The Cult of Hardcore

Well 70.3 Geelong did not disappoint. It was a great race to follow and a well deserved victory for Jake Montgomery. Definitely an impressive young talent who is going to go onto big(ger) things I suspect. I will be very interested to see how he goes on the Gold Coast when 70.3 Worlds rolls around later this year (assuming he decides to race).

Anyway, watching the race today I saw a few more examples of what I refer to as the 'Cult of Hardcore' raise it head and I thought I would write about it.

What do I consider to be the Cult of Hardcore. Well it is the attitude that you see in a lot of sports about how heroic it is to push on when really you shouldn't. You particularly see a lot of it in long course triathlon, where so much of the challenge is simply getting to the finish line.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not talking about people who push on when they are tired and hurting. In the end that is sort of the point of triathlon, overcoming the challenge. Triathlon is a hard sport and that is part of the appeal. Keeping going, pushing the body to the extremes of what it is capable of. Doing that isn't for everyone, but in my eyes people doing that are worthy of admiration. I think most triathletes would agree. In my mind that is what the Cult of Hardcore should be referring to. Unfortunately it doesn't always.

For me where the Cult of Hardcore becomes dangerous is when you start seeing people offering congratulations to others for pushing on when their body was clearly telling them to stop. Whether they be sick or injured, the attitude becomes dangerous when pushing through is considered to be a sign of how tough somebody is. You see this attitude manifest itself when people are injured and decide to 'tough it out' in training, or pull themselves off their sickbed to start a race only for it to predictably fall in a heap and for them to find themselves in the medical tent. Long course triathlon seems to have an unhealthy obsession with proving how tough you are by racing. Often the race organisers don't help the issue, using the image in a lot of their promotion. I think a lot of people take the message too far, interpreting 'finishing when I am hurting' and 'finishing when I am hurt' as two sides of the same coin, which they aren't.

Every time congratulations are offered for these actions, it promotes it in the mind of others. Makes it the aspirational norm. An action to be replicated. Becomes a sort of peer pressure that can sometimes be hard to resist, particularly if you are new to the sport. At best it is a silly trend and worst it is a dangerous one.

If you are truly sick, all you are really going to achieve by training or racing is having a bad day and possibly prolonging your illness. If you are training on an injury, well that is just plain stupid. That never, ever works. Well okay that might be a little harsh. Training while injured can work, but only if you are smart about it and train in a way that doesn't exacerbate the injury, usually after expert advice. But as a general rule. Not smart.

What annoys me about this issue is that if somebody is truly sick or injured they should feel perfectly okay with the decision to pull out of a session or a race. They shouldn't feel any pressure, from friends, coaches or race organisers, to prove how tough they are by sticking it out. To me, that pressure is the true danger of the Cult of Hardcore.

Of course it is never quite as simple as that unfortunately. Knowing when you are actually too sick to train or race, or a niggle has become an injury, is one of the big questions that plagues athletes. If you created an App that did that, you would make money I guarantee. Sometimes you may have travelled a long way for a race and so not at least starting feels like a waste. Sometimes triathletes racing in the pro category might have obligations to the organisers, who would be let down if they didn't start. I have DNF'd twice and DNS'd once due to illness, and only once was it the right decision. It can be a difficult choice to get right, particularly in the middle of a race.

Still, just because it is difficult to know when you shouldn't start (or should stop) it doesn't mean that making the decision to do so is incorrect or the 'soft option'. Nor does it make pushing through and doing yourself harm the tough or smart option.

People doing long course triathlons are already tough enough, they have nothing to prove when it comes to how hardcore they are.