I admit it. I am hyper-competitive. I realize that to some of you who know me, this is like saying Michael Phelps can swim. I wish I could just enjoy playing a sport, a board game, or a fantasy football season; but I have to win. Even if what I’m doing is not a sport or there are no competitors, I still have to beat some kind of personal goal. For example, we’ve moved around quite a bit and I’ve gotten to where I can unpack all of our household belongings and get the house set up in two days… if I’m hiking, I have to make a certain distance in the allotted time (my wife loves that one)… I actually get upset when my team loses at Pictionary!
My latest competitive endeavor is running. I got into it because our church put on a 5K community benefit and I thought it would be good exercise. The problem is that there is a big timer at the finish line quantitatively judging me to a tenth of a second and a whole bunch of other people trying to run faster than me.
As with most of my pursuits, this one began harmlessly. I ran once a week with the goal of finishing the race without showing everyone what I had for breakfast. After a few weeks, I realized that finishing wouldn’t be a problem and I began to focus on my time. Eventually, my wife asked me why I didn’t just run for the fun of it. I looked at her with that confused look dogs give when they hear a really high pitched sound. Not be competitive… what kind of heresy was this?
When the race day finally arrived, I did ok. Doing ok is the worst result for a competitive person. It’s better to win so that we can feel good about our accomplishment or to lose decisively so that we don’t have to worry about doing well in the future. We prefer abject failure over adequacy.
The interesting thing about running a 5K is that even though the competition is divided into age groups, those age groups are meaningless. From my observation, there is the under 20 age group that is made up of kids that run cross-country and still have all of the cartilage in their knees. The 20-somthings are usually sleeping in and if they wake up early enough to make the race, they will probably place in the top three of their age group due to the lack of competition. I am in the 30-something group. This is kind of a transition zone from the sleepy 20 year-olds to the hardened 40-year olds. Those in their 40’s are mostly serious. Some will run the course in under 20 minutes and for the most part, they are competitive. Just about anyone over 50 takes this very seriously and will finish ahead of the majority of the 20 and 30 year-olds. Then there is the over 65 group. These people actually run to the event from their home. During the pre-race, they do some Jack Palance calisthenics followed by a breakfast of asphalt and nails. Then they whip up on the youngsters, accept their trophy, and jog to the next race… which they run while holding their trophy.
I tell you all of this because, being in the less competitive 30 something group, I actually have a chance of winning a trophy in my age group. Fueled with this knowledge, I have downloaded training plans that include pace intervals, speed intervals, hill work, and endurance runs. What was once a healthy activity is now becoming a competitive obsession.
We do the same thing at work don’t we? Instead of a timer or our placing, we compete for job titles or raises. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being competitive but we have to be careful about why we are competing. Far more important than the attainment of our goals is our decision on which goals to pursue.
