I Came In 3rd

No I didn't have a race this weekend and got some amazing super power to run a lot faster than I already do.  Instead my friends and I engaged in some friendly virtual competition through the Nike+ app.

Apparently when I wasn't running, a few of my friends started running and started to use the Nike+ app to make it a bit more social.  I connected with mostly everyone and quickly realized this was going to be bad for me because I'm decently competitive.

Now Nike+ allows you to see how far you've run by month and week compared to others in your social group.  So that made it competitive enough for me, but we recently decided to have a challenge.  The challenge was simple, and friendly enough... Run 29.9 miles in February.

Of course I wanted to get there first, but I was at a disadvantage as a few of my friends had 10k races this month and others were training for a half marathon next month.  I was ahead of those training for the 10k, but behind those training for the marathon.  Every time I thought I was catching up to one of the half marathon trainees, they took off again.

So those running the half marathon ended up reaching the 29.9 mile goal about a week before me.  It drove me insane, but also helped push me to get out there and run on some days I didn't want to.  It helped push me to my 6.2 mile marker yesterday.  I could have easily stopped at the even 6.0, but needed that extra bit to ensure my 3rd place finish.

Currently, I'm 3rd overall for the month and will probably finish third.  I'll keep trying to catch up to #2, but she is ahead of me in training and I have to remember to train smart rather than train to beat someone.