Running partners

Although I have several running friends who prefer running alone, the majority of my running friends have one or more regular "partners". How one finds a partner, and the qualities that one is looking for, are questions that have presented themselves throughout my running career. In the simplest sense, a partner can be someone that you meet every morning or afternoon, for the same route and at the same time. It could be a neighbor, a friend, or co-worker. The principal driver for such an arrangement is knowing that somebody is waiting for you, making it hard hit the snooze button or head home without doing your scheduled run. Some of these develop into a deeper friendship, but most either wither away or end up morphing into a larger group, with different times and people.


One can also develop partners in a training group. These are really pace driven in the initial sorting, and then as you do longer runs, one finds who tells interesting stories, has a sense of humor, or just likes quiet company for the first six miles. These tend to develop into deeper friendships over the course of the runs, breakfast afterwards, pot lucks and getting together on race weekend. I have about eight dear friends that were developed this way.
What does one look for in a partner? Obviously you want somebody who is compatible, in pace, ability to converse, and who is reliable. Let me digress. There is a diner that I frequent that had a new sign in the front window last week: "HELP WANTED A reliable DEPENDABLE SERVER, APPLY INSIDE". I was amused at the sign because the owner had hand written "reliable" above the printed "DEPENDABLE". At lunch I joked with the owner about his sign and he said the last server had been let go because she was habitually late, and yet lived 2 1/2 blocks away!!
In the running world, running or driving to meet someone and not finding them there, or getting a text that they're running late, are only going to last so long before you move on. One of my dearest running partners was established when I started running with her husband and other neighborhood runners. As time developed, most of the men frequently didn't show up, and the only constant was her.


As my training got more serious, and I wanted more distance and a faster pace, I started running with someone who I had spent years waving and saying "Hi" to each morning as we passed in opposite directions around Lake of the Isles. I had a whole story in my mind about her: she was a nanny and was running early before the parents left for work. Wrong. Actually, married with two children, and she was a college instructor!! She has developed in to my most frequent and closest running partner. Running in all types of weather, laughing while we jumped through snow drifts around Lake Calhoun, running races together, helping her train for her first marathon. An amazing person and a great conversationalist. Plus, she is dependable.

Sometimes fate or serendipity puts you together. After Grandma's Marathon five years ago, I had a good race and was sitting on a deck just past the finish line. I struck up a conversation with a younger woman and we both commented on how happy we were with our respective races. We ran in to each other again after she had met up with her boyfriend in the beer tent, and discovered that we were both planning to attend a Twin Cities Marathon anniversary party at Minnehaha Park the following week. After meeting again at that event, and exchanging e-mails, we scheduled our first run together, up and back on Wirth Parkway. I planned out an eight mile route, and took note where each mile was. We had a great run and, while she trains on her own for the week, we have met almost every Sunday morning for our "recovery" runs since then. She has since gotten married, had a baby, and yet we continue our tradition. She is reliable.

What do you look for in a running partner?