I’m not a very competitive person. I really don’t like to compete with people especially when they are incredibly competitive, to me it loses the essence of the fun when people take things a little too seriously. So it won’t surprise you to hear that I generally don’t like to run with other people, i’m all about running alone and getting in the zone. I don’t run to beat time, I run for fitness and to have fun. In fact, when I first started running and i’d see people run faster than me, I would naturally speed up and it would always get me really flustered, because I could feel my discomfort almost instantly. I started to become really nervous to run with people because I would feel obligated to run at their pace, even if I couldn’t handle it. So when I made the intention to start running, I trained alone, and ran at my own pace.
Yesterday, my sister who used to run a lot decided to join me on my run. I’ve always been a little intimidated by my sister, she has been athletic all her life and she can pick up any sport if she wanted to. She’s played hockey, soccer, softball, and tennis. She was training for a marathon last year but got injured. I remember back when I was doing p90x, she would always have a comment to fix my form, and even though it frustrated me, I really appreciated it. Who would want to be doing the move wrong, that basically would get you no where. So even though she hasn’t run in a while, I already knew her pace was much faster than mine. We began to run and she kept pace with me for a few minutes, then sped up. As soon as she sped up, I started running a little faster, and I was surprised that I was able to handle it, so I kept going at that pace. Eventually, she sped up ahead of me and I stayed at the speed that was faster than my usual runs. After about a mile or so, I saw my sister stop running and walking, I caught up with her, and she started running again for a minute or so and then stopped. I kept going and I wasn’t sure what happened, because I didn’t see her until about a mile or so later and she was walking with my mom.
After I finished, I stopped to see what happened, and she said that she had gotten winded. I was bummed that she couldn’t continue the run, but also, was surprised that the girl that I looked up to for all things fitness couldn’t keep up with me. This isn’t a post to gloat, but rather more of surprise, you have to understand that my whole life, I didn’t do any sort of fitness while my sister lived and breathed sports. And although i’m not big on competition, I told her to start training so we can really run together, even if she does outrun me. 😛
I got to thinking about it last night that maybe a little bit of competition won’t be so bad. I really felt a boost of energy to catch up to my sister, and I didn’t feel that fluster that I used to when I first started training. And really if it wasn’t for her yesterday, I probably would have just ran at my normal pace. Now I know I can push myself a little more every run to increase my endurance, and that it’s okay to be a little uncomfortable. I realized that I probably shouldn’t allow my beginner nerves to get the better of my intermediate training, my body can handle a little bit of healthy competition. 🙂
Smizz Runs 