Are you a competitive reader?

I’m not a competitive reader, not really. But I did set myself a reading challenge of 73 books in 2012.  And it was going along swimmingly until, well, now.  I had a kept up a good pace, mostly thanks to discovering Graphic novels in general, and the Fables series of graphic novels specifically.  They are fabulous afternoon reads and I've devoured 14 volumes of the suckers this year.

But along comes thanksgiving and I pick up 1) The Stand by Stephen King (~1300 pages) and 2) The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (994 pages or a whopping 43.5 hours of audio). What was I thinking?  Now I am 11 books away from my goal with 3 weeks left in the year.  I’ve actually set aside The Stand, though I am enjoying it, and picked up some quicker reads but this seems a little mercenary.  I mean, shouldn’t it be about quality rather than quantity?  However I have to say having a challenge has encouraged me to make more time for reading.  So maybe I am a competitive reader.

So what do you think about reading challenges?  What would you do, if you were behind in the final stretch and without thinking had committed yourself to two monster reads?