Once upon a time I was a member of my high school cross country team. On the last race I ran with the team (end of the season) I learned a very valuable lesson about running. We had gone over the course in advance of the race so during the race I knew where I was relative to the end of the race – I knew how much further I had to go and how much energy to put in so that I would not run out before the finish line. As I came to the last long incline before the end of the race I knew that I could push myself and I decided to attack the hill. I was a short distance behind another runner, perhaps 15 yards, and I knew that I was in tenth place overall. As I attacked that hill I quickly closed the gap and overtook him shortly before the course turned and went down a steep incline to the final flat to the finish line. As I passed him, he sped up, not wanting to lose a place. I was still ahead when I got to the edge of the hill and I stretched my stride and let gravity carry me down faster than I could have sprinted and certainly faster than I could have gone if I had tried to remain in control of my pace. I got going so fast down that hill that my momentum on the flat carried me to very quickly catch up with two more runners who had not even been in sight when I started attacking a the bottom of that last hill.
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A Dose of Competition
Today was a work day for the kids because they have not had to do any of their regular work in the last week. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) we found that they seemed to have misplaced their ability to work. They spent 3 hours on a room that should have been done in 30 minutes. Savannah and Alyssa finally perked up and started working like they’re capable when I challenged them to a race. The race was to see if they could finish the family room they had been working on for nearly 3 hours before I could empty the sink and load the dishwasher.
It really should have been no competition but I managed to nearly finish by the time they passed their quality check. The really nice thing was that I didn’t have to remind them to get back to work. Even when they started dawdling a bit they kept working because I didn’t tell them at the beginning that there was basically no way I could win.
Even after the race was over they kept working on the other tasks that still had to be done. It’s nice to find some effective motivation – I hope I can use that technique in the future.