It's Okay to Run Alone

Words of solace for the quiet and clout-averse.

I’ve got nothing against run clubs and clout-chasing social media “run-fluencers.”

Do you buy that? Hundred percent true.

To begin with, my wife and I started a club in Tacoma, Washington almost fifteen years ago. It grew to thousands of runners, regularly pulling a hundred or more a week. What’s more, we grew this crew with the help of newly-blossoming social media channels like Twitter and (gonna date myself here) Facebook Groups.

So, this is not a stay-off-my-lawn piece. No takedowns coming.

We should all be stoked to see the growth of this sport into so many corners of the mainstream and countercultures. There’s room in running for each of us to have something that feels good. Everyone in the pool, it’s a party!

That said, I’m going to make the case that, in spite of the prevailing message of the day, a person does not need to share their running with others to give it meaning.

The Trend-ulum

In our modern media landscape, the pendulum of trends swings to extremes. Whoosh, running is for health. Whoosh, it’s about performance. Whoosh, it’s minimal. Whoosh, maximal. And, whoosh (where we we find ourselves today), running is all about community.

Problem is, these dramatic swings leave the middle ground—entry point for newcomers and safe space for folks who’d just like a nice, quiet practice—perpetually vacant. When running looks like a hard seltzer ad, where does that leave those folks?

When the marketing and influencer volume is turned to ten, a person can find themselves asking, “Am I doing this right?”

Nobody’s Immune

A couple weeks ago, I got a little salty about the “real runners do it in a group” paradigm. Propaganda from the clubs-and-communities cabal was taking its toll and I told my wife I was feeling a weird (albeit self-imposed) pressure to write something about social running, even though it's not an integral part of my experience.

“Look around,” I said. “The insinuation that, in order to derive substance from a thing, we have to do it with a bunch of strangers, is everywhere.” I sent her an article I’d just seen on mindful.org and highlighted some of my least favorite soundbites:

The Benefits of Meditating With Others

• Amplified joy and connection

• More profound and transformative experience

• Humans are inherently social beings

Amplified joy, as in, “This joy goes to eleven.”

More profound, as in, “Thank goodness Larry was here for my journey inward.” 

Inherently social, as in, “If you’re not social, something in you is broken.”

Lisa, ever my biggest supporter, responded by pointing out the money trail in that particular article. There were at least three paths to monetization directly related to group meditation. I’d forgotten the golden rule: follow the gold.

It was the jump-start I needed—and regularly need—to remind me that my “whys” are my own, and won’t be found outside myself.

More Reminders

You won’t have to dig to find the paths to monetization hidden in this article. There aren’t any (but feel free to buy me a coffee). I just want my fellow introverted, introspective, minimalist, traditionalist people to know, it’s okay to run alone.

You might even experience …

• Mental clarity: A solo run is an opportunity to process emotions and clear out accumulated brain clutter. In a noisy world, these quiet moments are precious.

• Flexibility and autonomy: In a group, you’re beholden to the preferences of others. Alone, you set the schedule, goals, and pace. Push or take it easy. Go one more or cut it short. Up to you, boss.

• Mind-body connection: Without distractions, conversations, and pressure to perform, you can focus on form, breathing, and feedback from your body.

• The power of independence: When motivation dips or you encounter unexpected challenges, you bank resilience by handling things on your own.

• Ritual and routine: As a society, we seem hell-bent on novelty. Ritual anchors us to something solid and becomes a space for reflection, renewal, and self-care. Running solo, there are fewer barriers to consistency.

The Finish Line

I’ve been running by myself for close to twenty years. That flirtation with run club management ended because I preferred not to deal with—people. Let me be more direct. Tacoma Runners and the “Thursday Beer Run” became, at times, painfully difficult for introverted me. To cope, I drank too much.

Point is, I’m okay with being mostly alone and with close loved ones. Even writing that feels exposed, because it’s not widely accepted—or at least not widely promoted by the marketing machine that signals what’s acceptable. Accepting it about myself only came after years of hiding behind drink and finally getting sober.

There are others like me, and this article is for you. It’s okay to run alone.

To the readers who enjoy and derive energy from group runs and crew building, huzzah! Thank you for giving back to this community we all love. Just be open to the idea that we’re not all built that way. Check in with your quiet friends. Remind them it’s okay to run alone.

Run lightly,
-mike

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