It's 8 o'clock Saturday morning, and you're ready to head out and go for a run. What are you looking forward to? Getting away from everything and hitting the roads alone? Or meeting friends and sharing the experience with them? How important to you are your relationships with your running partners? How have your running partners affected your running? How have they affected your views of other people? These are some of the questions that I asked 30 members of my running club.

Last year, when faced with the task of finding a subject for a master's thesis in Sociology, I decided to pick my favorite topic: running. I interviewed runners to learn about their experiences running with other people, to compare the experiences of male and female runners, and to see whether running with other people has an effect on these runners' ideas about men and women. I talked to 15 men and 15 women who are members of my running club and regularly train with other people; these runners represent a variety of abilities and range in age from 26 to 67.

Each person was asked the same 38 questions - everything from "Why do you run with other people/" to "What kinds of things do you talk about while running?" and "How supportive of your running are the people that you run with?"

The main reason these club members run with other people is to socialize. They like having company, being with friends, and talking while running. Many explained how running with someone else gives them motivation to get out the door or makes the run go by faster.

All 30 said that they talk while running with other people. While on training runs, these runners talk about everything from politics and sports to peanut butter, other runners and romance. Some runners enjoy learning training strategies and tips about running and even trading information about things unrelated to running, like jobs, recipes, groceries, and where to buy parts for cars. One runner called this a "mental swap meet."

Some participants said that they talk about "personal" topics (such as marriage, divorce, and disease) while running and pointed out the "unwritten rule" of the run: anything discussed while running will not be repeated. A couple of runners described these conversations as "peer therapy."

Even during a race, while some people are too busy "sucking air" to speak, most participants said that they do occasionally manage to give encouragement to other runners, point out scenery, or ask others how they're feeling.

Support from other runners is very important to them; all 30 participants have running friends who support their running. As one woman said, "I think that's one of the nice things about the running club. Everybody supports everyone else." Besides encouragement, support from other runners also includes advice, clothes, and cups of water at the finish line of a race. A few people explained how other runners are genuinely interested in and concerned about each other.

Participants were not as enthusiastic about the support they receive from family and non-running friends. Although all of the 30 runners have supportive running friends, only 40% said they have supportive family members and even fewer talked about supportive non-running friends. While some of these family members and non-running friends are "proud" or "admiring" of the running, others consider it "silly" or make negative comments, like, "What in the world are you doing this for?"

More than half of the runners said that at least some of their running friends are very good friends. One woman said, "I feel very close to lots of runners. I think you develop a bond with people that you run with." Almost all of the participants run with other people at least once a week, and all of them get together with their running partners outside of running. Although the 30 participants would usually rather run with other people than alone, they sometimes like to get out on the road by themselves to think or relax or just to "get away" from everything.

When asked to compare their running friends with other friends, some said that they spend more time with their running friends, and others said that they feel closer to their running friends. According to one runner, "You get a lot closer to people when you're really working hard and gutting it out and working together. So you can have really, really close running friends." Some runners pointed out that their non-running friends either don't understand running or are not interested in talking about it. One man explained, "Non-running friends typically don't understand. 'You're crazy. Why do you do that?' They kind of get a chuckle out of it." A few runners explained that their non-running friends might ask about their running but out of courtesy rather than interest.

Almost one-third of the participants think that it is easier to talk to or be friendly with a person of the opposite sex if that person is a runner. Why? Simply because of the common running experience. "That's like the social grease there to talk about your common interests," said one. Two people said that male and female runners have a brother-sister type of relationship. One man compared the running community to the "Woodstock nation" because everyone has the "shared ordeal" of running in common.

Some people think that runners of the opposite sex treat them with more respect than do non-runners of the opposite sex. Others think that runners treat each other as individuals. One participant said, "I get treated as just another one of the runners. At work it's different."

For most of the participants, running has had a positive effect on the way they view members of the opposite sex. Some women are more comfortable with men, and other women have more respect for male runners after running with them. Some men say that they have gained greater respect for women athletes, and others said that running has allowed them to relate to women as people. One man explained, "To me, the biggest thing is that you can relate to them as people rather than as a person of the opposite sex."

Some runners said they wished that more people would exercise. One man said he feels "more comfortable" with women who exercise, and two men said they will not date a woman who does not exercise.

Three masters runners told me that running gave them their first opportunity to interact with athletes of the opposite sex. What effect did this have? One of these runners has since "developed a great deal of respect" for athletes of the opposite sex, and another can now "relate" to members of the opposite sex "as people."

Are there any differences between running with women and running with men? Most of the 30 runners thought so. About half of them said that women and men tend to talk about different things while running. They said that women are more likely to talk about personal things while running, and men are more likely than women to joke and tease each other on the run. Also, almost half of the participants think that male runners are more competitive than female runners. A few participants pointed out that some male runners do not like to be beaten by female runners.

If they could choose the gender of their running partners, most participants either would not care or would run with a combination of women and men. Some claim that running with a mixed group makes the group balanced and adds variety to the conversation. Some participants observed that they know or train with runners of a variety of different ages and backgrounds.

Many of you probably haven't given much thought to the effect of your running on your views of men and women, or whether there are differences between running with women and running with men. Not surprisingly, when questioned by me, many of the participants had to give it quite a bit of thought before coming up with an answer. Some of them said that they had never before considered such things but would pay attention to it on their next run. What do you think?

I am grateful to the 30 runners who took the time to share their experiences with me. Through these interviews I not only completed my thesis (and finished school!), but made many new friends in my running club.

Jennifer Kuta runs and socializes with Montgomery County Road Runners. She identifies several of the best reasons to belong to an RRCA running club. The friendships, support, and quality experiences extend beyond running.