Other People

When I started telling people that I was going to run a marathon, one of the most common things I heard was: "train with other people." While I thought this was a nice suggestion, I realized I would most likely not heed this advice. First of all, no one that I spend a significant amount of time with and who lives within 500 miles of me likes to run more than 5 miles unless livelihood absolutely demands it. Secondly, I thought, I've trained by myself before and that has seemed to work, more or less (yes, perhaps having a running buddy would have helped my realize where the finish line actually was in my 10km race). But, and finally, I thought, running is my time. It's time when people can't get a hold of me, where I don't have to think about anything except for running. There is nothing for me to do but run. I can listen to the same song 10x if I feel like it and no one can say "I'm really sick of hearing that" or "can you turn that down?" Yes, running is something I do somewhat selfishly.

But, I'm realizing that there might be some wisdom in what I've been told about running with other people. There are two reasons why other people are helpful in training. First of all, accountability. If other people are supposed to run with you or at least know you're supposed to be running, it's harder to not do it. Now, I know this isn't something I've come up with-obviously I've read this in books but it's one of those things that you don't really believe until it shows up in your own life. Even if you can't run with people having those around you know you're supposed to be training is, while annoying at times (how often do you want to hear "aren't you supposed to be running right now?") is, in the end, extremely helpful.

And, while I'm at it, I guess I will say the second reason why including others in your training is helpful-encouragement. There's nothing better, in the training process, than having someone else think you're doing a wonderful job. Seriously. When other people know about how much you've been running (and they will, since they're making sure that you're doing your running) they will be impressed. This is also something I learned from the running books.

So, whether or not you have friends who like to run or at least friends who will listen to you talking about running, what I've learned is to include them in training. That, and listen to the advice people give you when you tell them you're going to run a marathon.