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1 Author here. I did my fair share of competitive math in highschool, but never got to the National phase (although two times I was very close, like 2 points close). The amount of grind for that was too high for me, and I also had other interests. All in all, the regional phase was also quite hard (most of the problems are from the regional phase). We were not told why we solve the problems, we considered the problems to be more like teasers and puzzles.

Years later, I've realized they helped me to get some sort of mathematical intuition of things that was enough for me to finish an Engineering degree without having to struggle too much with math. All my colleagues who participated in the contests felt the same.

To this day I believe those puzzles educate the Engineer in you, or if you want to finish with a Math degree they can be complementary.