Hey, I'm a student 21yo and I started running more seriously like 2 years ago. I really enjoy running longer distances (Marathon / Ultras) and train quite dedicated for those events. But I also participate in shorter distance events (like 5k / 10k), however I don't train for them specifically.
Running became definitly the most important part of my life (beside career) and I don't wanna miss it by any chance. Obviously I stopped partying, drinking alcohol and all those 'average' things students in my age group do and I'm really happy with that. Don't miss those things at all because running is just more fun for me.
Sadly, I don't have many friends which share my passion, and especially no friends in my age group (let's say my age group is everything like below 30). Not my age group is e.g. father with two children, you know what I mean. I tried a few running-groups and checked some local running clubs without success.
And I don't have a problem with being lonely (otherwise I wouldn't enjoy running probably), but it would be so nice to have some friends to share training progress and to talk about injuries and so on ... and when I have like non-running friends they don't understand me at all why I like running so much and then it's just not a good match.
The fact that I don't have running friends at all in like the range 20-30 makes me more and more sad and I don't really know what else I can try ... What I did: strava, insta, local running groups, parkrun, local races. Do you think it's possible to be happy longterm at the point where I am right now or should I rather change my location to like a running-hotspot with more good runners? I doubt I can be very happy with 'friends' who don't share my passion for running at all, but hm ...