No Strava, No Problem

Two years ago, after encouragement from my partner, I joined a running club. As a freelancer, and someone who spends most of my time alone, getting to run with a few others and make friends was a lot of fun. But sometime in the early summer last year, I stopped going because I wasn’t enjoying it any longer. I was finding it harder and harder to identify with the other runners, which made it difficult to make friends. I realised I had also started to spend every club meet masking, which exhausted me before I’d even ran five yards. Things came to a head when, when socialising with a few members, conversation turned to what races we were all entering. When I said I wasn’t planning on entering any, and might never do so again, instead of accepting my decision, I found myself suddenly placed under peer pressure, constantly being egged on to sign up for a race. This didn’t go on for five or ten minutes, it happened repeatedly, until closing time, and I found the very nature of the incident l

by Matthew Curtis · source ↗