running with people

[sophinisba]

On Sunday I went running with a group for the first time, and I found it really challenging, even though these three people were very nice and did about the same slow pace and distance I'm used to doing on my own. I usually listen to music or a podfic and find that helps distract me from the difficulty, whereas on Sunday I either had to try to make conversation with strangers (difficult in its own right!) or just listen to my own huffing and puffing.

But more importantly I just found it stressful in a way I hadn't expected, and that added to the difficulty of the running. Like, I'm used to keeping myself going by saying, "Okay, one more minute," or "make it to the next half mile point, and then you can take a break if you need to," and usually I make it to that point and decide I don't need a break yet, and I renegotiate. But when I was with this group I was putting a ton of energy into thinking, "OMG, I'm gonna need to stop soon! How do I tell them that I can't keep up? How do I convince them to keep going?" I was sure that if I said I needed a break they would stop and walk with me until I was good to go, but I didn't want the guilt of having kept them from doing their best workout. Ahhh!

So I kept going but was kind of miserable for a lot of it, and I think that since I did complain a bit they went more slowly and not quite as far as they would have without me. I decided in the middle that I wouldn't try this again until I'd gotten a lot better at running. However, once we finished there was a really nice feeling of group accomplishment, and it was nice having brunch with them and talking about some other events in town, and...I ended up grinning and saying "See you next week!" instead of goodbye.

I saw in another post that a lot of people like running with a group for the extra motivation to keep going, but does anybody else have trouble with the extra motivation turning into anxiety? Any tips on getting over this? And how do you feel about taking a break because just one person needs it?

Comments

[ilanarama]

I don't run with people often but I can assure you that everyone wants to be the fast runner that others have to apologize to and say they need to slow down or take a break, because, egoboo! It means they are faster than you are, yay! Okay, this is a bit of an exaggeration, but seriously, do not feel bad about asking runners of approximately your speed and ability to accommodate you. The only workouts that are negatively affected by going slower are speedwork (intervals) and tempo (when you run a portion of your workout at a pace around your lactate threshold, what you could do for an all-out hour; for your level maybe it would be 10K pace). For regular running, there is no reason to run fast. And it makes people feel better to be told, "gosh, you are just too fast for me!"

I run occasional easy runs with my husband, who is just starting to run and is about a minute and a half per mile slower than I am. No biggie. We run together for 3.5 miles, and then I do a second shorter loop for another 2 on my own.

[sophinisba]

Heh, I hadn't thought of it that way. What I was dreading mostly was having to say that I needed to walk, but there were a couple times when the regulars asked if the pace we were going was good for everybody, and at that point I could have said I needed to slow down. I really do think running with people was harder for me than by myself, but it's probably good for me to mix things up and to get used to it, especially if it's just once a week.