RunPackGuides · 4 min read
How to run with friends who live in another city
Ways to keep running together when you live apart: same-time runs, a shared weekly target, a private feed of each other’s runs, and a real-life race to aim for.
Moving away doesn’t have to end a running friendship. You can’t share the route, but you can share the routine: run at the same time, chase the same weekly target, and see each other’s runs as they happen. Here’s what works.
Run at the same time
Pick a regular slot (Sunday 9am, or Wednesday after work) and run it in your own cities. Message before and after. If you’re in different time zones, “same day” works nearly as well as “same hour”. Some apps can show friends on a live map during the run, if you want it to feel even closer.
Share a weekly target
A shared target gives you something to talk about all week. Make it fair: if one of you runs twice as much as the other, the same number won’t work for both. Give each person their own number for the same kind of challenge, like longest run, weekly distance or number of runs. Our guide to fair weekly running challenges explains how.
See each other’s runs
Half the fun of running with friends is the chat afterwards: the route, the hill, the pace. A shared feed of each other’s runs keeps that going. Seeing a friend’s run is also a gentle nudge to get yours done.
Pick a race to meet at
A race in either city, or somewhere in between, gives the distance a point. Train “together” for a few months and run it side by side.
Keep it low pressure
Life gets busy at different times in different places. Agree that a missed week is fine, and pick up again the next one.
How RunPack does it
RunPack is built for exactly this kind of small group. Start a crew, send the link, and every run you each do (recorded with the iPhone’s GPS, an Apple Watch or a Garmin) shows up in a feed only the crew sees, with one-tap reactions. Free for up to 4 people, on iPhone. More options in our guide to apps for running with friends.