nicely maintained course.”

Whiteford said these faculty running groups were at their peak in the late ’80s and early ’90s and have begun to see a decline in participation. Part of the reason for the slip in participation can be chalked up to age, he said.

“The groups have suffered attrition thanks to retirement, old age and getting banged up,” said Whiteford, who now runs with a group which consists regularly of two or three runners. “It’s no surprise that knees and backs have begun to catch up with a good number of them.”