Finding a Running Partner

This is to answer a comment on the blog from Tina - so here you go girl.  I am not good at working out alone - truly it nearly kills me!  I've been known to force friends, family, roommates, etc to workout with me over the years.  When I didn't have someone to workout with me I would go to classes at the gym so that I wasn't having to motivate myself.  

Several years ago I lost my workout partner (my little sister) to a move and was just starting my family so I needed exercise more than ever.  I was teaching spin at the time and this awesome girl (pictured below) came up and said "I hear you do triathlons...want to bike outside together sometime?"  I had very little experience riding outside so I was excited to learn all the tricks of road biking from her.  We met and went for a ride and 8 years later we still workout together!!  We did tri's for a few years, have had several kids, have done century bike rides, and lots of running races together.  She is my perfect match - we started out close to the same level (she was a little bit faster than me which was good) - similar things motivate us - and I never get bored talking to her.  Even on our 6 1/2 hour century when it was just us. 

Dirty Dash 10K - Sept. 2011

As the years have passed we've found lots more friends to run with.  Usually when someone wants to run with us I just tell them we run early in the morning, what mileage and pace we run and they can decide if it sounds fun. Our group of running girls grew a lot when I signed up to run Ragnar on an all women's team.

 I have a huge base of running friends now and love it!! 

Anyways....here are some ideas for finding someone to run with:

1 - Start working out alone and keep your eyes open.  If you're out running in the mornings you'll see the neighbors who are out running.  This way you know they workout at the same time as you. 

2 - Go to classes at the gym and meet people.  You'd be shocked how close someone might live that you'd never meet otherwise.  And again you know what time and how they workout.

3 - Post it out there on facebook to see who else is dying to find a workout buddy but is afraid to ask.

4 - Try a Saturday group run.  They sound way intimidating but there are lots of different levels of runners there and your pace will naturally select people for you.  I know runner's corner does them and I'm sure other running stores do as well.

5 - Force someone to do it with you!  It worked for me for a few years with my sister :)  I just told her we were doing a race - signed us both up and found a training program for us to do.