To talk to this girl

[Oysterbabe]

I’ve been walking the same route to work for about a year and inevitably see a lot of the same people every day. What they may or may not know is that I am secretly racing them. There is one girl in particular who is usually walking up my road as I leave the house. She’s pretty fast and sometimes she overtakes me and sometimes I stay ahead of her. We’ve never made eye contact or spoken but I feel sure that knows that we’re racing and I’m sure she purposely swishes her ponytail at me as she’s overtaking. She wears very cloppy shoes so I can usually hear her approaching from behind even when I have my headphones on.

I’m 23 weeks pregnant now and getting a bit slower as my hip has been giving me a bit of bother. She wins most days and this is just going to get worse. This morning I set off down the road and straightaway could hear clop clop clop so I upped the pace a bit, determined to at least beat her to the traffic lights at the bottom of the hill. It was going pretty well as her clops got a bit faster too but weren’t getting any louder so I thought I was holding her. Upped the pace a bit more to the point where I had a bit of a light sweat on and still no sign of her overtaking. Made it to the lights first (yes!) and risked a glance back over my shoulder and saw that no one was there. Was a bit puzzled by this until I started walking again, heard the clop clop clop and realised that my keys had been knocking against my phone in my bag when I walked and this was what I had been hearing.

While finishing my walk to work at a rather more leisurely pace I started thinking about how I’m probably slightly mad. Do other people secretly race to work? Would it be unreasonable if next time I smiled at my swishy haired opponent and maybe said good morning? Would this be breaking some kind of commuter grand prix rule? To be honest she doesn’t look very friendly but maybe she’s just focused on the race.

[Nabootique]

Love this! I would do it too, I think, but then I once had some sort of dance off on a train.

[Janeymoo50]

I race to get "my seat" on the train each morning before Vince Cable* gets on. I win, mostly.

• Not the real Vince Cable but looks so like him (plus there's big hair lady, white plimsoll boy and pop sock lady - she wears pop socks with skirts that are too short so the pop socks are like normal socks).
  
  ** Given my age away with pop socks me thinks.

[frazzledbutcalm]

A man I worked for is like you OP. He's a lovely, lovely man. Very driven, very ambitious, very competitive, is the best at everything - in the nicest possible way. He said a few months back that when he goes shopping he races with whoever happens to be getting in their car at the same time as him. He always wins - and I quote "I switch the car on, wait for the heater plug light to go out and everythin before I start my car .." I fell about laughing that he was racing someone who didn't even know they were racing!

Seems there are lots of you nutters racers out there

[Shakey15000]

Arf at "Commuter Grand Prix rule"

I used to do this, it becomes quite obsessive (in a non bonkers way)

Not so much now as I'm not in great health, but your post really made me smile. Would I talk to her? Hell no! And I think it's against the rules for her to not cut you some slack at present. But hey ho, after the birth you can regain stamina and speed, and beat the bitch waaayyy past the traffic lights

[BlahBlahUsername]

I love this! I do it too, but had never really thought about it.

There is a point on my route to work where several mothers have dropped their kids off and are walking down a long road towards town. I must overtake at least the first three ahead of me if it's busy. It's a rule, and I'm annoyed if I don't catch the third one. I am also determined to close the gap between the person in front of me before we reach the pelican crossing. I always break a sweat, I often get a stitch, sometimes my handbag is hanging off my forearm and has taken my coat with it, but I don't stop to deal with any of it until I'm down the road and over the crossing. And then I can relax. I'm so happy to discover that I'm not the only one!

[MammaTJ]

My DS told me he raced the cat and the cat lost 'because he stayed still because he didn't know we were racing'.

[Quietlifenotonyournelly]

I do this too, I get a great sense of satisfaction when I win

[Apartridgeamongstthepidgeons]

Love this thread

I so do this with the kids in the morning, have are time markers along the way, the woman coming out putting her three kids in the car, the two dog walkers along our way but our main aim to to to get to the parking area near the school before a friend of mine who's a child minder gets all the children out and puts a couple of them into the pushchair. She passes us from two streets away and we still beat her most mornings, we all shout hello to her and she's totally unaware of the race

Oh and as other's have said don't talk her, I made the mistake of talking to another dog walker who we see some mornings, we now have to stop and chat as the kids love the dog, it totally mucks up the race tut!

[INeedNewShoes]

I do this to too!

Glad I'm not the only one

[Flambola]

I do this! I realised I had a problem when, after a fire alarm test at work, I raced up the stairs to get back into the office before those who had taken the lift and had an asthma attack.

[helenahandbag]

I secretly race a girl who gets on my train every morning. We both get on and off at the same station and we seem to be in the middle of some unspoken battle as to who gets out of the station and across the road first. I'm sure she races me too because I've watched her almost break her neck trying to get up the platform once she has spotted me.

[LadyNym]

This thread has given me an inordinate amount of pleasure.

Sometimes I cheat by pressing the pedestrian crossing button so the bus has to stop at the red light

This in particular made me laugh.

[Fabellini]

I love this thread! And it has reminded me of ds2 and me on our way to school in the mornings....nearly two years on and we still miss seeing "weirdy ponytail hat guy" every day.
We think he must have got a new job. Dsd2, who used to get a lift with us quite regularly, sent us a snapchat from Tesco a few months after we'd stopped seeing him - she'd captioned it "weirdy ponytail hat guy is alive and well"! I just hope he didn't see her taking his pic

[SagaNorensLeatherTrousers]

I race people without them knowing it all the time, too!

[NeededANameChangeAnyway]

When I used to commute there was a bloke with a huge 4x4 who parked in the same spot in the station car park and then would get his ticket in the ticket office. I raced him by buying my ticket from the machine and trying to get through the (single) barrier check before him and onto the platform.

We used to clock each other out of the corner of our eyes and he would often get fidgety in the ticket queue if he saw me approaching the machine....

[Oysterbabe]

All the fellow mad people are making me happy.

[Friendlystories]

How do I nominate this thread for classics? It deserves to brighten people's day for years to come

[marmitemofo]

I have secret races with people all the time! probably a bit bonkers but nice to see I'm not alone

[MustBeThursday]

This had made me smile. You should talk to her, establish rules and set a head start for the pregnancy - but you do run the risk that she will find a new route to escape the crazy lady

I used to race people on my old commute between bus stops when I had to change buses. I also (Like CactusAnnie!) used to race my bus from when I got off to the crossing at the end of the road. Aided by London traffic, I almost always won though it became more of a challenge after the closer bus stop was closed due to building work and I had to get off one before...

Thinking about it, I used to race a friend to school as a teenager too - She was in her mom's car and I lived on the road the school was on so walked. We were both aware of the race though!

[MrsMook]

I used to race the bus home from school. The first part of my route was shorter than the walk to the bus stop then the route to the roundabout where the routes joined up. Hopefully the traffic would be bad, so the bus would stop/ start while I walked at full pelt.
Oh the joys of panting gleefully on my doorstep having beaten it, and watching the others from school banging the windows at me as it caught up

Now I have to go running frequently to maintain that level of fitness!

[PeterGriffinsPenisBeaker]

Bloody fantastic thread! Made. My. Day!

(You mustn't speak to her either, she might not know that you know that she knows that you know you are racing. Giving her the bird when you pass her would give it away...)

[KatherineMumsnet]

that is all.

[MoriartyIsMyAngel]

My ex and I used to do this, as part of our general 'I hate you and I'm better at you than everything, and why am I even with you?' secret war. It was only mentioned the day we walk-raced towards the ticket barriers at the train station and I was so miffed that he beat me through that it took me a second to realize our five year old was still on the other side...

[Theydontknowweknowtheyknow]

I've never secretly raced anyone but I did used to have a secret train husband. He didn't know he was my husband or that he was called Sven and that we used to holiday every year in Sweden.