The Importance of Friendly Competition
It’s possible to achieve more together.
Running with your buddies can be well worth it. I’m someone who prefers going as a lone wolf, but I won’t turn down a little friendly competition.
I’ve been on my deployment for nearly a year and have run about 800 miles. Most of my miles were alone. As we near the end of our deployment, feelings of nostalgia kick in. Since we all began to recognize that this camaraderie is coming to a close, we started spending extra time together.
In my unit, there’s one individual who’s as strong of a runner as I am. Sometimes, we’ll run sub-6-minute miles and push ourselves farther than we thought was possible.
As some time has passed since we started our friendly competition, I’ve noticed quite a few benefits.
1. You’ll Push Yourself To Be 10x Faster
My buddy and I went with a group of five to complete a two-mile run. I told myself I would probably fall behind and just sit back.
The opposite happened.
We started running, and I found myself running 10x faster than I expected. I could see my buddy’s shadow approaching every so often (since we ran at night), and I never looked back. Being the lead dog is so stressful since…
