What a glorious day it was on
Saturday! A good-sized group gathered to
walk, most to do 15 kilometres (once around the park, out to the lakeshore,
east to Coronation Park and back to the Grenadier for breakfast.) I enjoyed the walk but found myself a little
light-headed when we finished, reminding me that these longer distances need a
little more fuel.
I’m still stuck on a speed of a little
under 10 minutes per kilometre. This
will need to be a full minute lower by the time I walk the Montreal half in
September. Thinking about this reminded
me of a book I’d read recently. In Top
Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, I
learned that research has demonstrated that most people improve performance the
greatest amount when competing against someone at about their own level. The improvement is most pronounced when
“winning” switches randomly between the competitors. I’ll need to find another slower-paced buddy to
challenge to a “race” from time to time.
The other research the authors noted that I
thought would be of interest to our group is that men and women use quite
different criteria to decide when to compete.
A woman is more likely to compete when she calculates good odds of
winning (however she defines that.) A
man is more likely to be influenced by the size of the prize and will compete
for an attractive prize even if the odds are long. I’d
say that our group recognizes that our odds of staying fit and healthy
are excellent as we encourage one another along.
