Running and community
Running clubs have become the accidental community centres of modern cities. Here is why they work so well socially.
Something about running alongside someone — working hard together, breathing hard together, pushing through the same discomfort — creates a bond that more formal social situations rarely produce. Running clubs have discovered this by accident and now depend on it entirely.
Shared physical effort is one of the most powerful bonding mechanisms humans have.
Endorphin release during exercise is substantially higher when you are exercising with others than when you are exercising alone. Synchronised movement — moving at the same pace, breathing the same rhythm — triggers neurological bonding effects that researchers compare to music-making and collective ritual. You are not just running at the same time as other people. You are, in a meaningful physiological sense, doing something together with them.
The conversation that happens during a run is also different from stationary conversation. The side-by-side format — not face to face — reduces the social surveillance that makes difficult topics harder to raise. People say things on runs that they would not say across a table. The forward momentum and shared effort seem to create a kind of emotional permission. Therapists have noticed this too: walking therapy and running therapy produce disclosures that standard office sessions often do not.
Running clubs work as community because they combine all of this with regularity. You see the same people every week, you do something hard together, and the coffee afterwards is the easy part.
Connection should not have to wait for the next 6am start.
Mindfuse provides anonymous one-on-one voice calls with real people, available any time. The kind of honest conversation you have on a long run, with someone you have not met before. One free conversation per month, then €4/month. iOS and Android.
A good conversation, without the 6am start.
Mindfuse: anonymous voice calls with real people. €4/month.