Competition. Imposed by the environment or stored in our genotype?

Biological life on this planet thrives on competition. Some species better adjust to a changing environment and voila dinosaurs are gone and mammals are on top of the situation on the planet. Smilodon was one of the most dangerous carnivores ruling the planet for 2.5 million years. Ten thousand years ago he was outcompeted by smaller carnivores and extinct. Then came people and the competition started with the new force on the new turn of the evolutionary spiral. Babylon civilization was replaced by Assyrian, then Persian, then Macedonian, then Roman and so on.

Eventually, people were able to extract competition in its relatively pure form from quarrels over the food supply, territory and rivalry over the opposite sex. That happen a while ago in ancient Greece and was called the Olympic games.

Those competitions established a set of rules that made a competition interesting. 

1.  All competitors must be willingly subject themselves to the risk of losing.  In another word, the gang of thugs that beats you up cannot claim that they did it in a spirit of a fair competition.

2.  A competition has to establish its subject.  In another word, if you put a swimmer and a wrestler to compete in swimming, the wrestler has to actually swim rather than wrestle a swimmer to the ground.  In the same way, if one competitor runs a marathon another one cannot beat him over 100 meters and consider himself a winner.

3.  Participants should be bounded by an age group. Even the most talented young boy will lose to an average adult athlete. The same goes for people of advanced age. That's the reason why even the greatest boxers lose fights in the end of their careers.

The animal in each of us urges us to compete over food, territory, and the attention of the opposite sex; the desire that in the age of the Informational revolution disguises itself in different forms. I wonder though whether in this day of age the desire to compete is imposed not only by the surrounding circumstances but sits in our genotype so deep that we have the urge to compete on the subconscious level just for the hell of it. It is that thought that compelled me to share my experience in this blog.

Currently, I live next to the warmest part of the US; in Hollywood, Florida.

The condominium complex where I reside is next to the ocean.

It also has 80 feet pool.

It is silly not to use this geographical location to the benefits of my health. Thus, I swim every day and try to do this twice a day. In the morning I do 20 laps or 530 yards and in the evening 46 laps or 1220 yards.

Now I am coming to the competition part.  I am a man of what you would call "the first youth." I would describe this time period as the late fifties. Though even in my young years I have never been a champion swimmer. More so, until recently, I didn't know how to breathe properly during the freestyle. I learned this only after instructions received from my son and first implemented them while swimming in the ocean. Thus, the purpose of my swim is rather health related – lowers my BP. In the evening, it takes me around 45 to 50 minutes to finish my exercise.

Once in a while (actually more often than once in a while), when I am roughly in the middle of my distance someone starts to compete with me.  Notice the challenge usually comes from a much younger person, somewhere between their teens and thirties.  Also, no one declares the challenge out loud.  Nothing like "let's see who is faster." No, the duel glove is thrown silently.  I guess this is done in anticipation of their possible loss, and thus the ability to save their face under the pretext of coincidental recreational swimming next to me.

There is also a difference in the distance. The competitors usually swim one pool length while I am swimming 46 so I am not in a position to give it my full speed because I still have many loops to go.  So basically, the imposed competition is hardly fair on all three above listed accounts. 
Yet, if they win, and usually they do, they come out from the pool holding their head high and their body language says "I came, I saw, I conquered."

Notice there is nothing in this competition that makes any survival sense.  We don't quarrel over food – each of us buys it separately in a supermarket. There is no territorial dispute – we live in separate units. Similarly, there is no lady who is ready to give her charming smile to the winner.  More so, I don't see how honorable for a young stud to beat someone who they perceive as an old man.

Thus, I am inclined to think that this spirit of competitiveness is triggered by our genotype.  Is there a psychologist out there who can help me unravel this mystery?