My wife and I have competitive natures as well. When I met her she was the Aerobics Dance Instructor Champion for the Northwest. I had never even heard of such a thing, but it turned out that she was in excellent condition with an impressive power to weight ratio on the back of a tandem, far better than any other female stoker that I had ridden with. I knew that I had to marry her.
We got hit by a car on our road tandem and a year later the frame broke where it was straightened by the bike shop. That was a few days before we were scheduled to ride her first century ride. We were invited to participate with a group of fairly completive riders all on single bikes. We brought our folding tandem which was set up with mountain bike handlebars, a frame that weighed ten pounds more than a standard steel tandem and some wonky cheap components that looked like they belonged on a Walmart bike.
The leader of the group took one look at us and gave us a map because he didn’t think that there was any way that we would be able to keep up with them. I had a large hydration pack with nearly a gallon of ice water, and a large jersey pocket full of carinated Cliff Bars. I instructed my wife to eat half a Cliff Bar every ten miles and drink lots of water.
It was good that they gave us a map because we ended up setting the pace the entire time with the rest of them strung out behind us. When we got to the restaurant at the halfway point my wife and I still looked fresh while the rest of them were looking pretty haggard. They kept saying that they could not believe this was her first century. I had ridden double centuries on previous occasions, so it was no big deal to me. But she was a good example of how a combination of being in good shape and proper hydration and caloric intake can keep you feeling good even on longer rides where your muscles glycogen stores have obviously become depleted.
So, after eating a good meal and sitting in the restaurant for an hour we were feeling re-energized and hit the road at the same pace that we had been riding. The entire group fell to pieces and we had to slow up. The guy who invited us started having some sort of blood sugar problems so we had to help nurse him back to the start point.
We were never invited to go riding with the group again.
I think being competitive also helps. If you have a goal in your mind that you must achieve, you’ll achieve. When I was running, I would keep track of landmark along my route and I would memorize the time that it took to get to that landmark. I found it really helped when I divided my route based on the landmarks and try and beat my time at each landmark.