Runner Commandment #6: When doing group runs, start on time no matter who’s missing

fitness

By Paul Pajo

You’re ready to run. You’re waiting at the starting line. Your friend asked you to pace for this race and at 5 minutes to gun start time, your friend is nowhere to be found. You hear the gun and everyone starts running and you still can’t find your friend – what happened? If it’s your friend’s first time to race – they might have had the impression that the race wasn’t going to start on time or that it will wait for them. Sounds familiar? You’d be surprised at how many people don’t prepare beforehand how to be in time for a race. Maybe they miscalculate how long it would take for them to find parking or even where they are supposed to be at gun start time. How are you going to make sure next time that you’ll have a friend to pace with? It all starts on encouraging the people you’re training with to be on time if not early for the groups runs and to make it a point to start on time no matter who’s missing? Why is this so? Starting late because you waited for one more runner sends the wrong signal to the other runners that they can be tardy also and bringing this idea to its logical conclusion would mean that you would never have any of your training runs start on time and before you know it, nobody is going to show up for the training runs. Disrespect for other people’s time is clearly just that – disrespect.

It’s hard enough to wake up early or rush from the office to get to a training run so that you can get your mileage in but having to waste time to wait for other people is another obstacle to enjoyable and sustainable running that can be taken out of the equation if people simply come on time or even early. There are some advantages to showing up early on training runs.

One of the advantages to arriving early is that you can stretch and warm-up earlier – some people don’t need to stretch and warm-up as much as others but if you’re one of those people who need a little bit more time to stretch and warm-up before your training run then arriving early for your training runs is certainly good for you. If you’re also early and the one who setting the pace or the one who laid out the route is early then you can have a brief discussion of what the route is going to be for you training run and you can mentally prepare for the run. If you’re new to the running group or your running group is one of those groups that have a steady intake of new runners then being early gives you a chance for you to introduce yourself to the running group if you’re new or you can chat up one of the new runners so that they won’t feel out of place.

But what are you going to do if there are runners that are perennially late coming to your training runs? Waiting up for them is certainly out of the question unless you want more runners showing up late. Actually running on time gives them incentive to show up early and sends the signal that you will start on time whether or not they’re there. But if you want them time to catch up with the running group, one of the things that you can do is either run the first part of your training run so that you go back after a few kilometers back to the meeting point. If it’s a loop then you can go ahead with your tardy fellow runner because they can just join your group when your group goes for the subsequent loops. If your route has hill repeats then you can have the hill repeats first because you can meet them while your running group is running downhill while your tardy fellow runner is about to run uphill (or vice-versa if need be). People could also be late for good reasons so it’s good to factor this into your routes and running schedule factoring the fact that people might actually be coming late but you probably design the training run around them since it gives no incentive for the other runners to actually come early or on time. Be an early bird next time!