Fast Tip #5 - Find faster friends and run with them

Gratuity: My runbuds (physically and mentally)

Goals:   Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust. - Jesse Owens

I never thought that running with others would help me.    I always felt the best way for me to push myself was to dig deep down, tune out the world and push on.  I sort of have the independent solo wolf mentality.  I guess I was afraid I would get intimidated or sidetracked running with others.   I was surprised last year that I did enjoy the energy of the other runners at the weekly track runs.   I was still running alone but was surrounded by other runners and their energy helped push me through the workouts.

I was also surprised to find that when family cheered me on and ran with me at the final stretch of the race that it really did help speed me up.

So a few weeks ago I decided to run with a friend (thanks Diane) whose running pace is a slight bit faster than mine.  I was thankful that she was willing to do a slow (for her) run with me.   I ended up doing a PR and it was done in an extremely easy manner.   I really think that if I continue to run with her I will see a major improvement and I am in the process of trying to talk her into pacing me  to an official PR at my next 5K.

I am not sure why it works.  When I run by myself and request my legs to move faster they often disobey, but when running with others it seems they just copy the faster person in front of me and seem to keep up if the pace is just slightly faster than my normal run.    I also think enjoyable conversation helps give me the psycological boost to keep up.

This experience has inspired me to see if I can reach out to others to run with or do some weekend group runs with members of the running club.