Recently I started exercising in person with strangers I meet on the internet (mostly runs and bike rides). Remarkably I have noticed that my running performance is significantly better when training with others above my skill level compared to when I run alone.

After some research I ended up discovering the “Köhler effect” . In the context of fitness, this phenomenon is quite interesting:

This paper found that less capable fitness partners improved their plank time by about 24% when paired with a more capable partner https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51539278_Buddy_Up_T...

Another paper found that swimmers swim faster in a group setting vs. in an individual setting https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00956611/document

This meta analysis of 13 studies around Köhler effect concluded the effect is likely a function of evidential value and not p-hacking https://academic.oup.com/abm/article/55/6/543/5919674