5. Find a running friend.

Running tip #5

I think there should be an online ‘dating’ website to find the perfect running partner.  For hard days, you could go to trackmatch.com and for recovery days try runE(asy)harmony.   In my fairy tale life as a runner, I feel like Jack with his magic beans when it comes to training partners.  In every phase from high school, through college, and pro, to masters, mommy running, and now as an almost empty-nester, I have been lucky – no, blessed – with running mates to brighten my days and lighten my training load.  If you learn only ONE thing from my “running tricks,” let it be this:  find a friend and run stride-for-stride/side-by-side for as long as the magic lasts.  Runner’s World magazine interviewed me, way back when, for an article on the “101 greatest training tips of all time” and I still believe what I said back then (in tip #96) … “It may seem odd to hear a coach say this, but I think a really great training partner is more important than a coach.”  Running alongside your friend with twinned breath and synchronized stride, in winter-spring-summer-or-fall  is like no other relationship on earth.  I wonder if Carol King and James Taylor were ever running partners (?).

 

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