Do You Love Running Solo?
When you lace up your takkies and head out the door to run the open road do you run alone, with friends or in a training group? When I was younger and in school it was all about team sports. Whether it be field hockey, tennis, swimming or track & field – it was all about playing well with others. But how does any of that translate to an adult life? Only the lucky few professional athletes get to carry on playing with team members, the rest of us must find a way to transition to other ways of keeping fit and having fun. And that’s what this week’s topic is: do you like to exercise alone or with buddies, and how to find the right groove.
I credit my sister as being the one who got me back into running long distances. She’d come wake me up at the crack of dawn, and let me tell you I’m not the sweetest of chicks when I’m pulled from slumber, eesh! It would take at least a mile for me to be fully awake to what we were doing. As we’d run on the dark streets past all the sleeping houses there’d be little conversation as we focused on those miles.
As great as those runs were I’d somewhere along the line lost my ability to workout with other peeps, and while plodding along I’d tell my sister to go ahead as I didn’t want to hinder her pace. Now we live an ocean apart and my runs are always solo. Most of the other runners I see out and about are also by themselves, with the occasional twosome here and there. Do I miss team sports? But of course, and I chalk up their absence to yet another thing that’s wrong with being an adult and losing one more way to have fun. On my next solitary run maybe I’ll start plotting a way to bring back a little team sports into my life, and not the vicarious via TV versions — who’s with me?
