The schedule for today said “Easy 10-11.” That’s miles. No problem. It’s sort of a rest week in the middle of marathon training to give the body a break before the stretch run here.

Easy means you feel like you can run at that pace all day. Again, no problem.

Until he passed me. It was about 12 seconds after I started, a guy about my height and my build flew past me on the trail. Just after he passed, a man going the other way asked me for directions. After dispensing knowledge to the wayward walker, I took off.

I’m not sure why I started so fast, but it definitely wasn’t “easy.” I think my body is just itching for a race and sometimes can’t be held in check.

And so it went for the first mile, I was cruising but didn’t see the target. Just as I was starting to think it would be a good idea to slow down and actually be able to finish 10 miles today, I caught a glimpse. I guess it doesn’t pay to be roughly 6’3″ and wearing a white shirt when someone’s chasing you.

Now I’ve chased down a lot of people on runs who had no idea we were racing. It’s actually pretty easy to do when they’re not in on it. As I got within 20 feet he could hear my footsteps. He looked back over his shoulder to check where I was. Again, and again he checked. At about the 2.5 mile mark there’s a steep uphill on the trail. Whenever I’ve run there before I always picture the moment in the Tour de France where Lance Armstrong stared down his top rival seconds before obliterating a mountain climb and demoralizing the entire field.

It was his “fuck you, this is my race” moment. This was mine, though I didn’t do the whole staredown thing. I just blew by the guy with enough speed to be sure he wouldn’t just pass me right back. After a mile of running about as fast as I would in a 3-mile race and not a 10-mile “easy” run, I thought I lost him. I peeked back after a straightaway in the woods and didn’t see him.

It was then that my wonderful brain reminded me that I had quite a ways to go and should slow down…so I listened. At mile 4 he caught me and passed me. My brain said, “ok, we had our fun, let’s not forget what our goal is today and that’s not racing this guy.” My competitive side disagreed and hijacked the legs into a chase-down plan. I got 3 feet behind him for the next two miles before he turned off in a parking lot. During that time he looked back over his shoulder at least a dozen times. He knew we were racing and that I had him.

But it’s a good thing he quit then, since my athletic ego and competitive nature wouldn’t have been able to do much more at that pace and happilly dropped back into a more normal pace for the final 5 miles.

Side note: Most people in Bangladesh don’t have last names. The story is about more than that, read it.

Side note 2: This is amazing. I would have killed 283 people if I was driving like that.