Now that our No Boundaries Friends are moving into the 10K training class, let us tell you about a special club out there on race day. It’s a different set of friends that you see several times a year called, “Race Day Friends.” We’ve been out there, standing around in the starting line and seeing a sea of familiar faces.
My race day friends have moved from a general “hey, how ya doing,” to a more competitive bunch. We started off patting each other on the back each race then realized that we’re finishing around the same time. That moved to realizing that we’re finishing CLOSE together on race day, now we’re looking at each other as our finger moves to the start button on our watch as the gun goes off.
The best part of race day friends is they challenge you to be better, when you are running with them you’re either running faster than you normally would keeping up with them or they’re doing the same thing to keep up with you. My last race finished with a sprint I would never have done had I not had a race day friend breathing down my neck throughout the entire race, only to finish 3 seconds ahead! (bragging rights for one year on that one). Another friend was there telling me to get my butt in gear during a swim and I did finish sooner than I expected.
So if you haven’t said hello to those same people you see race morning, take the time before you jog up to the starting line and lay your finger on your watch. You never know, you may get a PR trying to beat one of those Race Day Friends!
Hey, veteran runners, what are your stories of Race Day Friends?
I have been running with my "race day friend" Elizabeth that I met @ the 1st No Boundries 5K training in Spring 2008. I asked her if we would be in the same age group (I was 43). She stopped in her tracks and laughed. How old do you think I am???? I was guessing early 50's, she was 61 years old and she too had just started running. We now try to run together @ least once a week.
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