One person might take a few minutes more to get round a particular race or run, but it’s the same course, the same weather, the same hills to slog up or the same sun that beats down on us. Perhaps it’s simply because we are all almost entirely only competitive against ourselves and a clock, so regardless of what the clock tells us, we really do feel that we are in it together. With running, we are all, always, on the same side of the line. It’s getting us to stop that’s usually the problem.ĭoes any other sport really have such a sense of community, or common experience? The most popular sport on the planet might be football, or it might be cricket, or perhaps it’s basketball, but with all those sports comes rivalries, or tribalisms – a sense that you can all too easily be on a different side of a line. Because runners can always talk about running. Two runners together will never suffer from lack of conversation even if, on paper, they have absolutely nothing in common, were born in different hemispheres and are generations apart in age. Running is near-magical for forging connections and common ground. Come to think of it, you had thought they looked familiar, maybe it was from one of your race photos? Within a few minutes, you’ll find they’ve met someone at your running club, you know a few of their running buddies, or you actually finished within about two seconds of each other in a marathon one time. If you’ve ever found yourself somewhere far from home and fallen into conversation with a fellow runner – whether at the start line of an overseas race, in a hotel gym, or on public transport where you find yourself sitting next to someone sporting a familiar race T-shirt – you’ll know the phenomenon well. OK, so the evidence I put forward is more anecdotal than an entire conference on folk tales, but every time I put it to the test it holds true. Today, however, I can exclusively reveal my own study – peer-reviewed by 0.6 of my friends – which proves conclusively that any two runners, anywhere in the world, will find a common connection in less than three steps. After all, who doesn’t have 0.6 of a friend? Using billions upon billions of electronic messages, they worked out that any two random people in the world really are apart by only six degrees of separation. Kate Carter ( are about 7.6 billion people on the planet, yet the theory runs that no two people need scan through a chain of more than six social connections before they find a common one.īack in 2008, Microsoft researchers decided to investigate how true this rather implausible-sounding theory really was. Does any other sport really have such a sense of community, or common experience? Whatever their background, age or speed, runners are always on the same side.