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I'm not sure about competing in track and field but played professional team sport at the highest level, agree maybe in the gym or on the road you push yourself to the edge and beyond but on the field it is the repetition, the drills and the routines which allow you to express yourself - certainly not running around headless, constantly forcing the pace, will just cause unacceptable mistakes - there is no margin for error at all, you do not want to be 'it'. I'm not sure working at the very edge of your range is the correct expression - speed of thought rather than limb counts and though you are very close to max just to stay alive we were always told to 'play within' ourselves.

As for programming - I've seen countless noobs make things that were far too complicated for them to understand later - let alone anybody else. If I had only one piece of advice to any intern it would be 'keep it simple'. I don't agree with learning everything the hard way, by trial and error because maybe you'll never get the chance to fix that crap you made because y'know there will always be people who can do it to an acceptable standard first time. Life does not always give you do-overs.