The new normal for runners could lead to more patient and mentally tough athletes that are proof of everything. The COVID-19 pandemic came to modify the way in which different disciplines must be practiced, including running. Today, the most prudent thing is to run alone to avoid contact with other people and thus considerably reduce the risk of contagion.
However, this new normality in running has not been easy to carry for many athletes who were used to training in a group and who even took advantage of their career to live and talk with friends or family.
Will this new "rule" of running alone leave us with anything good? Scientific support says yes:
"Running alone, without companions, will make athletes more patient. In a group, concentration is focused on the talk of the other, instead, running will only make all your senses focus on your career, your performance and the route you take which will improve you as a runner . For people who usually exercise in a group, it can mean a great psychological burden to face themselves in competition, reducing their performance, "explained psychologist Berenice Saldívar in an interview.
When it comes to the performance of a person who runs alone and not in a group, the advantages can also be capital.
"When you run alone, and more if you do it without using any type of gadget or listening to music, you give yourself the opportunity to get to know yourself: you can evaluate the rhythm of your breathing, you will detect signals that your body sends you, you will measure the strength of your footfall and you will concentrate to the maximum on the route and how your body reacts to it, it is not the same on a slope, as on flat terrain or different surfaces ... You will make a timely evaluation that will help you improve your technique and, also, avoid injuries, "added Saldívar.
For the specialist, a fundamental point to convince yourself to run alone and obtain good results is to understand that the competition is with itself.
"Exercising in a group gives you that: a sense of competence. It is a human condition that if you go with someone, you try to follow their rhythm or even overcome it. It is instinct. Then it is the other that determines our performance. Now we try to understand that you are your own rival, you must set personal goals, if you want ruled by chronometer or by kilometers , and if you do not want it that way, also, the important thing is to understand that you exercise to be a better version of yourself without having to start from the other "he concluded.