The Running Community

Sunday, April 24, 2016 · Mike Davis

Good morning! Thankfully I have coffee back in my apartment! Grab your cup and pull up a stool. Running continues to blow up across the United States and beyond. People have come to realize that of all healthy activities, running provides the best heart healthy and calorie burning benefits. Science has proven that running improves various critical functions and structures within the cardio-vascular system that all play a role in the overall efficiency of our heart. Moving blood and oxygen through our circulatory system is what it is all about and while other cardio-vascular activities are helpful, running offers the best value for the amount required. Running also helps to build strong bones, joints and connective tissue throughout the body. Thankfully we understand better than years ago when many thought running was bad for the knees. In itself running is a fantastic activity for a healthy life style but, the healthy benefits are not why running has blown up. Running has become more social than any other activity we do collectively in our society. Runners now congregate in large numbers for group runs, training or scheduled club runs. Pub runs are also quite popular as well, combining running with a post-run social time. Group running offers many benefits such as; meeting people, relaxed conversations, pacing partners, accountability and much more… Today there are more running clubs than ever before and these clubs have played a huge role in keeping runners on the road. Having a group of people to meet up with each week offers an incentive that certainly carries over to the other days of the week when we go out solo. Running once a week does not work, so in order to enjoy a group run it also requires us to get out on our own and maintain a level of conditioning so that we can actually run with a group. Groups are not 100 percent the choice of all runners as many enjoy the solace of solo running. For “No Finish Line Running” we have individual runners as well as we offer multiple group running training groups. What I think makes us unique to other groups is that we offer our groups technical expertise, intelligent training and a relaxed fun environment for which to run in. “NFLR” will have 7 certified running coaches by mid-summer and this allows us to provide runners with professional support that we like to refer to as “intelligent training.” Along with the certified coaches we also offer resources such as Pilates, functional strength and conditioning, physical therapy insight and even massage therapy. Having all of these resources provides our groups a community that embraces healthy and fun running. NFLR has worked with many great runners to help them get stronger as well as offered group training for improvement with running certain distances. While much of these groups focus was on pushing to improve, the environment also helped to develop a unity that contributed greatly to a “community” feeling. Certainly some in our groups desired to push themselves at times but, thanks to our group dynamics, even the best runners enjoyed being a part of our “NFLR” group community. While faster runners may pull away from the pack, our training base system always brings us back together by the end. This helps every runner to feel a part of the group and more importantly a part of the “NFLR community.” Dan Verdick is a classic example of a guy that is tremendously gifted as a runner and often pulls away from the group but, he will tell you how much he enjoys being a part of the “NFLR community.” Not every runner will fit with the “NFLR community” as there are many that desire for a much more competitive environment. That is perfectly fine because there are options for many types of runners. “NFLR” is blessed to have multiple coaches that allow for us to accommodate beginners up through advanced intermediates, while at the same time keeping it intelligent and fun! The community we are developing definitely helps runners get stronger and faster but, we also put a lot of emphasis on healthy and enjoyably running. Next Saturday (April 30th) we will be starting our “NFLR Community Spring/Summer” training group and we welcome you to be a part of it! We will help beginners become runners and intermediate runners become stronger. As I said we have multiple coaches so no one will miss out! Come join us at the NFLR Center at 8am for our kick off and enjoy a part of a truly special running community! Have a great week! God Bless! Mike