How do you stop competition over erg times from ruining a friendship?
Just … don’t?
The only real suggestion I can offer is that someone in has to be the bigger person and remove themselves from the situation entirely. Make it clear to the other person that erg times are separate from the friendship and wanting to pulling a better time than someone isn’t indicative of anything other than dedication to the team and motivation towards getting in the best boat possible. I would say that if these people were really friends they would be encouraging each other to get the best times they can instead of letting something silly tear them apart. In the grand scheme of things, i.e. life, erg scores aren’t important. It’s really not worth ruining a friendship over something so trivial.
I realise that this was posted a long time ago, but thought i’d comment with my experiences anyway. My friend and I have always had very similar erg times and therefore there has always been competition to beat the other. At times we have become too competitive and I have been upset by her beating me (and vice versa). But we’ve got to the point now where we’ve realised that if both of us push our hardest the the person who wins deserves that and we have to be respectful and happy for that person. But you also have to use it to fuel your own training and to make yourself better. I think that ultimately once you know that they’re not doing it to hurt you but to better themselves and that they have trained and tried their hardest for success that it becomes ‘ok’ to get beaten and to beat them.
Sorry if that was a bit muddled, i don’t exactly know how to explain myself! 🙂
This makes perfect sense and is actually what I tend to tell people. It’s easy to assume people are just “out to get you”, for lack of a better term, when you’re a teenager and don’t know any better but once you realize that people have their own motivation that has nothing to do with you it becomes a lot easier to separate the competition from the friendship and in turn use that competition to fuel your own training. And yes, I agree that once you let yourself understand that they’ve worked for success just as much as you have that it’s OK to beat and be beaten in return.