How to Enjoy Your Local Running Scene

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By runningsmarts
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating: (5 Ratings)

Communities around the nation have begun to embrace the running culture as weekend 5k's and large city marathons are becoming more and more popular. Within these large groups of runners are varying personalities, abilities, and reasons why they run.
Whether or not you ever plan on running in a road or trail race, you can benefit, and so can so many others, by being a part of your local running scene.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

A local race calander.
A good cup of coffee most mornings.
A flexible attitude to meet a new group of people

Step 1

Determine your place in the running community. Are you yourself a runner? Do you have a desire to volunteer and lend your time to help others? Knowing this will help you easily fit in into this new world.
Step 2

Wanting to run: if you are a runner, find out if there is a local running club. Most cities have several. More than just having accurate race schedules, they often have running groups that meet throughout the week. These are good for training and having someone to talk to you on your long runs. Some people even use it as a dating service.
Step 3

Race! This does not mean compete to be first overall, but being at races are fun, and often times they benefit great charities. You can test your abilities, and garner bragging rights amongst your friends. Generally the after race festivities are the place to be. At nice races there is sometimes dinner, and often free beer, hard to pass on that.
Step 4

Wanting to Volunteer: once again being part of a local running organization will give you the opportunity to be part of the life force behind any local running event. Whether registering people, handing out water, or laying out trophies, there are hundreds of jobs for those who wish to volunteer. Local races, and even international marathons could not happen without volunteers.
Step 5

Be a spectator! If the race is going by your house, grab some lawn chairs and sit out front and cheer the runners as they pass. If it is a night or evening race, bring your grill out front and make a large event out of it. You can also find out where a race is that weekend and just show up to cheer people on a the start and finish.
Step 6

: Find your locally owned running store. Sure there tend to be better deals online and at the big department stores, but this is running at the grassroots. These stores are generally staffed with those who are runners and racers themselves, and are often more than willing to offer tips and advice. These guys and girls also are guaranteed to know 100% more about the right kind of running show fo you than the guy at the cheaper place just looking to move inventory. They will also have all the juicy racing tid bits from the weekend.
Step 7

Just be nice! If you are on a walk, wave at those that run by. If you are driving and stopped at an intersection and you see a runner about to cross, make eye contact, this way they will know you are not about to plow into them. Just realize that runners are out enjoying their hobby just as much as you enjoy yours. Give the runners and their scene a shot, you are sure to not be let down!