Wednesday, May 14, 2014

It's On Like Donkey Kong

What is it with dudes and their inability to have a girl run faster than them?

I was at the gym today doing my run on the treadmill.  Now that the half marathon is over and my slothness (sure it's a word) from my "recovery" week is over, it's time to get back to work.  Being that I still have a little bit of time before I am done working, I have committed myself to doing whatever it takes to get my workouts in, even if that means doing them on the treadmill at the Y so I can put Anderson in child care for a little bit of time. 

Anyway, I had an interval-type run and it was being done on the treadmill.  I had a man on both the left and right of me during this workout.  I started out with a long warm up and then I had some intervals at a comfortable pace.  For me, this was around an 8:00 mile.  I noticed as soon as I bumped up the speed, the dude on the right of me put his speed up to the same pace.  Okay, cool.  My next set of intervals, which were longer intervals, were at a 10K pace.  I set the pace at a 7:30.  Again, the gentleman to my right set his treadmill to the same pace.  I was pretty comfortable with this pace, but it was apparent that he was suffering.  He kept making groaning noises, and huffing and puffing, and putting his hands on the rails.  Plus he kept looking at me and looking at my pace, like, "you're crazy!"  I think I broke him with these intervals because he soon stopped, walked, and got off the 'mill.  My last set of intervals were shorter intervals at a fast pace.  I had the pace up to a 6:40 for these.  The gentleman to my left looked in better shape than the one on my right, but he was clearly a meathead and not a runner.  I started my interval and he actually turned his treadmill up even to a faster pace than mine!  I was only on each interval for a minute, but he only had his for 30 seconds or less.  I don't know if it was part of his workout, but I found it quite suspicious that his intervals started at the same time as mine and were every bit as fast as mine.

Have you experienced dudes who do not want to be chicked, even on the treadmill?
Do you say anything?
Do you ever race others at the gym or out in the wild?

2 comments:

Angela Knotts said...

I have to say, I hear about this phenomenon all the time, but in 20 years of competitive running I have never experienced it even once! I can't even imagine how this works on treadmills--when I'm on one, I definitely can't see the speed of those next to me, and thanks to varying body size / stride length / cadence, I really can't tell just by looking who is running faster or slower than me except in very extreme cases. Trying to keep up with or outrun people when there are zero stakes is about the lamest thing I can imagine running-wise. What is wrong with people.

Val said...

I'm the most non-competitive person you know, but my thought is that perhaps they looked at you as a healthy young woman, had no idea that you're a marathoner, etc, and thought you'd be a good "rabbit" to try to match/beat. =) You're a role model. And a rock star. And you just handed it to them. Good for you! Hahahah!