Ok, so I have had an NSV in the past that I have shared, but yesterday it was made all the sweeter. I can admit it, this is really childish, but I have to be honest, it felt good.

I am a naturally competitive guy. I would imagine most of us in the group are. It is one of the things that has made it so hard for years to get back into exercising.

I hate feeling like I am weak, or too out of shape in front of other people.

I started working on it seriously a year and a half ago.

A couple of months ago I was cranking on the elliptical when a kid and two cute little girls from the local college came in and hopped on the elliptical machines next to the one I was on.

I had been going for about 5-10 minutes and didn't think much of it.
After about 20 minutes, I realized that the kid kept looking over at my machine. Every time my timer would get close to a 5 or a 0 he would start to ease off. As it rolled over and I kept going, you could tell he would crank back up.

I guess he didn't like the idea of me outlasting him in front of his groupies. Well, when my machine rolled past 50 minutes, he gave out. It made me proud in the gym for the first time in a long time and I sort of reveled in it.

OK, fast foward to yesterday. I still see the guy at the gym semi-frequently but I have never seen him back in the cardio area at the same time I am. He usually heads straight down-stairs to the weights.

I wrapped up the elliptical yesterday and headed downstairs. It turns out he had been doing a back workout, which was part of what I was planning on doing as well. No big deal. The fun part was when he began sort of talking loudly about how much more important strength training was than cardio. I don't honestly know if it was meant for me to hear, but it sure felt like it.

I gotta admit, I was feeling cocky. So, I casually went to the lat pulldown that he had just vacated, added about 40 pounds to it, and proceeded to do 4 sets of 15. )

amazingly, he was running late and had to cut his workout short.