When I first started my own running journey I spent 12 months training on my own. It wasn’t until I completed my first half marathon and joined my local club Hastings Runners that I realised the benefits of training with others.

The biggest factor for me has been the social side. It’s given me so many wonderful friendships down the years that have enriched my life and made me feel part of something truly special.

When you’re training with friends, especially when running intervals, the sessions can be much more fun and enjoyable.

Having other runners around you is also motivating. Interval and efforts sessions can be very demanding, our natural instinct is to ease off, or even quit. However when you’ve got other people around you, putting in that same level of effort, you’re motivated to keep trying your best.

It also offers accountability. It’s easy to stop a repetition if you’re out training on your own. Who’s going to look that closely at your Strava post?

But if you’re in a group everyone is going to know if you stop early or miss a rep and that alone gives you the encouragement to keep going.

Being part of a group can also lead to improved performance. It’s proven that our perceived effort is lower when running in a group. Having someone that little bit faster than you in a session gives you something to strive towards and you’ll often find you push yourself that little bit harder.

If you join in a club led session then it’s likely it will be structured with the number of reps and the distance you run already pre determined. So all you need to do is rock up and follow the instructions.

If it’s a coach led session then you may also be given some useful tips on your running form. All of these are reasons why I actively encourage any member of my team to join in the group sessions, especially when it comes to interval training.

I appreciate it’s not for everyone and you might even be anxious or nervous about going to your first group run. But trust me, the running community is a wonderful supportive environment and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised as to how comfortable you feel.

If you live in and around the Hastings area I coach two interval sessions a week. One on Monday’s with my local running club on the track in Parkstone Road.

The other is a public session in and around Hastings, meeting at different location each Tuesday. We meet at 6:15pm, do a group warm up and finish at 7:30pm.

Get in touch if either of these sound interesting.