Competitive? Me?!

This post was originally written October 3, 2006

Every so often, I have one of those moments in which I get a glimpse of myself through other people's eyes. This occurred last night at the gym on the treadmill, thanks to a Random Guy. But let me give you a little background.

I've been told regularly that I'm a pretty competitive person since...forever. For whatever reason, I've never really seen myself that way. Sure, I like to win but I don't actively go out looking for opponents to crush into submission.

That said, everyone from my mother to teammates to coworkers to the 'lump in the bed next to me' have articulated some variation on this theme. I seem to recall in particular once overhearing two rowers during college say, "Dude, I think J-Man is more competitive than we are." And I will confess that when I did cross-country running, I was always a tad faster when someone was running in front of me.

Which leads me to the gym last night. Feeling as though I had slacked off in the aerobic area as of late, I decided to hit the treadmill for a straightforward 20-minute run at a moderate pace. As anyone who's hopped on one of these modern marvels, you know you punch in your time, your weight, your age, your social security number, and a major credit card number and you're off.

Headphones in and iPod set to my "Gym" playlist, I get going at my warm-up speed. To my right, Random Guy joins me. I give a little sidelong glance and make a quick note of his speed and elevation--not too fast and 0 elevation. I punch up my speed up and move the elevation up a notch on the panel, which at that moment oddly reminded me of the controls on the bridge of a Star Trek ship. Well, I was going into battle after all!

For a brief period, I was cruising along, confident in my superior abilities.  I glance over and notice he is increasing his speed. Faster than my rate! Very well. I'll match you, I thought, AND raise the elevation!  I swear I see him look over because shortly thereafter, he increases his speed again AND his elevation. Trying to play the controls with subtlety, I lower my elevation but increase my speed to match his. So here we are, both racing along. Had wings been strapped to us, I'm sure we would have been airborne by this time.

I keep this up until I notice, curses, that my time is almost up. I stab at the panel and increase my speed into a sprint just before the automatic cool down starts.  And that is when I realize my real mistake.  As my machine slowly powers down, he keeps going, like that damn Energizer bunny, while I pour sweat.

I get off after the cool down, collect a cleaning cloth to wipe down the smudged control panel, glance over, and see him still going strong.

As I stretch, I note the nice mellow from the endorphins. I got through two miles pretty easily and will be able to do more next time. With or without the Random Guy. And I know what you're thinking: Ah, that's good. You learned that you are there for yourself and not just to compete with total strangers.

True. But next time, I won’t set a time limit and I’ll run him into the ground if it kills me!!!