As a twin, one might say I have a bit of a competitive streak...ok, I might say that! Well, over the years, my desire to compete has somewhat lessened, but it's not entirely gone. Case in point: I have a good friend from my running club, Stroller Warriors, who I often partner up with. We have a similar pace and similar build. (Oh, and we're both currently training for the Quintiles Half Marathon coming up in March 2012.) Every time we run together, we each think the other one is pushing the pace, so we take turns saying, "Hey, I need to slow down a bit, but feel free to keep going." Naturally, neither of us slows down one bit, and typically, we speed up together. Today the training schedule she's following (courtesy of Runner's World) called for an easy 4. Simple right? Well our SW workout was supposed to be 22 minutes out and back. We rolled in at 42:48 with 5.2 miles done. And with our push at the end, my RunKeeper app said we had a current pace of 6:59. Not exactly an easy 4:)
But mid-way through the run, she said, "This sucks now, but in a month, we're going to be glad we did this!" And since we've stayed injury free to date and are enjoying the push, it's what I'd call friendly competition. It's a healthy way to test your limits and keep yourself from slacking. And when we need a rest, we run solo, or with other friends. I'm thrilled to be part of this awesome running club where I'm surrounded by people like this girl:
Do you have someone who pushes you to your limits without frustrating you?
