I'm a little TOO competitive...

I've decided that I just might be a little too competitive. But first, a funny story.

Tonight as I was heading out for a run I was sending a quick text to Rosa. She had asked me a question and I needed something to do while waiting for my watch to locate satellites. As I was texting her, I also happened to see a 30something year old male rollerblading, with his gigantic chocolate lab. This is a hilarious site to see, so of course in addition to answering Rosa's question I tell her about this rollerblading man. While I am looking down at my phone I feel a gigantic nasty bug buzz by my ear, which freaks me out. I jump and start swatting at this bug. I look back to make sure it's not coming after me again, and realize that it was really just the neighbors tree branch that grazed my ear. Nice. Freak out city Karen, all over a tree branch. The rollerblading man may or may not have witnessed this...I'm not too sure.

Anyway, I've been realizing how incredibly competitive I am. Not necessarily with other people, but with myself. For example, I always want to beat my last fastest time, whether it's running 3 miles on the treadmill, 2 laps around the neighborhood, or a half marathon. I don't feel like I could run a half marathon "just for fun"...I feel like I need to run it to beat my last fastest time.

Last Monday I ran 2 laps around our neighborhood in something like 22 minutes. The previous record was 24 minutes. I come home and start mouthing off to my husband (who is a much faster runner than I am), about how if he wasn't just getting over tendinitis I would want him to go run 2 laps as fast as possible to see if he could beat my time. Ummmm, yeah, way to be sensitive Karen.

Then, on Friday, we ran with B and A. By we, I mean James and I, along with Zack in the jogging stroller. We were going 6+ miles. I was super excited that James was going to be there. We ran a loop that involves running up the gigantic hill on La Canada. I pushed the stroller for the majority of the beginning of the run, and B was going to push it up the hill (James is dismissed from stroller pushing duties as pushing the stroller messed up his stride=bum knee for 6 months. I will gladly push 800lbs of baby and stroller if it means James is running with me.). This hill is the type of hill that makes you sweat when you drive up it...it's that steep and long and horrible. So, B is pushing Zack up the hill, and he's ahead of all of us. He tells Alexis and I that we aren't allowed to stop running until he stops running. Alexis tells him, "see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya" and walks with James. I, however, got all crazy competitive, and wanted to see how far up the hill I could run before stopping. B, who is still ahead of the rest of us, stops running about 3/4 of the way up the hill. When I catch up to him I keep running (this made James' day). So, B starts running again, not wanted to get get toasted by a girl (even though he is pushing a jogging stroller, which really feels like you are pushing 800lbs in front of you). He begs me to stop, and I don't. He starts crying, and I keep going. Okay, okay...maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit. But, B and I made it to the top of the hill and we were both near death. James and Alexis come happily jogging up the hill, like normal people who know how to take it easy. I wish I had this in me.

But, the real icing on the cake occurred Saturday night. James was giving Zack a bath. Zack has foam letters in the bath tub and James and I like to spell funny things on the wall in the tub. Well, James decides that we should see who can spell the longest word. This is a teensie bit hard since there is only 1 of each letter. James continued giving Zack his bath while I was off in the kitchen making dinner and thinking of long words. James keeps telling me the words he's coming up with. Then, he announces that he has the longest word; quicksand. For the life of me, I cannot come up with a word longer than quicksand (I did try and see if he would accept "quicksander", he did not, and neither does spell check). I am tempted to cheat and see what I can come up with using Google, but, I'm going to play fair. Still, I am frustrated that James came up with quicksand and I cannot think of a longer word! Who gets frustrated over foam letters in the bathtub? Me.

I think I need to take up some less competitive hobbies. But, if I will gladly accept a foam bathtub letter challenge, I can probably make even needlepoint competitive.