I hit the streets this morning in an effort to burn a few calories, enjoy the beautiful day, and feel a little better about myself. As I ran/jogged/walked briskly through my my workout, I gauged mt progress with a handy little app called Map My Run. I love this app because it uses GPS to map out my route, it keeps a record of the distance and duration of my workout, and my speed. It even allows me to share my workout with my friends on twitter or facebook. It is pretty neat.
That last feature of the app is one that I seldom use. I am not a big fan of sharing the details of my workouts on social media. My workouts are more solitary, more about me and myself. My shoes are not synced to a lifeband that measures my heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of perspiration. There is not connection between my iphone and my footwear that controls my music playlist help speed up or slow down my pace. In fact, my shoes are not synced to anything except my feet. Today, however, when I tapped "Save Workout" on the screen of my iphone, I paused, and took the time to also click the button that shares the workout to my Twitter, and due to my Twitter settings, my Facebook page. I had one reason and one reason only for breaking my prohibition on social media workout boasting, and that reason is named Darrel.
You see, yesterday Darrel, my younger brother, posted through Map My Run to his Facebook that he had just completed a 3.63 mile run. There are few forces on this green and blue ball we call Earth that initiates competition more strongly than a sibling popping off about doing something, even if he or she is not even popping about doing anything. So, as I progressed through the streets of Hutchinson this morning, I was motivated to continue my trek a bit further. I am early in my workout calendar. I have been running a little as a basketball official, I have been lifting when I can with the kids after school, and I have been walking when the weather has permitted it. Today was my first outside run of the spring, however. So, when I saw Darrel's shared workout record, I had goal that I had to meet today. For the record, I went 4.04 miles this morning. So, I had to post it. 3.63? Weak.
AS I tend to do, I thought a little bit as I worked out. The thought that swirled today was about the sense of competition that can only come from siblings. Siblings basically compete whenever possible, even if they are not aware that they are competing. We compete to see who will be the first to call Mom on Mother's Day. Kim, my sister, has resorted to having Mom and Dad over for dinner on such occasions, but that does not really count. Darrel went so far as to send flowers last year. Fine, but I was still the first one to call. A few years back, Kim decided, for some reason, to begin training to run a half marathon. She ran a couple, and those feats became a popular topic at family gatherings, until Darrel popped off and told him eldest sibling that it was not that big of a deal, that one did not truly have to be an athlete to run a half marathon. A person just had to have the intestinal fortitude to go out and do it. "Jason or I could go out and run one after month of training if we wanted," he said. For the record, I never said that. But he did, so, Kim signed him up for a half marathon and he ran it. DArrel then started training and competing in short sprint triathlons. Those require much more athletic ability, he said. For the record, Kim has now run a full marathon, and I have not yet even considered running a half. As justification, I go back to sibling competition and point out that I ran when I was young, when a person is meant to run, and even held track records at Kanopolis Middle School for quite a while. I believe my 7th grade 800m record stood for nearly twelve years before it was broken, by an Orosco I believe, who would go on to run at an Ivy League college. Neither Darrel or Kim can say that.
This sibling competition thing goes back a long time. It has pushed each of us to become better students and stronger people, but it also led us to do some incredibly ridiculous and often idiotic things. We used to see who could read more books at the library in the summer. We passively competed to be the smartest (my sister claimed to have invented the word doubleknot). We competed to see who was the fastest and the bravest on the frightening hill across from Bender Apartments that was called Dead Man's Hill. Ok, no one else may have called it that, but they should have. We would race sleds down that hill, and we saw who could jump the farthest on the crudely constructed bike ramps amid the piles of grass clippings. Darrel may not remember much or any of those afternoons, since he went ass over elbows more often than anyone, even Jim Carson.
The competition between siblings never really ends. Darrel has definitely claimed the fertility portion of our lifelong contest as he and Jana have pushed their offspring total to four while Kim and Dee and Heidi and I hold steady at two children apiece. However, I fathered a girl first, and we had a boy second, so i was the first complete mixed set of perfect children.
Stupid? I do believe so. Productive? Usually not, although the competition, as evidenced earlier, does sometimes push us to workout harder and push ourselves. Near an end? Absolutely not. Whether we realize it or not, we are competing with one another. Darrel may not have meant to set the competitive wheel a'turning, but he did nevertheless.
And just so everyone knows, I am the first one of us to write about sibling rivalry in my blog. Oh, and if you are reading this Mom, Happy Mother's Day 2014.
I win.
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