Toughness vs. stupidity

There is a fine line between toughness and stupidity when it comes to distance running. Walking the tightrope of that continuum continues to be a challenge, especially when dealing with highly motivated athletes.

This thought popped into my head on Wednesday morning, as I slogged through a hideous half-hour jog in my neighborhood as ice pellets rained down like missiles from the gray sky above (Murphy’s Law Side Note: After 10 trusty years of service, it figures THIS winter our NordicTrack treadmill at home would finally go kaput on us; I hate treadmill running, but it can be useful on days like Wednesday …). On this day, toughness and stupidity merged into one jangled mess.

Toughness: About 15 minutes into it on the ice-encrusted roads, with Trey Anastasio and Warren Haynes blaring in my earbuds, I actually thought to myself: “Geez, this isn’t THAT bad. It must be like 25 degrees out here; that’s pretty warm these days. This is fun!”

Stupidity: As I headed home on Route 9G near my house, I had about a half-inch to spare as a town plow truck came barreling my way. It had no room to maneuver, either. As I jumped on top of the snow bank, hanging on for dear life, I realized that I would definitely lose a game of chicken with the plow. Yeah. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.

Whenever I think of that toughness/stupidity line, my mind wanders back about 20 years to a 13-mile run I did with Bob, back when I did such things on a regular basis. It was the middle of winter. Wind-chill near zero. Blowing snow. We ran hard through it, and the cars did not have a lot of room on the roads. Later on, I vaguely recall going to Andy’s Place for a hot bowl of chili and a cold mug, satisfied to have done such a quality run and survived at the same time. Toughness. Stupidity.

As a coach, a big part of the job is to have our athletes avoid doing stupid things in the name of toughness. With a clear, level head, an objective eye and the wisdom of years of coaching idiotically tough runners, there is a wealth of knowledge to fall back on – but it’s never perfect.

When do you “train through” that sore Achilles? When do you take time off? When do you “train through” that cold or bronchitis or Lyme disease? When do you take time off? How much cross training is just right, not enough or too much? When is it too dangerous to go over the bridge, to run on town or city roads? Should we just stay on campus and do mile loops? Should we bag that last interval of the workout? Should we finish the workout? Another set of hills? Or not? Should I make him or her drop out on the next lap? Should he or she finish the race?

The questions are endless. The line between toughness and stupidity can be blurry, indeed.

In general on a daily basis when it comes to training, I say err on the side of caution. Save it for another day, so another day will be fruitful and not filled with trips to the training room, the X-ray or MRI machine or a doctor’s office. In racing, unless there may be serious physical ramifications, maybe we shouldn’t be so cautious. In racing, sometimes a little stupidity can go a long way. But again, it’s fuzzy math to be sure, and the safety of the athletes must always take precedence.

I will say this: When dealing with highly motivated athletes, trying to navigate that toughness-stupidity tightrope is a great dilemma to have. It may not be perfect, but at least there are runners tough enough (and yes, stupid enough at times) to put it all on the line and do their best every day.