Competitive Much!

Every day I ride home from work (about 3.5ks). Its a fairly short and easy ride, mostly flat with a couple of slight “hills” along the way. Generally at the end of the day I’m fairly tired/drained from working all day and often I tell myself “I’ll take it easy on the ride home – there’s no rush”.

Pretty much without fail I tend to ride home as fast as I can. Not only do I enjoy riding fast but I find it to be a good stress relief after sitting in front of a desk all day. On most days after I ride home I tend to do some other form of excercise as well such as going for a 5k run, playing Frisbee or playing Badminton (which I am doing tonight).

That said, I still don’t think this is cause to thrash myself on the way home and constantly end up puffed and icky by the time I arrive. Should I come across another rider on the way home my brain turns into competitive overload! I either have to keep up with them if they’re faster than me, or overtake them and leave them behind if not! I don’t understand it but I can’t simply maintain the pace I am going and be happy with it.

Tonight for example I was waiting at some traffic lights and someone rode up next to me. As soon as the lights change I rode off as fast as I could and kept at it flat chat, along a decent amount of flat and then up a rise where I then turned off. By the time I got to the turn off I was puffing like crazy and certainly not maintaining any sense of speed!

Surely this is unhealthy?

What can be worse is that I’ve been known to get into a similar mindset in much more dangerous scenarios, such as…driving. More recently I’ve been much better but my driving record certainly isn’t amazing including fines and accidents which I am far from proud of. Sure we all make mistakes, but competitiveness can be a dangerous thing.

Whilst thinking about this on the ride home I realised that its probably not all bad. I think my competitiveness streak has assisted me throughout my life as well. As a kid my dad would often tell me “A job isn’t worth doing if you don’t do it right”… translation – don’t do anything have cocked, give it your all. This attitude, coupled with a bit of a competitive streak ensures that, in my working life at least, things get done thoroughly and things get done well. I believe my place of employment appreciates this regularly, even on a daily basis. Given the topsy-turvy nature of our company, doing things to the best of your ability, and therefore being proud of them, is crucial.

The same applies for most aspects of my life really. Anything I do around the house, any sport I play… I like to make sure I’ve done my best. Whilst being “competitive” isn’t exactly the same things as doing things to the best of your ability, I think “the best of your ability” is actually even better if you’re a bit competitive about it.

Now that I’ve sat on the bed writing this for 20 minutes I think I’ve recovered from my intense 10 minute ride home – maybe tomorrow I’ll take it slowly…