One thing that I’ve experienced in my post-collegiate running career is that workouts are so much harder. What were relatively easy workouts in college are now so much more difficult. One of the reasons for this is that I no longer have a group of training partners to workout with.
As this article points out, having a training partner to run with and support you during workouts and races is really important if you want to improve. Not only does a workout partner drag you through workouts when you’re not feeling well, but a bit a friendly competition can develop during workouts, which helps to simulate a race. There are very few professional runners who train by themselves and there is a reason for that.
I’m not saying that you have to run with everyone every day, but when it’s time to do a track workout, tempo run, etc., it is a very good idea to seek out someone to run them with you. I have heard good things about FindRunningPartners.com in finding a partner to run with.
