This morning I did another short run of 5 miles, this time in 41 minutes, shaving 2 minutes off my Tuesday time. I am getting close to a sentimental goal for my 5 mile time, which I’ll talk about when I reach it, hopefully next week. Not much else to report on my training. Looking forward to upping my long run another mile to 11 miles this Saturday.
Earlier this week I heard a speaker who was espousing the benefits of training with a partner, which led to my question for today…
In his talk he mentioned 5 benefits that come from working out with a partner (not specifically marathon training):
- Greater results – Spur each other on to be better.
- More consistency – Accountability, no excuses.
- Higher motivation – Encouragement, adds to the “fun factor.”
- Better execution – Partner helps you correct things, see blind spots.
- Increased skill set – Learn from each other.
To this point I have done all of my marathon training runs by myself. I think I’ve gotten some of these benefits from other people online – through this blog and forum discussions. I’ve certainly gotten (#3) higher motivation and encouragement from talking with others online and (#5) I’ve learned a lot. So, I want to through these questions out for discussion:
- Do you train with others? If so, how much does it help and in what ways?
- If you’ve run a marathon before, did you run it with others? If so, how much did that help and in what ways?