Competitive Instinct and Team Spirit Can Get You a Long Way

In every race I run, I always manage to end up just behind my arch nemesis. It doesn't matter that I've never met this person before. Nor that this person knows absolutely nothing about our intense feud. Nor that it's a different person each time. All I know is I'm not letting Ms. Purple Shorts get to the finish line before me.

According to Ed Acevedo, president of the American Psychological Association's division of exercise and sports psychology, that behavior doesn't make me crazy. It makes me human. "We're genetically programmed that way. We always lean toward doing something a little better" than someone else, he says.

That's why events such as last weekend's SunTrust National Marathon can lure thousands of participants to an activity that -- stripped of the crowd, the excitement and the post-race snacks -- kind of sucks. Even such elite athletes as Aaron Church, a 33-year-old who does a 20-mile run every weekend on the W&OD Trail, feels the pain doing the extra 6.2 miles of a marathon. Yet, because it's a race, he calls it "a good time."

"They say the difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry form," he says. "It's the competition that keeps you motivated to train."

Competition can also take responsibility for the robust turnout at the Tuesday and Thursday night practices of the Washington Renegades rugby club in Stead Park in Northwest. Phil Risinger, head coach for the all-volunteer crew, keeps the two-hour sessions entertaining by making every exercise a chance for a face-off: Think hauling a heavy bag across a field and having to wrestle a defender along the way. "We don't call them drills. They're games," he says.

The approach has worked for Roland Pratt, 31, who's in his third season with the Renegades and says he feels infinitely fitter than when he focused solely on gym time. "Nothing compares to the results from rugby. You don't realize how hard you can push your own body until the adrenaline takes over," he says. "The weight just started falling off me, and I found muscles I never knew I had."

What gets that adrenaline pumping is not some abstract goal of improving strength, but the immediate thrill of tackling opponents, swiping the ball, scoring -- and risking a bloody nose along the way.

"Exercise disguised as something else: That's certainly more fun for some people," explains Alan Smith, director of the Sport and Health Psychology Laboratory at Purdue University. "The key is that playing is more like leisure than work. Sometimes the way adults exercise is too structured."

And adults also often exercise alone, which means they're not getting the social support Smith believes is critical to motivation.

Pratt, of course, doesn't have that problem. "You don't want to let your teammates down," he says. Knowing that a group of people you care about are depending on you will get your tush to the field for practice on the ickiest of days. You'll persuade your body to keep going for longer during a game. Perhaps you'll even alter your behavior when you're away from the team -- eating more healthfully, drinking less and doing supplemental exercises -- to improve your performance.

So competition is awesome, right? Except when it's not, Acevedo says. "The problem becomes the person who feels hostility in comparing themselves to other people," he says.

To declare a winner means there's also a loser, and for every first, second and third place, there's someone who's last. When people focus too much on those labels, they're bound to get frustrated and give up.

But if they manage to move their attention from what everyone else is doing to what's going on internally, that can be a much more constructive rivalry. And that happens to be at the core of Smith's research.

"Sometimes they're interested in how they stack up. If they don't stack up well, it's not that motivating," he says. "But if they see themselves getting stronger and faster, they get competitive with themselves. How people approach circumstances makes a difference."

Even folks who stack up well, like our marathoning buddy Church, need to keep their individual goals at the forefront. After all, in a race you might want to lunge ahead after an opponent. (Ms. Purple Shorts, I'm talking to you.) But if you let that urge overtake you, you could go out too fast, mess up your personal pacing and not achieve that record time you were aiming for. For the first 20 or so miles of a race, Church says, he can't bother himself with the other people in the field at all.

As for 48-year-old Acevedo, who was also once a competitive runner vying for those top coveted spots and prize money, there are only two people whose times he cares about: his kids. His internal aim is to be able to stay speedy enough that he can go on runs with them. And I have a feeling he'll win.

Got questions for Vicky? E-mail misfits@washpost.com.