Why must achievement look like a Hot Dog Eating Contest?

I will not stop until I reach 70. This sport isn't about eating. It's about drive and dedication, and at the end of the day hot dog eating challenges both my body and my mind. ~ Joey "Jaws" Chestnut did not stop at 70 hot dogs in 10 minutes

Although legend has it that Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest originated in 1916 to settle an argument among immigrants as to who was most patriotic, the truth is the contest began in 1972 as a way to promote hot dogs. But the event didn't become totally gross until 2001 when Takeru Kobayashi downed 50 hot dogs, smashing the previous record of 25.5 by 24.5 hot dogs. In 2007, the contest results were delayed to determine if Kobayashi had vomited in the final seconds of regulation thereby regurgitating himself from the competition.

Today Joey "Jaws" Chestnut is the defending Nathan's Hot Dog Eating champion, having won the Mustard Belt a record nine times. Chestnut also holds eating records in deep fried asparagus (12.8 lbs. in 10 minutes), hard-boiled eggs (141 eggs in 8 minutes) and matzoh balls (78 matzoh balls in 8 minutes). Ick.

When did becoming extreme become extremely desirable? My parents' and grandparents' generations that experienced the deprivation of World Wars and a Great Depression would never consider a marathon of self-mortification an achievement. Comfort was hard earned and they revelled in their soft reclining chairs. Back their day, the dance marathon was the closest thing to a hot dog eating contest, a sad spectacle made into a dark movie called They Shoot Horses Don't They?

Here they are again, folks! These wonderful, wonderful kids! Still struggling! Still hoping! As the clock of fate ticks away, the dance of destiny continues! The marathon goes on, and on, and on! HOW LONG CAN THEY LAST? ~ They Shoot Horses Don't They?

During the Great Depression, the dance marathon offered contestants food, shelter and the opportunity to win cash prizes, but there was widespread acknowledgement that these contests were barbaric. Seattle banned the dance marathon when a woman attempted suicide after dancing for 19 days straight and only placing fifth.

Fast forward to today, or yesterday to be exact, where I found the following items in my news feed:

• According to The Wall Street Journal, it isn't enough to go to the gym and pump some iron. We must go to the gym and lift 100 tons of iron in a single day. The reward is a t-shirt. Is this fitness or is lifting 20 killer whales a hot dog eating contest?

• CEOs are all over hot dog eating contests. The Wall Street Journal regularly fetishizes extreme executive sporting feats. The latest article entitled A Year of Brutal Training for Racing in the Andes features a biotech CEO training for an obscure race in Patagonia. He does, among many other things, 20-mile training runs with a 25-pound weight on his back.

“A race like this, it’s not one I know I can finish. The uncertainty is very motivational.” ~ Nessan Bermingham, Founder & CEO Intellia Pharmaceuticals

WTF? Isn't the uncertainty of running a company enough?

• Even the average person isn't immune to the allure of the hot dog eating contest. According to Charles Chu we all have time to consume 200 books in a single year if we simply cut back a bit on our consumption of television and social media. His math favours short 50,000-word books and reading at a 400 word-per-minute pace. The majority of readers read at a 250 word-per-minute pace. Chu is setting us up for failure, albeit with good intentions--who can argue against swapping television time for reading time?--but is reading four books a week a worthy goal or is it a hot dog eating contest, a self-indulgent spectacle masquerading as achievement?

Books gave me role models and heroes and meaning in a world where I had none. ~ Charles Chu

No longer do we lament marathons--we celebrate them. We're in the age of 10X. It's not enough to read a couple of books a month. We must read 200 in a single year. It's not enough to run a marathon. We must 10X it and run an ultra marathon. Why? Because it's the perfect marriage of goal setting and meaning where progress is seductively quantifiable and the impossible becomes a tantalizing possibility.

I was always irked by the World Triathlon Corporation's motto " Anything Is Possible. " I saw this catch phrase as hyperbolic false advertising. The pragmatist in me would mutter, "No.  Anything  is not possible!!" under my breath, whenever I saw someone wearing this slogan... ~ Christopher Bergland

Amelia Boone personifies the impossible. She works eight to 10-hour days as legal counsel for Apple. She is also an endurance racer with the pain threshold of a concrete block, winning the World's Toughest Mudder three times. While on a 25-mile training run she felt a nagging tightness in her inner thigh that turned into a thunderbolt of pain as her leg fractured. During her eight months of recovery she “lost her identity” and said she was scared she'd instantly gain “40 million pounds”. Forty million pounds? Boone exposes the neurotic fear-driven dark side of the hot dog eating contest. Yes, she's an achiever, but I want to give Amelia Boone a hug and tell her she doesn't have to push herself so hard that her femur snaps like a wishbone to prove that she's good.

Christopher Bergland is a former ultra-marathon runner similarly immune to pain who felt a compulsion to compete at ever-escalating extremes. He collapsed after setting a world record for running 24 hours straight on a treadmill. 153.76 miles. Bergland spent four days in the hospital and emerged with a different philosophy about extreme goal setting.

Knowing that I had the mental toughness to kill myself by treadmill, I was like, I don't need this anymore. I'd proven I could do it. I really wanted to come back to earth. ~ Christopher Bergland

Most of us don't have the mental and physical chops to endure the torture extreme athletes and eaters (and readers) inflict on themselves. But we might be prone to what Derek Sivers describes to Tim Ferriss in his book Tools of the Titans, the 15-mile bike ride that isn't enjoyable because we're treating it like an extreme sport. Dial it back a bit and exhaustion turns into exhilaration.

Here's how Derek describes the experience:

How about you? Do you feel the pressure to 10X it, to make work or some other aspect of your life into an extreme sport? Please don't.

About the Author: The author has run two half marathons--it would have only been one half marathon, but her chip malfunctioned and her time didn't register so she had to do it again. Half a marathon is as extreme as she would ever care to get.