The Five Groups Of Friends I’ve Made On The Running Trails

It’s time for Friday Five linkup with DC area bloggers Courtney at Eat Pray Run DC, Cynthia at You Signed Up for What?!, and Mar at Mar on the Run!

Each week Courtney, Cynthia, and Mar either suggest a theme for that week’s Friday Five Linkup, or leave it up to individual bloggers to come up with their own Free Friday theme.  This week’s theme is Free Friday…

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 Hmmmm…….  So what should I talk about?

Well, actually, I was inspired by a random tweet I just sent.

So for today’s Friday Favorites I will talk about my five different, yet equally important, sets of running friends I’ve made on the running trails!

1.  First off, there’s Miles…  Miles was not only my very first serious running friend, but he has been my running mentor, my coach, and my inspiration.  We met at a gym where I worked and he was a member.  I always made sure to be around when he came in to workout, and I still vividly remember the day he told me that he had qualified for Boston.  I was in runner’s love!

A few years later, I told him that I wanted to run a marathon and he nagged encouraged me until I joined him and his guy friends for noon-time Tuesday track intervals.  He sent tons of running information my way, helped me develop my race plan, told me what to eat before my race, and coached me to a BQ.

Miles and I have run many training miles and races together over the last 17 years, and we still try to get together at least once a year for a reunion run.

2.  Second on my list of long-time running friends would be my BRF Susan.  We met because we both moved into the same newly developed community at about the same time.  I’d see her on the trails running with three other ladies, but I was always too intimidated to ask to join them…  They were training for a marathon, and I was just running for fitness.

Eventually I trained for, and ran my first marathon; and while chatting with these ladies one day, they invited me to join them.  I fit right in with their pace, and for years there were five of us that met at 6 AM every weekday to run before we got our young children up for school.  The years have passed, friends have moved away, but Susan and I still try to run together at least once a week.  Not only is she my BRF, but she’s a BFF, too!

3.  Next I met the Cruisers, who have become my peeps!  I feel like they are my identity in the running community because I can be found running endless miles with them on the W&OD Trail on Saturday mornings, and it’s been like that for years.  I first met most of them when I was their coach in a marathon training program I put on for a local gym.

Most of my marathon recaps will include the name of at least one Cruiser, and all of my glorious point-to-point training runs were with this amazing group of friends.

4.  I would be remiss not to mention my newest running friends, my MRTT girls and constant Instagram subjects.  I met these fabulous ladies in January, and when you meet someone two to three times per week in the cold and dark, you bond quickly!

What I love about this group of almost 300 local moms, is the variety of running levels and how everyone can find a compatible running buddy within our chapter.  There happen to be about six of us around my pace that have gotten very close as we’ve met regularly to train for the same races.  I will always be grateful to my Cruiser friend Amanda who introduced me to this new group of running friends.

5.  And newest to the list are my blogging buddies who I only get to meet at certain races, and spend a few minutes with before the gun fires.  I still look forward to every chance meet-up, and we usually have a twitter thread going for a few days before the race deciding where and what time to meet.

On Sunday, I will be meeting Courtney, Julie, and Jenny at the Leesburg 20K, and I can’t wait!  And of course, being the running social butterfly that I am, I’m hoping to meet lots of other local runners at upcoming races.  So if you see that I’m training for a race that you plan to run, let me know, and we’ll organize a meet-up!

Not even an honorable mention…  Although we’ve run many miles and races together, I can’t list my hubby here because we didn’t meet through running.  We met when I threw a snowball at his dorm window when I was a freshman at Virginia Tech, but that’s a story for another day!

 

• Questions:
• Where’s the most unusual place you’ve met new friends?
• Married people:  How did you meet your spouse?
• Who’s racing this weekend?