Competition-The Gear

What ever type of competition that you participate in, there is bound to be many cool and irresistible things that you can purchase to aide you in your quest for perfection.  Runners and cyclers have all sorts of gadgets to measure stride, cadence and heart rate. I am waiting for them to come out with a watch that measures your heart rate and then tells you to slow down when you are way over spent. Another model option would be for the watch to give you a little shock like a noxious stimulus that would persist in your wrist until you get off of the bike.  You would stop riding and not even really know why.  If you compete in bodybuilding, physique, figure or bikini its all about the way you look at the end of your prep.  We are self consumed with how we appear and must get positive reinforcement from others. A little body dysmorphia I think. What makes us obsessed with this?  Believe me I wish I knew.  For me, I am very into my work out wardrobe and especially my shoes.  I have over the years proceeded to buy a gazillion pairs of workout shoes.  I am very careful every day to match my shoes with my underwear and also my operating room hat when I am working.  If I don't have a shoe that matches my hat well then I just buy more shoes! The same goes for my workout clothes.  I do believe that I may need therapy in order to stop buying more shoes!  It has gotten so bad that my closet is a huge mound of shoes and many times I cant find 2 that match.  One time I even showed up to work with 2 different shoes on.  In my defense, they were both black and yellow and they did look similar. Truthfully, I never would have known if someone had not pointed it out to me. One day I was going to the gym in my new red Nike shorts with matching shoes and I decided to stop and tan first. When I was working out I felt like everyone was looking at me.  I thought to myself "I must be looking pretty good". When I went into the bathroom I realized that I had put my shorts on inside out at the tanning salon.  They were bright red shorts complete with a white cotton crotch on the inside (which I was wearing on the outside).  Not my finest hour but funny to think of it now. That day I was not laughing but my husband thought it was hysterical. So when you get so busy training and trying to keep up he pace and you end up doing some stupid things, just laugh at yourself and keep moving forward... and maybe buy some new shoes!