Companionship and competition

Today and the gym, I got raced. 

I was about a mile into my run, chugging along at 6.3 when it started. 

I had seen her scoping the place out. Tall, blonde and decidedly athletic looking. She had that "runner" look that women everywhere wish for. At my gym there are 2 rows of cardio equipment, treadmills in the back and about everything else you could think of in the front row. I saw her walk past a few of the machines, apparently with none of them sparking her interest. Then I noticed her move toward the back row and assumed she would choose one of the 20 other machines available, but I was wrong.

She stepped on the treadmill right next to me, smiled, a very "are you ready?" sort of smile, cranked the speed to 7 and took off. 

Now as you know I am all about women empowering one another. We need to build each other up, not tear each other down!

That being said, it was so on. 

I was running at 6.3 and knew if I pushed it much faster I would peter out sooner rather than later so I decided to bide my time. It took about 5 minutes and she dropped back down to a 6.2, we were matching each other step for step. As she loped along next to me I found myself wondering why she was there? Why take the treadmill next to me. I was stinky, sweaty, and there were over 20 other machines available. 

I think the answer is because when we feel tired, and weak sometimes we just need that salty sweet mixture of companionship and competition. In those minutes, though we didn't know one another, neither of us was alone in the run. It brought back some of the fun to what could be monotonous miles never moving forward, just moving. 

She slowed down and eventually hit stop but I kept trucking. As she wiped down the machine she smiled and gave me a "well done" nod. I gave a fatigued but genuine smile back. I had won the battle, and just for today I wasn't running alone.