Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

8:02 avg.

2 days in a row, same thing happened.  This time it was WAY more blatent.  I turn on to Z-lake, where I like to run (as does everyone) about 150m behind an Army dude.  My plan today was all easy miles and I was at maybe an 8:20 pace.  Very slowly I caught up to Army dude who I'm guessing was running 8:30s.  Now when I pass someone on the trail I like to do it quickly, like ripping off a band-aid, so I sped up to maybe 7:45 pace just to get around him.  Well you can guess what happened.  He's now running 7:45 pace right next to me.  Sped it up to a nice tempo pace to seal the deal and, nope, he's stride for stride with me, shoulder to shoulder.  Ok, maybe he just wants to run with me.  I look over at him with kind of a half smile, stare at him for a good 4-5 seconds and he looks straight ahead, focused.  "Mornin'"  I say.  No response at all.  Weird, right?  Well, now any chance of me doing the mature thing and returning to a jog have gone right out the window.  Sped up to about a 5K pace.  He stays right next to me.  Finally I put on an all-out burst of speed for 10-15 seconds and he dropped back quickly, after the first second or two.  I kept a good tempo pace for the next mile or so to dissuade any re-attacks.  Looked back after a mile and he was gone.  It was annoying at the time but for the rest of the run I felt very pleased with myself  for my win, and did not feel bad about giving into competitiveness.  I think I did the right thing.