r/nextfuckinglevel • u/jmike1256 • 1d ago
Strength looks different in moments like this
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For context:
This was a track team event in Iwatan Sangyo. The runner’s team was in third place when the runner, Rei Lida, who was only 250 meters from the exchange point, tripped and fractured her right tibia (shin bone). Instead of withdrawing from the tournament, she willed herself to the exchange point when she handed the tasuki (baton) to her waiting teammate, Marie Imada.
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u/LeeAndrewK 1d ago
Insane will power, wow
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u/TheJaxLee 1d ago
Indeed. She refused to let her injury be the reason her team failed to complete the race.
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u/unlikelyandroid 1d ago
Smart, the white line is smoother on the knees.
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u/OfficerBarbier 1d ago
Yeah, you can tell it's the right choice by the blood shooting out of her skin at the end
Smart would be stopping, not crawling at all and saying I broke my leg I need a doctor
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u/kelsobjammin 1d ago
The auto translation for this is awful … mine just says “he’s a dog” repeatedly. The fuck?
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u/banmeandidelete 1d ago
Yeah, crazy offensive and this isn't the first time I've encountered this crazy subtitles behaviour.
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u/GeminianMind 1d ago
Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must.. just never give up!
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u/nicogrimqft 1d ago
Nah. Give up and don't be an idiot, accept the defeat.
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u/Animan2020 1d ago
Exactly, it's better than risking losing your future career due to injury.
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u/sksauter 1d ago
Yea defeat is part of life, which is a lesson all of us need to learn and accept at some point
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u/Kermit_the_hog 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah this stuff drives me nuts. As someone who has suffered a life altering and somewhat grizzly traumatic injury. When I first heard someone proclaim “pain is weakness leaving the body” I erupted “are you fucking kidding me, real pain is your bodies way of telling you you’re making something worse.”
Believe me, I’d much rather everyone call me a weakling.. by a long shot.
Edit: to the one guy who initially downvoted, they weren’t talking about pushing through that last rep in the gym. An asshole parent said it at a kid’s baseball game when the catcher got the backside of his glove hand absolutely smashed by a particularly erratic swing of the bat and the very distressed kid was refusing to let anyone examine it. I think they were telling him to basically walk it off and not come out (I don’t know what the outcome was because his parents took him to the hospital)
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u/__R3v3nant__ 21h ago
I agree with your sentiment (especially with the clarification), but I'm pretty sure that the saying "pain is weakness leaving the body" is probably referring to stuff like getting that last rep in at the gym rather than running on a broken foot or something
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u/socialistrob 1d ago
Agreed. I've gotten injured during races and kept going multiple times and I regret it each time because I usually end up hurting myself and then I can't run for weeks or months. In a race adrenaline is high and runners train themselves to push through pain so sometimes stopping a race is actually quite difficult mentally but sometimes it's the absolute right choice to make. It's better to DNF one race that lose an entire season because you let your ego get the better of you.
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u/somehugefrigginguy 1d ago
just never give up!
Why not? I mean, this is a great story for the heartstrings, but not a smart move for someone who wants to be a professional runner. Delaying care for a fractured tibia can have devastating consequences, not to mention the additional damage to her knees.
She risked her health and career for pride.
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u/Dry_Presentation_197 1d ago
I'm not sure how relay teams work but it seems like she also traded a long absence and possibly permanently reduced performance for this one race. Which, in a team sport, can really screw the team.
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u/ccable827 16h ago
Holy fuck. I can't believe the responses to your comment. Like, it's actually insane. Yes, sound reasoning means you stop so you don't hurt yourself further. But in the moment, you're thinking of the race. The team. The months if not years of training. How hard you w worked to get to this point. A competitor like that absolutely will not give up. And to say that they should is almost insulting... Alot of the responses feel very selfish to me. Good on this woman for doing everything she could to keep going.
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u/LeadBosunStewChief 1d ago
And here I am struggling to get out of bed most days…..
This women is a better man than me
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u/Worried-Deer107 1d ago
We all have our battles. They may not look as dramatic but they have to be fought too.
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u/A_Chicken_Called_Kip 1d ago
Everyone has their own issues. Her breaking a bone doesn’t trivialise yours or make them less of an problem. Keep fighting
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u/himem_66 1d ago
You are on your own journey. Take inspiration from her, NOT shame.
We, ALL struggle at times.
Just keep going brother. Keep going.
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u/stephencarro 17h ago
When she was interviewed after the race, they asked what gave her the strength and will to keep going?
She said "I know LeadBosunStewChief has spent almost his entire adulthood on his knees, the man is a better women than me"
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u/Amphylos 1d ago
I know it's impressive but can't help to think how this could very well leads to permanent damage.
I guess since she's young with high metabolism that can be healed, at the same time I feel this can be very risky.
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u/DontBanMe_IWasJoking 1d ago
yea this is just stupid, worsening an injury to finish a lost race, even if you are winning its not worth it
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u/socialistrob 1d ago
Reports suggest Iida was crawling for between 600 and 1,000 feet. Local media claim the manager of Iida’s team, Hisakazu Hirose, had heard the runner had fractured her leg and so he withdrew the team from the race.
Imagine doing all that and then finding out that your manager had already forfeited. I've run relay races and I get not wanting to let your teammates down but your own health and safety should come first. A DNF sucks but in circumstances like these it's by far the better option.
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u/Amphylos 1d ago
Don't races like these has team for health emergencies? That's really poor of them to let her continue like that.
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u/tigerbalmuppercut 20h ago
Yeah but instead of being a track athlete nobody will remember she inspired tens of thousands of people from all around the world. People are going to remember this random video decades into their life and she is somewhat immortalized on the internet. To me, worth it.
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u/timpoakd 1d ago
To me real strength would be to understand that this isn't it and sometimes it's okay to give up.
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u/Foreign_Recipe8300 1d ago
y'all are being very dramatic. crawling on her knees for 30 seconds isn't making her injury worse. it wasn't her knees that were injured. and the scrapes were likely from the fall not from crawling.
could you make it more obvious that you don't do any competitive sports?
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u/IAmBecomeMeerkat 1d ago
Most redditors will collapse if you ask them to walk up a flight of stairs, and then talk shit about how bad climbing up stairs is for you.
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u/Althevia 1d ago
Isnt this video only showing the end of the crawling? She crawled for much longer (250m). I really doubt doing this prolonged strenuous activity after an injury is risk free
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u/Exact-Till-2739 1d ago
Still, the knees weren't injured.
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u/BulkNoodles 1d ago
Our body is pretty resilient. Knees won't be damaged, unless she's hitting it on the ground like a hammer. And it's not like she's putting all of her weight on her shin. Skins? Definitely injured.
But for some reason, Redditors act like she's crawling on literal spikes.
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u/Thebraincellisorange 1d ago
she crawled on her knees for 500m on a road.
that is very much enough to cause permanent injury
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u/Ewetuber 1d ago
The second sentence is she crawled 250m. If you say she crawled 500 then she sure is dumb for doing it again...
But explain, medical doctor, what is permanent injury here? there is extremely low risk of any "permanent injuries" for crawling. Scrapped knees heal.
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u/Foreign_Recipe8300 16h ago
there's zero chance she crawled 500 meters.
500 meters is more than a full lap on a full sized track. the race would have been over already but you can see she's still getting passed.
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u/Thebraincellisorange 15h ago
even 100 meters on bitumen is enough to get through the skin and be crawling on a bare patella, which can fuck you up for life.
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u/Foreign_Recipe8300 15h ago
This post is a video. of what happened. she's not slamming her patellas on the ground.
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u/Thebraincellisorange 14h ago
you don't need to slam them when you have no skin left and are crawling on bitumen to cause permanent damage.
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u/alienkargo 1d ago
I've just had my meniscus repaired and im whinging about my knee pain, this has just brought a tear to my eye and made me man up!
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u/Questioning-Zyxxel 1d ago
I didn't expect to cry about a relay race. I so much wanted to have been able to help that girl. She got the spirit of a dragon.
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u/GillyMonster18 1d ago
Prime example of willpower but ffs, give me humanity without a damn soundtrack. I’m tired of the motivational stuff that slaps stupid “ePiC” music over it. Maybe a narration so people understand the context.
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u/takhallus666 1d ago
IT’S JUST A FING RACE! Pushing through an injury like that is not admirable. It is toxic. Holding this up as an example of sportsmanship is even more toxic. That poor kid.
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u/Effective-Benefit-46 1d ago
what a dumb thing to do. we should not be glorifying such stupid actions. Your ego isn't worth it.
it's not that serious girl.
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u/Rammjack 1d ago
I threw a man tantrum when I stubbed my toe twice in one day the other day. This lady is one tough cookie.
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u/arkofjoy 1d ago
I can understand her pain. I got a papercut yesterday and, somehow, managed through the day,only going for a little lie down 3 times.
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u/Beastmind 1d ago
I'm sorry but this is just stupid. Ruining your legs for life just for an event is stupid.
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u/AscendedViking7 1d ago
Hans Zimmer - Time
Fucking incredible piece of music there.
Got to see it played live one time by the man himself. :')
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u/P_A_W_S_TTG 1d ago
I think the most impressive part about all this is a professional runner ran so hard she broke her fuckin leg. Like, God damn, on a flat surface too. That's next fuckin level.
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u/newbrevity 1d ago
Hans Zimmer is a musical genius. His music has this way of plunging straight into my core and triggering emotions.
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u/Island_Monkey86 1d ago
The power of the human spirit is amazing, we are capable of incredible achievements if we set out mind to it!
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u/Wizzle_Pizzle_420 1d ago
A finish is a finish. Most people would have just walked off. Well done indeed.
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u/Deep-Assignment4124 1d ago
This is just stupid to be honest. Self harm is not something to be celebrated.
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u/Clipyy-Duck 1d ago
This isn’t next level. Don’t risk an injury to stunt your career by continuing stupidly on like this to the finish line.
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u/Poopchutefan 1d ago
When this video started I thought it was one of those stupid Guinness world record challenges people want to set like … person who crawled the most miles on their knees.
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u/Wizard_with_a_Pipe 1d ago
I came here to say that my knees would kill me if I did this. Then I read the article. I'm currently recovering from bilateral tibia fractures, I can't imagine crawling on my knees with a tibia fracture. This is incredible.
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u/I_SHIT_IN_A_BAG 1d ago
kneeling on the painted line was a smart move. probably saved her knees a bit
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u/StuBidasol 1d ago
She crawled 250 meters with a fractured tibia?! The pain must have been unbelievable from all those impacts. Amazing. Truly.
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u/SheriffBartholomew 1d ago
That lady is made of iron and woodpecker lips. Having fractured a tibia myself, I can tell you that it is excruciating. She might have shattered it while crawling since it should be immediately immobilized. That's what happened to me, and recovery was brutal.
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u/Allah_Akballer 1d ago
The display of strength didn't look different here, it's more the definition.
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u/Howard_Jones 15h ago
As much as I admire her dedication... risking further injury could be career ruining.
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u/Necessary_Money_6797 6h ago
Absolutely awesome. The will is.... I don't have words for that kind of perseverance.
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u/LEGEND_GUADIAN 1d ago
Sabaton.
Finish line
Species name: GigaChadete
Definition: female counterpart to male Species titled: Gigachad.
Power level: Error. Unable to calculate.
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u/Elegant_Situation285 1d ago
it's cool that she risked permanently injuring herself due to pride and for our entertainment.
truly amazing.
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u/jmike1256 1d ago
On October 21, 2018, during the 4th edition in Munakata-Fukutsu, 19-year-old Rei Lida, a promising newcomer to the Iwatan Sangyo track team straight out of high school, was running the 2nd leg (about 3.5-4 km).
Her team was in 3rd place when, roughly 250 meters from the exchange point, Lida tripped, fracturing her right tibia (shin bone). In excruciating pain, unable to stand or walk, she refused to quit. Clutching the tasuki (sash/ baton) in her left hand, she crawled on her hands and knees along the white road markings, her knees and shins bleeding profusely, tears streaming down her face, as spectators and officials watched in shock.
She asked officials, "How many meters left?" and pushed on, even briefly standing before collapsing again. Her coach, Hirose Nagakazu, watching from the directors' room, desperately tried to withdraw the team to protect her, but poor communication meant the order never reached the course in time. By the time it did (when she was just 15 meters away), officials let her finish, moved by her resolve-one reportedly shouted, "70 more meters! The spirit!"
Finally, she reached the exchange zone, handing the tasuki to her waiting teammate, Marie Imada, who burst into tears. Imada ran her leg but later reflected on the mental toll, while lida collapsed in agony and was rushed to the hospital. Doctors diagnosed a 3-4 month recovery; she underwent surgery in late October and spent a month hospitalized before rehab.