Group Running

Typically mondays are group running days and I like to post about the heat (gawd - is it hot here) or the rain (yes, it teased me yesterday during the early part of the workout only to leave me with more humidity than needed) but during the runs yesterday I noticed something.

You see, we had about 5 new people join the group and while Mark was spending time with them going over the techniques and form and other stuff I ran with a couple different groups of people. I've been coming to the group for a little over a month and like any group, there are people of all different speeds and they tend to group up, because of the good ol' south heat and humidity most conversations tend to gear towards the weather. Yesterday however, there were quite a few conversations about people dislike of running, or rather their dislike of running alone.

I have to say that this is a lot of the reason I started running with a group in the first place, so I like everyone else, like running with a group. What I think is odd is that running is really an individual sport. Rarely are there two people who run at exactly the same speed, usually one is pushing the other to be better and one is trying to be better.

Running is about determination - personal determination and motivation to do something just for me. If you run for fun, it is just that...there are no medals, no parties at the end of it, just you and your thoughts. There is no special equipment needed, no set times to do it, no need to reserve a place to run - just you and the road, maybe some tunes or perhaps your thoughts, but otherwise it is left up to you.

So why is it that people want to run but dislike running alone? If the alone part of it is hard, then why don't we choose a group sport? I don't have an all encompassing answer - obviously everyone is different, but I can speak from my view point.

Running is a release. It doesn't require much planning, it doesn't require any special training (unless you want to be competitive) and it's easy. Yes, that's right, running is easy. I'm not saying that a marathon is easy, but just getting out and putting one foot in front of the other is easy...baby steps, we've all got to start somewhere. The hard part comes into play day after day, especially when the heat or cold sets in, when the weather conditions are not ideal and it becomes easy to make excuses about how busy we are. The beauty of running is that no matter what...we can still do it-for as little or as long as we like.

Group running - that just brings us together with other people who are like us. Runners are a unique breed and no matter what level they will always encourage you to do it. For me, I may complain about the heat, the humidity, the amount of things I should be doing instead of running, but really I enjoy every minute I'm out there!