Here's Looking at You!

To say I'm a competitive person is a little like saying that Raiders are kind of off their game this season. It's probably why I have such a hard time posting this blog with any regularity, because I really need the time to focus without distractions. And my life is all about the distractions. In fact, I'm not sure I'm living a life, just little pauses of silence between distractions.

My latest competition was against all my other fellow alumni at my high school class reunion last weekend. They didn't know they were in competition with me, which was just as well. If they had, they probably wouldn't have been so happy to see me. I trained with Olympic fervor, jogging and swimming and aerobicizing weekly, till I was actually able to overcome an elderly Chinese man wearing Dockers and a buttoned shirt, while doing my lap around Lake Merritt. Man, that felt good!

I like my Pilates class and my general exercise class too, because I can look in the mirror surreptitiously and see how coordinated I look except for those rare 20-30 times/class when I fall off the damn Bosu ball. I really enjoy competing and can't understand when people tell me that they like to just do the workouts and never compete. Seeing measurable progress is what keeps me going.

So I figure out ways to compete in Pilates. Besides counting the number of times I fall off the stupid ball each day, I check out all the other women in the class. I see who has the heaviest weights, who leans into the stretches the farthest, and who has the best posture. These (almost all women) classes at the club are supposed to be about shared community goals, but I can't help it. When I walk out of there I want to say to myself, man -- I totally kicked their ass today!

Some people just love the addiction of fitness, never getting out of shape and trying new challenges. While I enjoy being in shape, it's just too hard to do now with all my distractions. I'm on a ridiculous number of committees and boards, mostly having to do with swimming. Stop me before I volunteer again. And I've got a daughter that never says no to any new activity. So I compete wherever and whenever I can. Sometimes it's in the pool, sometimes around the lake. Sometimes people don't know it, but they're about to get crushed in aerobics. And sometime soon, the Bosu is going to hide when I walk in that room.