Learn: Running

Since I was five, I have had asthma. For years it was terrible, and as a middle schooler I began to believe that there were certain athletic things I would never be able to do. As I shared Monday, running was one of them. There were times growing up, I couldn’t breath sitting still, so it was hard to imagine that I would ever run, let alone enjoy it.

Thankfully though, as I grew older my asthma became better. Over the past few years, with a lot of encouragement from my husband, I have started running. I don’t run fast or even very long distances, but I am running.

One day, earlier this past summer, as I ran alone through our neighborhood, I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could find a group of women to run with once a week?” So I said a prayer and put it out on Facebook to some people I knew who might be interested. Sure enough, a few were. We started meeting weekly throughout the summer, and it was always one of my favorite times of the week. But also, unexpectedly, I learned a few things:

First, always put the idea out there. If you have an idea of how to bring the people you know together (even if you don’t know them real well)—for good food, exercise, reading a great book, etc.—always take the chance. The worst people can say, is no. The best, they say yes and your circle grows closer, bigger, or both.

Second, we improve with good company. I didn’t know what it would be like to run with other people. I was a little afraid our paces and distance goals would be different. But one of my friends who came suggested we do intervals. She had an app on her phone to keep track of them, all of us could run for three minutes at a time, and surprisingly we all ran at about the same pace.

What I learned was that by running with them, I ran faster and longer than I ever would have running alone. I already knew that most activities are better with other people, but I had always assumed that things like running were solitary ventures. I was wrong, and I am thankful our running group taught me that.