A big part of the endurance athlete experience is the ability to push through difficulties.
One common conflation of this idea is "pain tolerance." We are often seen as individuals that can handle a significant amount of pain and push it aside in order to continue.
I think it is an overgeneralization of a larger concept of tolerance. Pain is only one element of an overall picture of barriers that we often need to overcome.
A general sense of discomfort comes with training. Whether it be pain, time, weather/environmental elements, or internal factors like doubt and mental struggles, there's usually some kind of factor at play trying to convince us that we can pass on today's effort. It is easy to let these factors take over.
It's not easy, though, to continue to push through.
Take the recent cold snap that shut down Texas for a week. It would have been easy to shelve my running for the week and replace it with other productive, yet counterproductive to building distance endurance, forms of exercise. Instead, I adapted my schedule to allow myself to get miles within the bounds of the cold and snow.
If you find yourself struggling to overcome the tendency to avoid challenges in favor of the easy path, remember that growth and advancement build from resistance. No matter how small the steps taken, find the wherewithal to make an effort to push through.
One common conflation of this idea is "pain tolerance." We are often seen as individuals that can handle a significant amount of pain and push it aside in order to continue.
I think it is an overgeneralization of a larger concept of tolerance. Pain is only one element of an overall picture of barriers that we often need to overcome.
A general sense of discomfort comes with training. Whether it be pain, time, weather/environmental elements, or internal factors like doubt and mental struggles, there's usually some kind of factor at play trying to convince us that we can pass on today's effort. It is easy to let these factors take over.
It's not easy, though, to continue to push through.
Take the recent cold snap that shut down Texas for a week. It would have been easy to shelve my running for the week and replace it with other productive, yet counterproductive to building distance endurance, forms of exercise. Instead, I adapted my schedule to allow myself to get miles within the bounds of the cold and snow.
If you find yourself struggling to overcome the tendency to avoid challenges in favor of the easy path, remember that growth and advancement build from resistance. No matter how small the steps taken, find the wherewithal to make an effort to push through.