On friday the 13th yesterday,
I went to the neighbourhood park near my place for my usual evening run.

Halfway through,
I caught sight of a shadow behind me, to my diagonal right.

Damn, it's runnin at my speed....

Fearful of being overtaken,
I quickened my pace.

After about 2km or so,
I stole another glance at the shadow.

It's still there,
Keeping the same distance
and running at my increased speed!!!

Damn it!!

I picked up speed,
taking faster and bigger strides
all the while keeping track of its progress
out of the corner of my eyes,
discreetly.

That shadow just won't give up will it?
Fine.
If I can't beat it at speed,
I'll focus on maintaining the distance between us.
If I can't outrun it,
I shall outendure it.

The power of pride and stubborness is really being understated.
Out of sheer determination,
I clocked my mileage at a faster speed than I ever did before.

Even when I felt like I couldn't go on,
even with the daunting possibility of having my heart suddenly stopping,
of dropping dead,
I continued running.

It got to a point where I couldn't even focus on the songs from my mp3 anymore.
I was just concentrating on keeping my legs moving,
one after another.

Damn it! It's still running!!!

As much as I willed myself to go on,
my legs simply refused to obey the brain.
I began to slow down after awhile,
and resigned myself to being overtaken.

I stole another peek at the shadow.

Eh!!!She slowed down too.
Good.
Maybe she's tired, maybe she'll stop soon.

But she didn't.
She continued running,
at the same comfortable speed as me.
Her shadow still at the same distance from mine.
Or maybe I was already feeling faint
such that I couldn't judge distances properly anymore.

I slowed to a halt somewhere after the 7km mark
and unhappily started walking,
fully expecting the mystery owner
of the competitive shadow to emerge from my right
and jog past me.

........
............
................

No one appeared triumphantly from behind me.
I rolled my eyes to the right to sneak a peek at the shadow.

It was walking!!!!!

Unable to hold my curiosity anymore,
I turned to catch a look at the face of the person
who's as bitchily competitive as me.

!!!

There's no one.

At that moment,
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Asshole.
I almost killed myself racing with my shadow.