Although you and your squad might not sync up on your menstrual cycles some habits do naturally align among friends: When researchers looked at the running habits of 1.1 million runners around the world over a five-year period, as collected by an activity-monitoring company whose users track virtual friends’ pace and mileage, they found that virtual friends followed similar training habits.
The results, published in Nature Communications, suggest that friends who push themselves to run faster and farther can motivate you to do the same — simply by doing their thing.
Study authors didn’t look into what triggers these effects, but they’re confident that the results prove running is “socially contagious,” according to study leader Sinan Aral, PhD, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management who spoke with the New York Times. That said, their learnings don’t apply to non-runners trying to start up new habits from scratch, or friends who pursue other sports together, for which more research is needed.
As researchers delve into these unsolved mysteries, it pays to go for a jog, which obviously benefits you. Now get out there, and pound the pavement!