You can take the girl out of the competition....

Part of what I enjoy about running is that I can really enjoy it. I think I've said this before, but I grew up in a fairly competitive family. My parents always encouraged us to do our best. Which my sisters and I always took to mean to be THE best. Winning was always the goal. Second place was never good enough. Mind you I say all this and I know that it wasn't that my parents thought that second place was horrible. It was that in my mind I HAD to win. Anything less was unacceptable. Which is why I spent many a state tournament in tears, feeling like a failure. But that's a story for another therapy session.

Running gives me great pleasure because I can just run. I'll never be fast enough to win my age category let alone the entire race. So I'm able to put it out of my mind and concentrate on beating my personal records throughout different runs. Last Friday my competitiveness, type-A, personality got the best of me. This was the day of the 4th of July 4 Mile run and I ran with Allison and M. The course was fairly flat so it was supposed to be a nice easy run. We started out at a nice pace and before I knew it we were at the 1 mile point at 9:50. I thought certainly that wasn't a mile. A turned to me and said: well we were going pretty fast..." I look back and realize yikes! I never prepared M for a 9:50 pace! The best we had done was a 10:30 minute pace on an all downhill run! So I back off and try to get a regular pace. Of course at this time I've already freaked out M's system. It doesn't help that she wasn't feeling well to start with and my crazy pace only upset her stomach that much more. We hit the 2 mile point at about 22 minutes or so. Because I'm never sure when to push people and when to back off, I decided to see if she was up for running. The big eyes and the shake of the head said absolutely not. Not yet. So we walked for a while, ran for a couple of minutes. Was just having a good time in general. That's when it happened: Crazy competitive Helen reared her ugly head.

One of the girls from work passes us. Mind you she doesn't say: see ya suckers! She just says hi and keeps her steady pace. But in my mind I'm thinking OH NO! She CANNOT beat me! And at this point I start having this internal drama. Part of me is saying: you're the reason your friend isn't feeling well. besides you got her into this running thing! Stay with her. The other part of me is saying: She CAN'T beat me!! Well as she starts to round a corner and is about half a mile from the finish line Crazy Helen takes over. I look at M and say: I'm sorry! I'll come back and finish with you again! But I can't let her beat me!" She said ok! go! So I begin to haul butt to the finish line. I think that's the fastest half mile I've ever run.
After crossing I start to head back to go find M. And I see her hauling butt to the finish line too!! I find her near the water and she says: I didn't want her to beat me either!
Turns out my craziness is catching. :)