Orienteering, or Competitiveness
Mischelle and I spent the morning orienteering at Sweetwater Creek State Park today. The results are in, and we did very well!
On the yellow course (level two), we placed tenth out of 62 runners. Our time was forty minutes, while the winners ran the course in 26 minutes. The distance between the checkpoints was 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) as the crow flies; we actually covered 3.2 km running the course. Our goal is under twenty minutes per kilometer, and we averaged about seventeen and half today, so I'm very happy with our performance.
On the orange course (level three), we placed twelfth out of 45 runners. Our time was 1:08, while the winner ran the course in 46 minutes. The distance between the checkpoints was 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) as the crow flies; we actually covered 5.1 km running the course. We didn't quite meet our goal with an average of 21.25 minutes per kilometer, but it's the first orange course we've run this year. We (meaning me) made a couple of navigation errors that cost the extra time.
I don't think I was always a particularly competitive person. I don't remember being this way back in high school. I know I am now, though; I think it comes from being more confident in my abilities now than I've ever been in my life. I try not to be a jackass about my competitive side, and I think in general that I succeed (perhaps the comments will show otherwise).
My competitiveness can be a double-edged sword. In some instances, such as orienteering or road rally, I think that it spurs me to improve and to try harder when I play. In other instances, though, I think my competitive nature prevents me from getting better. I realize, for example, that I'm not willing to make the time to improve my running. This, in turn, makes me less apt to go out and run on a regular basis. After all, if I can't improve, why take part at all? Another similar example is quizbowl. In that vein, I really don't know how to become better, and that keeps me from wanting to play at all.
The next orienteering meet is two weeks away, on the Sunday after my next trip to Chattanooga. Mischelle's going to be in Boston, so it will be the first time I've gone out alone in quite a long time. I'm curious to see how it affects my time. On the one hand, I can generally run farther and faster than Mischelle in our orienteering gear (in running gear, she leaves me in the dust). On the other hand, it really helps having two pairs of eyes looking for checkpoints, and Mischelle's better at seeing them than I am.