If you are involved in endurance sports, I am sure you face a common question. You finish telling a riveting story about your latest race or training experience. You have relived the moment with your words, and your audience stands before you speechless. With wide eyes and a gaping mouth they ask, “Are you crazy?”

Crazy means different things to different people, and actually has several definitions. I checked. Some meanings of “the C word” are constructive and include “intensely enthusiastic” or “passionately excited.” On the other hand, and probably the more common hand, crazy is used to describe something “senseless” and “unsound.” And lies just inches away from “insane.” I have a hard time accepting the mentally challenged, insane definition. Endurance athletes are not senseless or impractical. In this context, crazy cannot mean foolish. If you are approaching an endurance or ultra-endurance event, chances are you took the time to plan out how you would attack the event.

Perhaps the difference in your definition of crazy can be found simply in your personal frame of reference. For example, if you compare someone who has never ran more than one mile to someone who has completed a 100-mile ultra-marathon, these individuals have very different frames of reference. And probably would define crazy behavior differently as well. For one individual, crossing the line at their first Ironman is the epitome of their endurance experience. Yet another athlete finishes his fiftieth marathon in fifty days and shouts victory.

The telecast of the 2008 Hawaii Ironman included several commercials for the United States Navy and featured David Goggins. If you are not sure who David Goggins is, Google him. (He might come up under crazy.) In one of the commercials, Goggins mentions that he does not like to run. Here is an athlete who not only has completed the toughest military training out there, but runs hundreds of miles almost weekly. And he does not enjoy running. Why does he do it then? For the same reason a lot of athletes run, or bike, or swim. Endurance athletes choose their activities because it tests their limits. Goggins takes it even further; he does it to “see if I have limits.”

Is David Goggins crazy? Are triathletes and runners crazy? If you are a triathlete or runner, does that mean you are crazy? Your answer probably depends on your frame of reference. Perhaps a better question may be ‘what kind of crazy are you?’

In a sense, crazy might be the best way to describe endurance athletes. Endurance events can be unusual or bizarre. If an athlete wants to test their limits or find out if they have limits, without question they are intensely enthusiastic or passionate about their sport. In order to assess your true potential, you have to break out of your comfort zone and “depart from moderation.” If every thing in your life was moderated, you would never test boundaries or even see where boundaries exist. In this context, the use of crazy is ok with me.

Written by Carrie Smith