Running Conversations
Posted by Rick Cleary
I’ve been running with my friend Fred for over ten years now. We start out weekday mornings at 5:15. That’s forty-five minutes earlier than I’d have to get up if I was running on my own, but most mornings it really is worth it.
Why is it worth it? Well mostly it’s because we’re friends. There’s no pretension, there’s no reservation, we just are. We’re who we are and we don’t have to put on a show or watch what we say. If anyone was to listen to our conversations I’m sure they’d wonder if we weren’t suffering from some undiagnosed psychological disorder. Our conversations don’t have to have a theme and usually they don’t even fall in the same thread. Near nothing is off limits. It’s kind of funny really, he may be talking about work and I’ll follow with something about my daughter. We really do listen to each other, it’s just that we’re running so we don’t have to follow the conventional polite conversation etiquette. Our conversations are easy and free flowing even if our running isn’t always that easy.
I find that when running with other runners there is a similar flow to the conversation. Maybe not as easy as with Fred, but it’s easier than regular conversations. I find myself sharing things about myself that I would never think of doing at work or in a social situation. Things just have a way of flowing out during runs. I’ve ran marathons with people that I didn’t know from Adam, but by the end of the race, I felt like I was a friend.
Even running with runners of mixed generations there’s still that easy flow. I’m in my late 40’s and I sometimes run with kids as young as 15. Sure, I don’t talk about my adult worries and they don’t talk about their puberty issues, but there always seems to be something to talk about. I doubt it would be the same in any other situation.
Maybe there’s something about the camaraderie of sharing the same activity, maybe it’s that you aren’t face to face with the other person, but running side by side that makes it easier? Not sure I have a true answer, but for me it’s one of the best things about running.
Discussion
Add your comment or discussion below. | Subscribe to these comments.
You can use these tags:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>