The Running Club

Just a quick note today. I wanted to let you guys know about my running club and why if you run alone most of the time, you should look into forming one yourself.

My group is small; it’s just myself and two other ladies. I created the group for a number of reasons. First being, of course, that running alone every day can get pretty boring. Not only that, but the runs we do together give me some valuable socialization time that my schedule doesn’t usually allow. The runs certainly go a lot faster while we’re chatting too. Did you know that talking while running is a valuable tool in pacing yourself? You can tell when you’re working too hard because your friends are getting confused trying to decipher your meaning using your bursting words and gasping breath.

We try to run together at least once a week, but that doesn’t always happen. We do keep in contact during the week though about how our runs are going. The ladies I run with would be considered beginners, which is fine for me, because I can train them however I please and they can’t say anything about it. I set them up with the original Learn-to-Run 10k training program I used a couple years ago, and try to join them on their long run. I’m enjoying my position as coach because it means I get to talk about running at length and people actually care. They often call or text me with a question or comment about their runs and I try to help them out with my limited expertise. It makes me feel smart. I like that.

There are some downsides of course, especially with our different levels of experience. But it’s so much fun and worth it in the end. And, if you’re reading this and I know you and we live close to each other, let’s run together okay?

Happy training everyone!