I've talked a lot in these pages about jogging with my wife. Is it important to me? Well, yes and no. It's become a point of pride.
I've taken my self-training program pretty seriously, and I'm making progress at teaching myself how to run. My knees aren't liking it much, but that's a small price to pay for not getting smoked by my wife when we go jogging together...
And I'm not getting smoked anymore. We went to the track again last week, and ran a few laps. This time, I didn't collapse after one lap; I made it through 4, and then we both called it quits and went swimming. Then we went home for lunch. She was impressed that I've started taking running seriously. She ran track in high school, and has always tried to get me to run with her. Something about the quality of the exercise.
Anyway, I'm not going to stop my early morning jogs. I've started liking them, and I don't think that I'll be giving that up anytime soon. More importantly, though, I'm able to keep up with my wife. And if that's not a point of pride, than I don't know what is.
And isn't competition all about pride? I don't think it matters who you're competing against. Whether it's another team, or another person, or just yourself, it's still about pride. Because without our personal pride, what motivation do we really have?
