running with others and figuring out paces (Read 483 times)

I enjoy running with others as well as running on my own. When I meet others (i.e. - at work) and find out that they run, I'm often eager to try to run together. However, it always comes the question of pace and distance when considering running together. Question: How do people figure out the other's pace and distance? and how close of a match is needed for it to "work"? I've found +/- 0:45 off my "comfortable pace" (8:15's) is about as much as I'm confortable with....narrow, huh? And then, there is the additional quandary of how to encourage beginning runner to run by suggesting to start on a run together, but then, also suggest not running the entire distance together.

If you want to run with some folks, can't you just ask how far and how fast they want to run? Then you can say "yea" or "nay" depending on if it falls in your comfortable range of paces. If your paces are agreeable but some people want to run more or less, you can just arrange to start at the same time or with planning you can have the folks who want more miles to start early and loop back at a specific time to meet the others who will run less. I usually do a couple of runs with a group, but the general pace of the group is usually a very slow easy pace for me, so I use the group runs as recovery or easy runs just to get some miles in and to socialize. I can always go slower, but I don't want to get pushed too fast in a group as I prefer to do my quality work by myself. As for helping a beginner, you could do a mile or 2 mile very slow warm up with them which might be their entire run, and then when they finish you can continue your workout. Or you can do a workout on the track or on side-by-side treadmills at the gym at your own paces so you're both in the same place but running your own paces. Hope this helps...

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