Even the best athletes in the world say “I can’t” much more than they say “I can.” Yet, the elite figure out a way to get it done, even when their body and mind don’t want to.

I was recently running with a friend who quit before I did. I also had a solo workout in which I quit before I completed my intended volume. And last week a client of mine told me that he couldn’t do any more [reps]. All of these situations raised in me the question…

What If you HAD to do more?

What if you were forced, FORCED, to keep going? Could you?

I remember the most mentally destitute I have ever been during a workout – this wasn’t my hardest workout physically, but mentally it still sticks out in my mind.

Every year at UMBC we had winter sprint workouts twice a week with Coach Cantor that consisted of agilities, sprints, GPPs and the like. The workouts started out hard and got progressively harder as the weeks went on, peaking in difficulty right before Thanksgiving break.

The most difficult workouts were ladders and “22 22s.” In the latter we ran in 2 or 3 groups, performing 4 baseline touches on the basketball court in 22 seconds. The other group went when 22 seconds elapsed, giving each group 22 seconds of rest (or 44 seconds if we were lucky enough to go in 3 groups). Ladders were baseline sprints that ascended in number, from 1 to 17, with a proportionate rest period, then back down on the even numbers until we ended on a single. A full ladder session would end up with a total volume of 154 baseline-t0-baseline touches.

So in 2008 we ran ladders to 17, and I gave each interval the best I had. I didn’t loaf, and I really went after it. Your prize for working hard is that you get a diminishing number of sprints after the ladder reaches its apex, and the countdown helps you push through til the end.

As we approached the single sprint, having completed 153 sprints, my mind was excited to check out and relax. My legs were exhausted, but their work was done for the day.  Then, after completing sprint 154, we were told that we had another interval to go: 36 touches with a goal time of, I think, 5 minutes. We were all horrified.

This was the exact situation I was thinking about this week – when you’ve given it everything you have, and you’re ready to and feel like you absolutely NEED to quit, could you keep going?

I felt mentally and physically crushed at that point, but I, like the rest of the team, sucked it up and kept going. We did 36 more touches at a time when not one of us would have thought we could have done even a handful more.

Even then, what if it was 36 more after that? And 36 more after that? When do you draw the line and prove to yourself, by walking away, that you really can’t? Ordinary people meet these challenges in Boot Camp, extraordinary people in SEAL and Special Forces training, IronMan triathlons and those crazy adventure races (no, not the Amazing Race).

Here is a great excerpt illustrating my point from “Beyond KettleBells, an Interview with Mike Mahler…”

When Richard [Machowicz, author of Unleashing the Warrior Within] went through Navy Seal training, he saw a lot of physically impressive people give up because they weren’t mentally tough, an example being when his group was ordered to run several miles. Just when everyone thought it was over, the instructor ordered several more miles. Half the class collapsed on the spot.

Were they defeated physically at that point? No, they probably could’ve kept going if they were mentally prepared for it. They were defeated mentally. Richard pushed through not just with great physical conditioning but by giving himself the right messages via self-talk. No matter what was happening to him, he knew that he was going to pass. He burned his bridges with failure and there was nowhere left to go but the other way, to success.

So I thought about this as I chickened out in my running today – I felt like tired garbage while running 4x400m and 4x200m. What If I had to run a ridiculous, outlandish number more, say 50, with my baseball career on the line? If I quit, I would be voluntarily ending my career. Could I meet that challenge? I don’t know, but it’s an interesting question. My Dad, who was and still is a World-Class runner, said his hardest workout was 80 100 meter runs at a 12-13 second pace with 30 seconds rest in between. 80! That’s a volume only fit for an elite runner, but what if you had to rise to that occasion just to prove to someone that you could, or because you would lose something if you didn’t? Your body wouldn’t collapse – that takes hours and hours to happen. Your mind would be the only thing holding you back.

This video is from an IronMan triathlon, and these two women (I think they’re women) completely bonk at the end. It’s not funny at all, but pretty amazing that they actually were able to push themselves to their physiological limits. “Bonking” happens when you have no muscle glycogen left for your body to use as energy, and so you literally run out of gas exactly as a car would. If Phidippides actually died upon running the first “marathon” and yelling “Nike!,” then this bonking phenomenon was probably what did him in.

I also read a great story by a former Navy Special Forces soldier, who described how he pushed himself to the brink of death and learned to run and vomit simultaneously during training. I want that life experience. You can find his account on pages 4-5 of this collaborative  article. It’s worth the read, and it will make you feel like (even more of) a pansy.

I’m not one of those motivational people, but this stuff makes me feel inadequate, and inadequacy motivates me. What motivates you?