I have said this before, and I'm sure that I'll say it again, but modern life is a race. And not always a fun one.

We're always racing somewhere, or through something. We race out of the house in the morning, and we race through our work, or through our lunch, and to our next appointment, and we race to pick up the kids on time, and there's always a clock ticking somewhere in the background.... We measure success by how many times we don't get beaten by Kipling's "unforgiving minute." And that's really not a good way to live.

Or, to work. I was sitting in my office the other morning, working on a project, and my boss stops by and says she needs it by 3:30. Today.

I'm not sure if this is good or not. OK, I have the material ready to collate and condense down to the short articles, but I've barely started on the actual writing. And now I've got to race the clock.

Deadlines are races that we can never truly win. At best, we break even. After all, the clock doesn't take a lunch break, or a pit stop, and it doesn't stop to chat with the colleague in the next office.... And then there are all of the niggling little interruptions that dot the day: How would you edit this sentence? Should I use "well" or "good" here? Do you know the Dibbles' first names?

It's not that any of that suff is bad, or inappropriate, or even difficult to answer; it's just that it piles up, and suddenly it's 2:45, and the articles are still only half-done....

That's when the office door gets shut, and the serious race against the deadline begins. At 3:40, I emailed the work to my supervisor. The extra 10 minutes weren't a problem, which is where people have an advantage over clocks: we're flexible.

I remember, back in the early 80s, how Carl Lewis was billed as the "world's fastest man" before the Olympic Games. He was a truly impressive runner, but his records are long consigned to history.

Last week, as I write this, the Jamaican runner Asafa Powell set a new world record for the 100 meter dash, with a time of 9.74 seconds. He set this record at the World Championships, in Japan.

9.74 seconds is really fast. I won't tell you my speed on the 100 meter; it's too embarrassing. Let's just say that I won't be getting close to any records any time soon. Or even any time not soon, for that matter.

Be that as it may, Asafa Powell does set records. And I do mean that in the plural, since the record he broke with this 9.74 was his own, which he'd set back in 2005. He's an excellent runner, although he seems to give poor Olympic performances; to date, his only Olympic medal is a bronze, from the last summer games. I hope that breaking his own world record will help him to keep up his confidence. Track and field has been dominated by Americans for so long that it's nice to see someone else win for a change. (Is that an unpatriotic sentiment? I do like rooting for the home team, but Jamaicans have a cool accent!)

So, if you want to read more about this runner, and his remarkable time, check out this link to a news story about it:

http://sports.yahoo.com/sa/news?slug=ap-worldrecord-100&prov=ap&type=lgns

Notice this, especially:

Michael Johnson, the world record holder at both 200 and 400 meters, criticized Powell during the worlds last month, saying the Jamaican is "not a great competitor." Johnson said Powell gave up in Osaka when he was overtaken by Gay in the final 40 meters.

"He's not a great competitor, you can see it in his eyes," Johnson wrote in his column for the British Broadcasting Corp. "He can learn to be a great competitor, but first you have to admit that you're not."

I think that's a most interesting comment, and it goes along with something I have said here before: that the real competition comes from within.