Competitive Fire: Long Run 12 Miles

I ran with Ryan today. Ryan just graduated from high school and is going to be running in college next year. He had just came back from training in Colorado at altitude and wanted to get in a run with me. When we were about to start the run it seemed like it was going to rain so I left the Garmin in the truck. I know the Garmin's are supposed to be water proof to a certain extent but I have not had too much luck with Garmin's and rain. So I don't have any feedback from our run except that we ran probably around 7 minutes for most of the run. But there were a few instances of some major deviations of pace. On the 6-9th miles Ryan dropped the pace significantly and probably was ahead of me by 90 seconds. It didn't really bother me but underneath my laid back exterior I have a real high competitive streak. I usually keep it under control and save it for races but today my competitive fire was repeatedly stoked. I usually like to run with a purpose and I really wasn't interested in racing a long run today. So every time he kept pushing forward I just maintained my pace...Until the final mile. Since we were finishing up I decided to pick up my pace a little and finish strong. We were in the middle of mile 11 and I noticed that he would always try to stay in front of me whenever I picked up the pace. That was enough of a poke to my competitive fire that at the start of mile 12 I asked, "Do you want to race?" He said "Sure, last mile." After that I just blazed away to probably a 5:30 last mile. I have to admit I was a little annoyed that I did something like that. I knew I had easy days Sunday and Monday, but I pride myself at running with purpose, not pissing contests. I'll give myself a pass on this one since I'm usually well behaved. But I always have to remember that underneath my easy going nature is a streak that is as competitive as hell. So I just have to remember not to put myself in situations that will stoke the fire and make me forget what I'm running for.