Can a 58-year-old CEO run a 5-minute mile? – the power of goal-setting during complex and difficult times

I am setting a goal: to run a 5-minute mile, or as close as possible to it.

You may be asking: why this goal; and why now? We are in complex and difficult times, with people justifiably anxious and distracted – surely this is not the time to set a running challenge.

It is. Let me tell you why. I'm doing it because our data from Vitality shows just how powerful physical activity is. More importantly, I am doing it to illustrate the power of setting goals, particularly now during complex times. I am hoping that through this, we can nudge others to do the same and set their own goals – whatever they are. 

I want to expand on this.

Firstly, and obviously, our work in Vitality inspired this challenge, given the irrefutable benefits of physical activity in helping people live longer in better health. Our data shows that improving from no exercise to just one physically-active day per week results in a 35% reduced risk of death. Exercise is also a powerful trigger event, stimulating other healthy behaviours, and has beneficial effects all-round, including on mental health and resilience: Vitality data shows that physical activity and good nutrition are associated with up to four times lower psychological distress. I will be drawing on Vitality’s assets throughout and look forward to deepening my insight into my own health through this process.

The distance was chosen with intention. Running a mile, 1609m or just over four laps of a track, is a notorious distance in running history. When 25-year-old British medical student Roger Bannister broke the elusive 4-minute mile in 1954, he set the sports world aflame for achieving what was believed at the time to be an impossible athletic feat. In fact, today, more people have summited Everest than have broken the 4-minute barrier. Since then, there have been many more memorable runs and records that have given the mile an almost iconic status, shifting it from the track to metaphor. Why is the mile such a uniquely captivating currency and challenge? Given it is right in the middle of the distance spectrum, not a short sprint but not a marathon, it insists on an equal amount of endurance and speed – and artful trade-offs between their competing demands. Not to mention the psychological strength to handle high degrees of pain and discomfort as one pursues pace at distance. Simply put, the quest of the average avid runner in their prime – a sub-5 mile – demands strong legs, stronger lungs, tactical smarts, and significant reserves of mental fortitude.

Physically, I probably have few or none of these attributes, which is why I am attempting to do it. The chances of achieving it are slim: the world record for a 60-year-old, and a real athlete no doubt, is 4 minutes 47 seconds – only 13 seconds quicker. Data extrapolated from the US Army Physical Fitness Test shows that the top 1% of males between 56 and 61 years would run a mile in 7 minutes 39 seconds – so the challenge is justifiably unreasonable for a CEO in a suit.

You see, while I am disciplined about my exercise because I know its benefits insofar as preventative health goes – I am no athlete. My training is casual in its duration and intensity. Not to mention I’m not exactly in my physical prime. At 58, running science urges for caution and prudence in both my ambition and training, given that physiologically and psychologically our capacity deteriorates with age. In addition, running wisdom reveals it takes most runners at least two years of consistent training to get there. My running history is sporadic; and I have just eight weeks and limited diary capacity for this pursuit.

So when you look at the data and my personal circumstances, I will be pleased to get under 5 minutes 30 seconds. Regardless, a goal needs to be both inspiring and a stretch – I’m setting a goal, not a target. 

This gets me to the second question, why set this personal goal now when times are difficult and complex? People around the world are anxious: there is war in Ukraine and economic uncertainty, amongst other difficulties. In South Africa, my home country, there are power blackouts causing considerable difficulty and anger, contributing to a negative narrative.

It turns out that setting goals is a powerful tonic. I’m setting a goal for myself, precisely now, because of the environment and the narrative. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl proposes a simple and profound truth: if we can find meaning in life, we can survive anything; something he knew well as an Auschwitz survivor in WWII. The analogy is useful outside of this extreme context: when the environment or climate is trying, we can shape our wellbeing and longevity by setting future-oriented goals that generate purpose and positivity. This forms the basis of logotherapy, his unique method of treatment as a neurologist and psychiatrist.

Furthermore, we are learning from behavioural economics that goals have more power than we may rationally understand. When we set goals, we trigger potent levels of focus and motivation; and consequently, create unimaginable stretch in our potential that otherwise lies dormant and undiscovered.

Sound soft or lofty? It isn't. It’s known as loss aversion, a phenomenon in behavioural science whereby individuals are doubly as motivated by loss as they are by a gain of equal magnitude. Nobel Prize winners Kahneman and Tversky’s work on Prospect Theory explored this phenomenon. They looked at what is known as Utility Theory, the value people derive from things, both positive and negative. They found that the relationship is not linear as assumed (the more leave we get, the happier we are) but rather S-shaped, declining gradually and then flattening out (the next day of annual leave counts slightly less and after several weeks, it doesn’t matter so much at all). Secondly, and importantly, they found that the curve is much steeper on the negative side. In other words, loss is felt more keenly than gain is, and is hence more motivating.

I found the paper by Pope and Schweitzer (The American Economic Review, 2011) incredibly powerful. They analysed 2.5 million putts over a PGA season and found that professional golfers putt significantly better when they are putting for a par as opposed to putting for a birdie, given putting for a par invokes an attempt to avoid a loss. Quite a remarkable finding when you consider that these are athletes at the top of one of the most difficult sports in the world, investing their very best into every shot they play. They can’t trump this bias, and neither can you or I.

This is profound when it comes to contemplating how to improve our personal lives, our professional lives, our communities, and our country. Tragically, most people miss this simple truth. Even those who get it, allow the truth to dilute with age. We seem to let life happen to us in older age, surrendering as opposed to taking back our power as we did in our youth – and hence lose out on the profound sense of self-determination, purpose and meaning that goals generate.

Enough said.

Over the course of the next eight weeks, I will follow the training plan provided to me by JP van der Merwe, legendary middle distance running coach who trained Johan and Werner Botha, Hezekiél Sepeng and Mbulaeni Mulaudzi – winners at the World Championships and Olympics respectively, representing SA. It is clear from my discussions with JP that he hasn’t ever trained someone of my (questionable) ability: in our introductory call he asked me for my running times in school to get a sense of my potential. I had to admit the only thing I ran in school were numbers; not exactly the answer he was hoping for!

More importantly, I will be interviewing eminent business leaders, athletes, coaches, clinicians, and scientists for their perspectives on how to liberate and optimise performance and potential through the framework of goal setting, particularly in complex, challenging times. It should be enlightening.

I am twinning my goal to a far more important goal – that of our Discovery Foundation. The Foundation's vision is to strengthen the South African healthcare system given we have too few doctors relative to the scale of the population and the extent of disease burden. The Discovery Foundation has already funded the education of 10% of the country’s sub-specialists and is based on the hypothesis that strengthening the system from the top will cascade down via lecturing and training, creating further expertise and capacity. An important element of the work of the Foundation is our partnership with the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. Through this partnership, working together with our medical schools, we identify future academic leaders pursuing highly-specialised training including PhD studies; and provide them full support for a year’s residential exposure to the research, training facilities and network opportunities that MGH provides. These fellows undertake to return to South Africa and widely share their experiences and learnings. We already have great experience of the positive impact that these exceptional people have on our health system upon their return. Inspired by this, we have partnered with the Foundation to sponsor an additional five carefully selected individuals to augment the ongoing commitment of the Foundation. The identification of specialised priority areas will also be guided through a collaboration with our medical schools and the College of Medicine of SA to ensure that we build the requisite depth in our highly-specialised areas. The achievement of this goal could be transformational for our healthcare system.

Time is short and opportunities to self-actualise, to truly grow, are fleeting if not consciously sought out and embraced. Achieving success with this challenge will not be about the achievement of a 5-minute mile. It’s about getting across the importance of physical activity – virtually anyone can cover a mile irrespective of their resources; and it doesn’t matter how long it takes! Additionally, it will be about illustrating the power of dreams and goals, no matter how old you are, or wherever your life’s journey has taken you.

My goal is to get as close to a 5-minute mile as I can by the end of November. I urge you to do the same and set a goal, whatever it is, to complete by end November – and post it here. Having a goal gives life additional meaning and texture. Don't delay.