“The way you think about pain is the way your life will turn out. Success is at the apex of the pain.” | Eliud Kipchoge
I watched a documentary about the Eliud Kipchoge’s “Ineos 1:59 challenge” where he showed that it was possible to finish a marathon within 2 hours. His excellence advanced predictions about human capability to achieve that mark by at least a couple of decades.
There were many parts of the documentary that were fascinating. It was inspiring to see his mental strength and his insanely high pain threshold. Eliud Kipchoge’s trademark response to pain when running a marathon is to smile. He radiated zen.
That, in turn, brought to mind this story from the 2021 Olympics.
Eliud Kipchoge was being held in a staging room during the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo. He and two other runners – Bashir Abdi from Belgium and Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands – were waiting to receive their Olympic medals after the marathon race, which Kipchoge won for his second time.
Logistics of the awards ceremony meant the runners would have to wait for several hours in a cramped, dull, room with nothing to do but sit. Abdi and Negeeey later explained that they did what anyone else would do – they pulled out their cellphones, found a Wi-Fi network, and aimlessly scrolled social media.
Kipchoge didn’t.
Abdi and Negeeey said he just sat there, staring at the wall, in perfect silence and contentment.
For hours.
“He’s not human” – was Abdi’s assessment.
Well, he is. Just a very special one who developed focus and an incredibly high pain threshold by consistently doing things others weren’t/aren’t willing to do.
