Rivals

Any one have local, or national, or virtual running rivals. Rivals that you expect to beat? Rivals that motivate you to train harder? Rivals that make you bring your A game? Rivals that you take great pleasure in beating in a race every once in a while? Rivals that are on perpetual different training cycles so you never peak at the same time?

I do! I probably have rival runners that fit all those categories. I would never tell someone they are my rival. I keep it to myself as motivation. I have rivals that are my local friends - men and women primarily. And some intra-web associates I would love to beat head to head one day.

I know there are rivalries on these boards!

So are rivalries good!?

Yes, I have real rivals and virtual world rivals. I believe they are healthy, they provide a little extra motivational and they are people I respect...well there's one local who i think is a douche.

sir digby wrote:well there's one local who i think is a douche.

That. Was. Awesome!

I used to have a rival a few years ago. About four years ago when I lived in a smaller city in Northcentral Wisconsin There was a guy that was in my same age group that would run a lot of the race that I would. Since there was a smaller running community, I was normally one of the faster, if not the fastest, runners in my age group. Of course I would go back and forth with this guy. He would beat me and then I would beat him. Now that I have moved to a larger pond, I have found that I am a mu ch smaller fish and really do not have any rivals at the moment. Unless you count myself...

Good only when I win。。。。。。

I would have to say yes and no. There are people that motivate me and that I would like to beat in a race. I will use others around in a race to help push me at times but for the most part I compete more with myself and the clock. I figure the only person that I can take care of or worry about during a race is myself.

So if I focus more on my own efforts and by giving it my best I will meet my goals and at the same time possibly be one of the best in my AG. So I will name one huge rival that I have and that person is "MYSELF"!

Schuey wrote:I would have to say yes and no. There are people that motivate me and that I would like to beat in a race. I will use others around in a race to help push me at times but for the most part I compete more with myself and the clock. I figure the only person that I can take care of or worry about during a race is myself.

So if I focus more on my own efforts and by giving it my best I will meet my goals and at the same time possibly be one of the best in my AG. So I will name one huge rival that I have and that person is "MYSELF"!

I have one. My kindof sister in law Tara. I was never married to her brother-in-law if that makes any sense.

I had been running for a year and introduced her to running. Told her I would run her first half marathon with her. It went well and she finished in 3:30. From that moment on, she kept saying she was going to run this and that at this pace and that pace. Always faster than the paces I was running but my 1st half marathon was like 20 minutes faster??? How was she running faster than me? I was still struggling being overweight at the time and still working on running a steady pace without stopping. I was working my ass off and I knew she wasn't running at all. She just wanted to say she was a runner and it was pissing me off. So she signed up for a few different races and never ran them. BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T TRAIN FOR THEM!

So last year she decided to run another and she got out there and jogged/walked most of it. I was proud of her for getting out and trying to start back up but I was even more proud I set my PR finishing over an hour before her and be able to tell her that is what hard work gets you. Mean right????

She was never really any competition to me. She never ran at the paces I ran and now I'm far from her. I look back and think....wake up Chas. What's wrong with you? I should have been more supportive and pushed her to get out more even if it meant catching me. Because now she's gained so much weight and I'm worried about her. She waddles really bad. I want her to have an active lifestyle instead of sitting in a basement with her other big friends and make cards while having some kind of a potluck each time. I've been to one of those workshops. That food is NOT good for you! I should have set my pride aside and just ran my own race instead of worrying if she was running faster than me that day. I chose not to. BAD FRIEND!

Let's keep this between you and me!

In Memphis we have a road race series. Two races at every distance: July 5K; Aug. 5 miler; Sept. 10K; Oct. 10 miler; Nov. Half Marathon. They take your best race time from each distance and rank you by cumulative time.

I have run the road race series every year for the last 10 years. I have a very good idea of who my rivals are in my age group. And like most other above - I don't consider them rivals I have to beat. I respect them and compete against them as I really compete with myself. My goal every year is to finish in the top 5 in my age group. Some years I do and some years I don't. But through the years there are three or four core group of runners that I am right there with - within a minute of cumulative time. When I beat one, I don't think I whipped them, I think that I had a good race and boy I am glad they were there to push me.

In Atlanta, we have a local race series, and I'm definitely a rival to the other women in my AG and vice-versa, but it is a great and healthy competition and we all have our strengths which makes it more fun.

I have a buddy I run with here and there and we have a healthy competition going. He's never beaten me in a marathon and I can't quite seem to catch him in the shorter stuff. He usually beats me by 30-60 seconds in 5K-10K races and I have him by about 13 minutes in the marathon. It's weird, because we do long runs together and he hangs just fine, which I think speaks to the importance of the mid week tempo/long run combo, which he hasn't ever done.

My best friend and I. Yes, we are best friends ( he was best man at my wedding) and we are rivals. We push each other. Ever since high school when we were both ranked in the top 10 ...me 7 and he 5..in Texas in 4A (3200 meter run), we have been pushing each other. I want to run a race with him so bad, but he is in Dallas and I am in Houston. It was great fun in high school when we would work off each other. I told him, we maybe best friends, but when the gun or clock goes off, we are rivals.

Neil in the virtual world.

There's a guy that runs a lot of trail races here that I'd like to compete with one day. He beat me by 3 minutes in a 5-mile race once, so I think I have a ways to go. I'm sure there'll be some good competition in Auburn.

I don't run enough races to have any rivals. I used to. Then, my rival was just whoever the top female was. Then it was whoever was in front of me. Now, it's just myself and the clock.

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:In Atlanta, we have a local race series, and I'm definitely a rival to the other women in my AG and vice-versa, but it is a great and healthy competition and we all have our strengths which makes it more fun.

I don't forget I have not broken your marathon PR yet.

I don't know if I would call them rivals, but there are several local runners that I always look for their times in events I don't compete in, and attempt to be competitive with them when we are in the same races. I think we all do this, isn't that part of competing?

Oh for sure.

I consider Greg a "rival" in the friendliest sense of the word. He was someone I looked up to when I got into running so when I progressed enough to compete with him, I wanted to beat him. We've had some memorable battles - the time I "beat" him at Shamrock despite what the chip says, when I saw him approaching and blow by me on the big screen near US Cellular in the marathon, the March Madness half.

I have virtual rivals such as Matt W. and some guys on the RWOL forums. I haven't necessarily raced them, but enjoy tracking their training as a form of motivation.

There are a few teammates that I'm usually close to in the local races that I want to beat, and have had some good battles against.

And then there are some runners I flat out hate losing to.

Like others, since the shorter distance races have become less over the last couple of years, I wouldn't say I have any rivals in the other marathons or halfs.

At DWD, there has always been a rivalry between our team and other teams that we know there, but then again, when we never lose to them, is it really even a rivalry?

Bob wrote:At DWD, there has always been a rivalry between our team and other teams that we know there, but then again, when we never lose to them, is it really even a rivalry?

That's a joke right? We just don't have 4Taap any more because Mike lives in the UK (and soon to be California), and Farnk and Sherpa are retired. I'm definitely keeping up my end of the bargain.

I definitely have rivals and they are all close to me and have evolved over time.

The first rivals were my two sisters in Atlanta who encouraged me to run my first marathon, they having broken 3:20 sort of set a standard for me to go after. It took me four marathons to pass them.

Concurrently I started running with a good friend (47 yrs old) and my brother (53) locally as we live near each other and of comparable speed. I'm a bit older (54) than the other two and lack a bit of running athleticism in comparison (my brother ran a 4:20 mile in HS -- no where near for me) so I know I have to work a bit harder to keep up. We are supportive in the way that we make each other show up for training runs, give our best efforts and sign up for races. But when the competition comes its each man for himself in the end.

I've never beaten my buddy, the 47 yr old, but closed the gap to 9 seconds in Boston and I'm 1-2 vs. my brother trailing him by just under three minutes in Boston. So trying to keep them up with them and them ahead of me is a rivalry of sorts, although we all realize that the clock and ourselves are the true competition. We keep it friendly but the result is we all had PRs in Boston, so its been a positive relationship.

charles wrote: my local friends - men and women primarily.

I think someone should call me out on this!

My excuse . . . errr . . . I'm a dog lover!

There's one local guy who is a prolific racer named Ted who I refer to as "My Nemsis". 90% of the races I do around here, he's in. My wife has pointed out that I shouldn't really be allowed to refer to him that way when I haven't come close to beating him or even being all that near him in a race. He's still 60 to 90 seconds ahead of me in each 10K. The KC Royals can't really call the NY Yankees their "nemesis", can they?

A lot of times in races, I find myself running near and around some of the better regional women runners and they are always running so solidly and under control that I make up a new "rivalary" on the spot and try and stay with them. There's one in particular who paces so perfectly that I KNOW I should stay with her right from the start and I've often gotten impatient and charged on ahead in the early miles only to have her glide by me easily in the 2nd half of races and end up with a time that I would really like. I need to simply let her unknowingly pace for me right from the beginning next time I see her at a race. Pacing off of much more experienced and talented women runners has helped me big time in some of my better races. With the men around me, its too much of a wildcard. Some pace OK, some do 5:30 miles followed by the walk/puke/shuffle and many of them seem to run like I do and go out a bit too fast for plan and then fade. The women runners around my times are much smarter and better runners.

When I got started in running in 2008, I wanted to beat Oprah's marathon time. Does that make her count as a rival? Then I wanted to be a little faster than some of my local friends I run with who had been running for longer. Once I got on the boards, I've had a good virtual rivalary with Martin VW. We had a year+ long 1v1 bet. He's still got me in the shortest distances like 1 mile and 5k but I've now caught him in the longer stuff and I'm catching up in the short stuff.

She is a triathlete her name is Chris and a very very good athlete she runs our local bootcamp. My first 5K I lined up right in the front (oops) and she was there ,she asked me what time I would run like I was her competition ,she had no idea how slow I was, I look very fast when I line up, but anyway I thought it was real cool that she actually thought I was her competition .She won the race for women beat me by 7 mins. sometimes during runs I pretend I'm racing her and I am beating her it's a fun game .............so she is my fanatasy rival. One of my running partners is my real rival, lately she has not been very supportive and has been bragging a lot about how "fast" she is . Game on Tracy she is definetly beatable and I can't wait for that one...............

I love and respect everyone. I have no rivals.

I guess I have some, but they don't know it.

I remember checking out Athlinks before and they had a list of who my "rivals" were. Not sure how they determined that, but none of mine were on that list.