Every magazine, every blogger, every coach says the same thing about running: “You are your only competition.” It doesn’t matter if you’re an Olympic athlete or the person who limps their way across the finish line as the course is closing. Are you stronger, faster or better than you were yesterday?
Being Type A, I try – and often fail – to remember this in all aspects of my life. Maybe I’m not the wealthiest writer or a famous novelist. Maybe there are marathoners who can run 26.2 miles in the time it takes me to run a 10K. It’s ok. I’m improving every day on all fronts of my life. That’s what life is about: learning and growing.
I’m racing against myself, I mumble as a zen-like mantra. Just myself. No one else. I listen to the sounds of my footfalls and my breathing. Just myself. I only have to be faster than yesterday’s me. And ooh, maybe that woman right ahead of me. I could totally pass her. Ha! Got her! Watch me go!
Maybe I need to work on this zen-like thing a little more.