A favorite comedian of mine once said: "There's a fine line between fishing, and standing on the shore looking like an idiot." Not being much of a fisherman myself, I still find this ironically funny as I contrast it to our behavior as triathletes (if you're not a card-carrying alpha-complex club member, I apologize for being presumptuous with the use of the words "our behavior") where we often confuse mental toughness with stubbornness.

For example: yesterday I ran a half-marathon training loop in around about one hour and forty-four minutes - just about 9 minutes slower than my PR for this particular loop. I know, what's the big deal, right? The heat probably affected my run pace a bit and that led to my slightly slower run. Well, there's quite a bit more to it than that. Everything, you see, started on a positive note as I was up early and out the door to nail this run - one of my last "tests" before I begin to pull back the volume over the next three weeks in preparation for the Timberman 70.3. On the road I was running at a great clip and was already looking forward to shattering my PR. But it had only been 45 minutes or so before I began to feel the first twinge of discomfort in my right Achilles tendon. "No big deal, just a little stiffness from yesterday's brick" I thought. "Just focus on something else and run through it." And so I did. But at around the 1:15 mark, the twinge had turned into a very obnoxious complaint - and so my mind quickly turned to try making the most of the "opportunity". Loaded up on endorphins, my buzzed inner-voice worked to persuade my higher-order mental alarm systems: "Alright Joe, your Achilles hurts with every foot-fall... So what? Seize the opportunity to work on your mental toughness!" And so began the mental pep-talk:

"You're not running your local training loop, no sir, you're 20 minutes away from finishing a Half-Iron... Maybe even the Timberman Half-Iron! And you're going to place well, you're going to place top "X" if you just push through this discomfort and break the tape!"

As I continued my run, I felt surges in speed - confirmed by my pulse monitor - and all the while I was feeling good; all but my Achilles, which was now definitly starting to flare-up and tighten. Still, I was running on waves; when the roads turned flat, I felt all that speedwork from my Thursday night track sessions saved up in my system go to work just as the roads turned up, I felt all the extra weights work I've been doing kick in to give me a boost. But I knew now that the discomfort coming from my tweaked tendon was bordering on dangerous.

"You're at 1:27 Joe, do you realize you're only mile or so out and you could very well rip your old PR to pieces if you just keep pushing?"

Enter the Devil in Asics on my right shoulder, and the Angel in fuzzy bunny slippers on my left.

Angel: "Joe, you've put up - pardon my expression - a hell of a good fight today... Just end it now and save yourself from any damage."

Devil: "Don't listen to that Joe, you've got to build up your toughness! Fight through that discomfort and blow this run out of the water!"

Angel: "You need to slow it down a bit Joe, just drop your stride, take a drink, and walk a few paces to settle."

And without even consciously making the decision to do so, at around about 1 hour and 30 minutes I began to slow it down to a walk... Just to gain a feel for where my Achilles was. It was then that I realized that - okay - I might have pushed a little bit too hard. Walking was painful, and as I tried to resume some sort of bounce in my step, I saw stars and Tweety birds.

Devil: "You totally shouldn't have stopped. You know that only makes it worse! Come on, get back into a rhythm and finish it up! Do you want to be sitting around later with 12 miles at race pace in your legs, or a half-marathon at race pace in your legs?!?!"

Angel: "Joe, come on, use your better judgment here... Just walk it off and head home".

With their final comments, Angel and Devil parted ways and disappeared back into my sub-consciousness, and I began to walk... Okay, I began to walk fast. Who am I kidding, I began to jog. Alright, if you must know, over the next 5 minutes I built it back up to running - because damn it, the devil was right, I needed that half-marathon in my legs, and this was all completely mental!

Pushing through the pain and coming across the "finish" at 1:44, something incredible happened: I had realized, in that moment and with a degree of clarity greater than the brightness of the sun itself, that I was a complete idiot for doing what I had just done! Once again, I'd allowed my better judgment to be completely drowned out by my stubbornness, and had confused quitting with playing-it-safe. Yes indeed, there's a fine line between fishing, and standing on the shore looking like an idiot.

But, all kidding aside, here's where we get into that grey area folks: Did I do something constructive yesterday? In a way, I think I did. For sure, I took a serious chance with pushing through a run on a sore Achilles tendon during training. But after an ice-bath and the start of my icing and stretching regimen for my Achilles immediately after the workout, I'm already feeling better today. Granted, it may be classified as a dodged-bullet as far as major injuries go, and my series of actions are definitely not any I'd recommend to anyone else. But I can't help but think that the barriers I pushed through to make it to the finish yesterday were anything other than "money in the bank" towards building up my mental game. Let's face it: racing hurts. And it's hard to know where to draw the line on what kind of "hurt" it's okay to push through, and what kind of "hurt" it's not okay to push through. I do think it's easy to confuse mental toughness with stubbornness, but maybe in the grand scheme of things, a positive relationship can be found to exist between the two.