Oh how I wanted to just roll over this morning and go back to bed...

but I didn't.

As I headed out the door for my morning walk, there was a burning question on my mind.  Just how many songs will the Romney campaign try to use as their music and get shot down by the artist, before they give up on musical themes altogether?  I think the latest is "Footloose".  Great imagery, a movie about a rebellious preacher's daughter who throws her premarital sex adventures in her father's face when he won't listen to her discuss her issues.

There was a light on in a bakery I pass each morning that is always darkened.  There are window shades covering it almost completely, but the shining light poured through the space between the shades and the walls.  I actually stopped for a moment and peeked inside, but could see nothing.

It was a full 30 minutes of walking, but I was a bit slower than usual.  Stiffness, fatigue, lack of motivation, I don't know what it was.  I do know that as I was on the homestretch, I was passed by two women who are clearly "senior" to me, but who passed me like I was standing still.  I felt awful for a moment until I remembered that I'm slow because I spent nearly a year flat on my back in the hospital and I'm still "re-conditioning", something I didn't pursue properly in the first 16 or so months post-hospital.

I also recalled something from the early to mid 1990s, back when I was running a road race almost every weekend.  Some of those races were in the valley, which is a strong indicator of just how much I loved to run.  I hate driving over the hill to the valley, even when it's early in the morning on a Sunday and there is almost no traffic.  But everytime I went to the valley to run a 5K or 10K, I'd see many of the same people.  One in particular.

He was in his 80s and we knew this because he would wear t-shirts that made mention of his age, like "In our 80s running club" or "80+ runners".  Every race I ran in that he was in, I'd push myself early to get ahead of him and as a result, later in that race, I'd be in what runners refer to as "oxygen-debt" and he would pass me and finish first.  That bothered me a lot.

So finally when the next race popped onto the schedule in the valley, I made a vow.  I was going to ignore him, run my own race and plan to run negative splits.  That's a fancy running term which indicates that the runner will run the last miles (or other measured lengths) faster than the early miles.  He went off into the distance at the start, and I just ran my race as I'd planned.  Roughly ten minute mile pace for the first two miles, nine minute pace for the next two miles, and then if I could, 8:30 minute mile pace for the last two miles, with my best two meter run time for the final two hundred meters beyond the six mile mark.

I saw him between the three and four mile markers, and for a moment started to pick up my pace to catch him, but I caught myself and stopped.  I wasn't running against him, I had a plan and I was going to stick to it. 

He popped up again in the fifth mile and by the time I hit the six mile mark, he was behind me and he wasn't going to catch me.  I had enough gas in the tank to run pretty hard that last two hundred meters and I passed several people as I did so.  But there was no thought of victory for beating them to the finish line.  I wasn't running against them.  I was running against myself and I'd won.  I'd executed my plan and hit my goal time.  It was my best 10K time ever.

The real competition isn't with others.  It is internal and it can be won.  So if I see those two women tomorrow, more power to them when they pass me by.  I'm walking my own race and I plan to prevail.