ever happen to you?

I guess you can say that I am a competitive person. Lots of folks go out every afternoon and walk or run the Town Lake Trail to keep in shape. Many folks use the trail for the mile markers and to be around other folks. Most people do not feel the need to turn their workout into a race.

Sometimes I just can't help myself.

There are usually one or two folks during a workout who I end up 'racing'. It is usually some 20-3o something wannabe 'buff' guy who obviously can't handle being passed by a girl. Sometimes it is a gal my age who thinks that she should be able to keep up as I pass her. It starts with my pass...I pass at my consistent pace, knowing that I am only slightly faster than them. I tend to pick up the pace just slightly to ensure that I make a clean pass. They respond by first holding on to my newly faster pace, which is a signal to me that they need to be dropped. Sometimes I will not notice that they are holding on and I will get re-passed. This usually pisses me off because the person will only make it about 10 yards ahead of me until they have to slow down their pace again. I actually feel kind of bad for them because they end up running their original pace and I pass them very quickly.

It happened last night. I was at the MoPac bridge coming off of a water break running on the north side. A twenty something 6'2" buff guy is running by as I start, and I just so happened to be a similar pace. I pass him within 200 yards or so, and I can tell that he is hanging on behind me. He is a big guy, so it is not hard to hear his plodding footsteps over my iPod. We go about a mile until he tries to re-pass me. 'OH NO HE DIH-INT!' He surges to get to the typical 10 yards ahead and clearly drops back down to our original pace. We were probably going 8:45min/mile. So, unfortunately for him, I pass him again after only 200 more yards and manage to drop him shortly after that. It was also nice to see him turn off at the 4 mile loop bridge. Oh well, I guess he was not up for 10 miles. That would have been a fun time.