Your Rival

Here's my rival.  Damn him -- he wins every time!

It's my best friend.  We don't compete head to head,  but if we did, he'd crush me.  He's done IMFL and IMWI, and had great results at both. 

 But I qualified for Boston '10 and ran it.  And qualified again there.   So, we're rivals on different planes.  He can crush the swim and the bike.  But I have the run.  In sprints, I've finished behind him.  In the one HIM we've both done, he DNF'd due to muscle issues.  So, we choose to train together and ignore the races. 

And that is perfect!

I am the president of my tri club and I have a friendly rivalry with the VP.  I beat her by 12 seconds in our first sprint this year.  Then she got pregnant and that kind of ended the rivalry for the year.......

Alan

Well Gunky was going in a similar direction, so here's mine. 

The guy on the left shows up in my brain every so often to smack talk me. But slow as I am, I have yet to meet him at a start line, so I win by default. 

(VBS 5 year change-002.jpg)

Well you sure as heck went the extra mile to deal with THAT rivalry. 

Claaaaw - You really are my hero. Best answer ever.

LOL

Perfect! I was going to make some comment about how you can destroy the 9 month pregnant lady in races now, but Claaawwws one is WAY funnier!

So what you are saying is that you own him at the HIM distance! :-)

You know what, not as funny as your other comment but much more powerful. You are dominating this thread dude! Nice going.

I check them out in transition set up.

And? No dance? No thumping of chest? I am disappointed. I would have expected at least a loud announcement like TAKE IT IN FOLKS! THIS IS WHAT A WINNER LOOKS LIKE! with arms wide spread. Or just the underwear on the head. Same message.

Oh, I didn't say how I check them out.  Actually, more specifically, how I let them check me out.

ETA: And to clarify, the announcement is, "WHO WANTS SOME OF THIS?"

X2 - I usually look at the previous results and aim for a third place finish.  This works in smaller races, but the bigger ones are just too competitive for me - right now.   Once I get a third, I'll start working towards the number 1 guy.  I also figure if I keep at it long enough people will just drop due to age.  

There are also a couple of local guys that are way faster than me, but I am improving just by chasing them.

I don't know about rivalry per se but the president of the tri club here is the same age as me and he's pretty quick so my goal is to catch him. I told him about it at the social and I think he was kind of flattered that I looked up last year's sprint results and made that my goal. He ran a 1:22 sprint I think that 1:24 something like that. That's def a goal that will take more than one year of training for me to attain even though I am close to a sub 1:30 now.

There is another friend I went to high school with who also my age. That is a much closer rivalry. In the members only tri, I came out of the water about 15-20 seconds behind him and we are really close on the run but he beats me by a few minutes on the bike. He doesn't know I bought a tri bike though and I am hoping that helps me get that extra few minutes to catch him. If it can come down to the run, I'll win or puke trying (I will likely sprint the last 1/2 mile or so and puke anyway). But if I can come into T2 even with him, I have a chance. He is about an inch taller and 15 pounds heavier but he is still in good shape and a good runner. I am pretty excited about Saturday's sprint though, just hope my knee holds up on the bike and I think I will catch him.

First:  the mirror.  Might sound odd, but I'm the best at pushing me.

Second: anyone I train with.  Not a rivalry for the race, but who's going to put in the better training effort (this goes well beyond tri-training!).  The harder I work and all...

Third: OK, so I have a few friends that race.  Some I can beat, some no way, but it's all about improving the delta vs. them.

My 15 year old son. He can smoke me on a pure run, but we are really close on the swim and bike.  Last tri together our spreads went like this:

Time trial start - I started 20 seconds earlier

Swim 300 yards - me 6:00, son 5:56, my lead is down to 16 seconds

T1 - me 1:46, son 2:05, back up to a 35 second lead

Bike 12.5 miles - me 39:42, son 39:09, he closes to 2 seconds

T2 - me 34 seconds, son 1:02, I'm back up to 28 seconds ahead

Run 5K - me 26:04, son 24:47 - he caught me at the halfway turn around and never looked back. I simply couldn't get him. Son wins by 49 seconds.

Last year he had a 1:50 head start - I caught him on the bike (where I got a "WTF?!?" look from him which was priceless and he passed me on the run. I had a lower overall time but he crossed the finish line about 20 seconds ahead of me.

We have a blast, but I'm not sure I'll be able to hang much longer as he gets stronger and faster. But I will give it my best shot.

That's awesome that you get to race with your son like that.  All of my friends who race are out of state, so I've never raced with any of them (and they'd all smoke me anyway).  My oldest son is only 9 and I haven't really gotten him ready to do triathlon but I'd love it if he showed an interest and wanted to race/train with me.  Keep up the great work and being a great role model!