You want to get the pain. But no matter how much your mind wants the pain, your body will be screaming at you to stop. In a way your pain threshold is less of "the point where you can't take anymore pain" but rather "the point where you stopped last time".
An athlete's relationship to pain is ridiculously complex. Partly because pain is so complex, and really should be split out in different concepts/words. Adjectives are just so clumsy. For example, high performance athletes must learn to differentiate the pain of training from the pain of injury. It is possible to push too hard, to suck up too much pain. But it's also possible to be too tentative. Striking that balance is what keeps high performance athletes healthy, but always improving (something I have big problems with).
I cannot speak for everyone, but when I and some of the more competitive athletes I am friends with go to train, we want the pain. Going into training, we look forward to the burn. We know that it's good, that it signals progress, that it will fade, and that it means that we are better. But once we get into the training, all the love and craving doesn't change the fact that your legs are dying and lungs are on fire and arms don't want to move. The love by itself will not keep you going on. You have to push through that pain. The fact that you were pumped up 5 minutes ago doesn't mean anything in the moment.
That's something I tell people who aren't used to training: you have to learn to tell the difference between good pain (you're working hard, so it's hard going) and bad pain (you're injured and if you don't stop it's going to get worse).
The fact that you were pumped up 5 minutes ago doesn't mean anything in the moment.
An athlete's relationship to pain is ridiculously complex. Partly because pain is so complex, and really should be split out in different concepts/words. Adjectives are just so clumsy. For example, high performance athletes must learn to differentiate the pain of training from the pain of injury. It is possible to push too hard, to suck up too much pain. But it's also possible to be too tentative. Striking that balance is what keeps high performance athletes healthy, but always improving (something I have big problems with).
I cannot speak for everyone, but when I and some of the more competitive athletes I am friends with go to train, we want the pain. Going into training, we look forward to the burn. We know that it's good, that it signals progress, that it will fade, and that it means that we are better. But once we get into the training, all the love and craving doesn't change the fact that your legs are dying and lungs are on fire and arms don't want to move. The love by itself will not keep you going on. You have to push through that pain. The fact that you were pumped up 5 minutes ago doesn't mean anything in the moment.