As individual as the sport is, “there is this amazing energy when you are running in a group,” says Alexandra Weissner, 30, the Denver cofounder of bRUNch Running (the group meets for runs followed by, you got it, brunch). A run club can help hold you accountable to show up and motivate you to log more miles or sign up for a race. Bonus of being a (single) social runner: You just might make a love connection. When Sara Haas, 37, a consultant dietitian and chef in Chicago, met her now-husband, they were both training for the Chicago Marathon. They started logging their miles together soon after they began dating. “It was a great way to build our relationship and a fantastic way to share our day and vent our frustrations,” she says. “We’ve worked out a lot of problems on the city’s lakefront path!”
Make it work for you: Ask a local running store for listings of groups near you, or use the app DASHR to find a running buddy with a similar training goal or pace. Want to start your own group? Weissner recommends finishing the runs where they start, so it’s easier to keep everyone together even at different paces. We’ll also leave you with this inspiring quote from Wittenberg: “There is a relationship that develops on a run that is canyons deeper than results from a cocktail party conversation. When we run we are real, we are raw, we need each other, and pretense is roadkill. We don’t have to pretend to be someone we are not. Who has time for that when we are sweat-soaked and trying to survive the hills of San Francisco or Seattle or Central Park?” Amen.