Yesterday I was at the gym working out on the row machine. Shortly after I started, a lady around the age of 60 sat down next to me and challenged me to a 2,000 meter race. Well i'm not one to back down from a challenge that I know I can win, so I agreed. She beat me by about 150 meters. Now that wasn't my first rodeo, i'm pretty good on that machine and do it nearly every day. But yesterday, I was embarassed, my friends...by an old lady. Focus: Have you ever been outworked or beat at something by somebody you probably shouldn't have?
I mentioned this before, but I seem to be incapable of winning at arm wrestling*. Even against guys who I know I am much stronger than/can lift more weight than. The only time I even come close to winning is if I challenge them to a match with the left arm (since most people are right handed, they are weaker and less coordinated with their left. I'm right handed too, I just make it a point to stay symmetrical.) One time my 16 year old nephew** challenged me to an arm wrestling match and beat me. IN FRONT OF MY SON. I'm telling you folks, it doesn't get much more embarassing than that. *If anyone has any insights on this, or could tell me what I might be doing wrong, let me know. **Not on topic, but I just found out that the little punk knocked up his girlfriend. END RANT.
I'm drawing a blank here, but this reminds me of when NBA player Devin Harris got hustled by some kid in the UK. The kid challenges Harris to a game of 1 versus 1, misses the starting free throw shot, and then proceeds to hand Harris' ass to him with all the trimmings. One of the funniest things I have ever seen. The story can be found here.
My friend is a huge chess whiz/math nerd, but is terrible at English. So after whooping me soundly in a few games of chess, he says he will let me earn back my pride by challenging me to a Scrabble game. I figure with a vocabulary like mine, there is no way I will lose to this guy. Nope. He beats me again, by nearly 80 points. My pride was non-existent that day. But later on I came back and consistently beat him by 100 points for our next few games, so I feel a little better.
Back when I was 16 or 17, a group of my friends and I started a Fight Club. It was pretty low-key, and nothing as hardcore as the one in the movie, but it was a lot of fun and also a good way to test your mettle against long-time friends. Only lasted about a year, but there were some good times had. Rules were simple. Bare-knuckle fist-fighting, ending when someone yelled stop. You chose when you would fight and the location and specifics would be handled by you and your opponent at the time of. There was no schedule, and we all played it by ear. Well, I fought quite often. Lost about half of my fights, my record being something like 10-12. Most of the losses were nothing special, just being outmatched and outgunned. The final loss, which also signaled the end of our Fight Club, was pretty spectacular though. I was squaring off with a buddy of mine, a fellow we'll call J. He wasn't a big guy by any means. He was skinny, bony, couldn't see a damned thing without his glasses, and was well over 40 pounds short of me. Hadn't fought in the Fight Club before and had only been in a single fight in his life. In other words, he was going to be a cakewalk. Yeah... We squared off, the ref called it and I rushed forward, popping him with two hooks to the stomach, a quick right and a left, followed by a short right uppercut which caught him in the mouth and knocked him back and down to his knees. I stepped back, gave him a second to regain his footing, and when he nodded at me I bounded forward again and threw a hard right cross. Didn't connect. J dodged it like he was auditioning for the Matrix, I over-stepped and he cracked me a good one across the jaw, causing me to stumble sideways and nearly topple over. I shook it off, got pissed and threw a wild punch, no form or style at all. I missed, over-stepped again, and he fired an uppercut from my side which hit me in the chest. It shocked me for a moment and when I turned to face him he threw a right cross and broke my nose. I don't remember much of the immediate future. Eye-witness accounts confirm that a loud 'snap' was heard, everyone gasped, I dropped to both knees and then toppled forward. I hit the ground apparently unconscious and woke up several minutes later with the blood still flowing smoothly from my nose, surrounded by everyone there that night. No one wanted to fight after that, and Fight Club officially ended with two very important lessons learned: Don't get cocky, and for fuck sakes, wearing some fuckin' boxing gloves, would ya?
Two years ago, the girlfriend had never watched a hockey game in her life. During the 09-10 Hockey season, she joined a fantasy hockey league with me and some buddies through Yahoo. I finished NINTH out of 12 teams, she finished third and won 30 bucks. I could make excuses until the cows come home, but the bottom line is that my girlfriend with practically no prior knowledge of the NHL beat me, a sports radio host in a 12-team Fantasy hockey league and even won some money. I won't be living this one down for quite some time.
My old man when it comes to athletics. As far as an athlete goes, I'm nothing to sneeze at. I'm 25 yo, 6' tall, 185 lbs of muscle, six pack, the whole nine yards. The old man still puts me to shame. We work out at the same gym, and participate in a workout group together consisting of about 25-30 regulars with anywhere from 10-20 showing up for any given session. It's mostly cardio type stuff, with a lot of sprinting, distance running, and plyometric stuff. He crushes everyone, everytime. Off the top of my head, I can think of 5 Division 1 lacrosse players, 2 professional baseball players, and 2 Division 1 football players, and a couple tri athletes in group (The baseball players work with us in the off season, and the football and lacrosse players are former division 1 athletes, but still all under the age of 28). He still finishes ahead of them everytime. I constantly have to hear from everyone about how amazing he is, yada, yada, yada. He is ripped to the core, and he's freaking 55 years old. Wtf? I can lift more weight than he can, and I can beat him in a straight up sprint if we're both well rested (I haven't met many white dudes who could beat me), but neither by much. He also plays lacrosse. He was on the Champion United States over 45 team in the last World Games, and he took home the MVP award. He's largely considered the best lacrosse player in the world for his age, which is fine. But then he also plays on my post-collegiate club team. And he still runs shit. This is a team of guys typically aged 23-30, many of whom played at top Division 1 programs, and we've got a 55 year old man who starts for us. It's hard to say he's better than me, because I'm much more physical than he can be, but he definitely scores more goals than I do, and he's a much smarter player than I am.