Lessons from my Marathon Training

For several years now, I have been running on and off with the elusive goal of running a full marathon – 42.2 kilometers. I managed to complete a few 10K races and once ran as much as 17km in one go, but somehow, I would usually get sick, pause my training to get better, and then start all over again. This went on for several years until last year. The Christmas of the year prior, my wife gave me one of the best gifts ever – she hired an elite runner (Roel Ano) to be my coach! At first, I was skeptical about the value of a coach. After all, what can be simpler than running? But six months later, as I finally crossed the finish line after more than five hours of running at the Milo Marathon, and logging more than a thousand kilometers in training three times a week, I knew I could not have done it alone. 

I would like to share the lessons I learned as I worked to achieve this life goal and how they apply to our lives at work.

1.    Coaching works

I often get asked what exactly I learn from my coach as many people think nothing could be simpler than running. After all, we all learned to run when we were kids playing in the streets. Yet I soon learned several kinds of running – the sprint to improve speed, the tempo run to improve strength, and the all-important long run: running at an easy pace for many hours to improve endurance. Coaching was especially important at the beginning when my coach kept correcting my form by reminding me that I will be running for over five hours and any unnecessary movement will only tire me faster. This is one key benefit of a coach: they have the experience and the mastery of technique that we cannot learn just by reading. And they can point areas for improvement that we will not otherwise be aware of because of our blind spots.

It is the same at work. Those who learn and progress fastest are usually those who have a growth mindset because they are willing to hear and act on feedback. They do not assume they know everything and retain a beginner’s mind always willing to learn something new. In other words, they are willing to be coached. And coaching can come not just from managers, but also from clients, peers, and subordinates if we are willing to listen.

2.    It takes a team

Running is the most solitary of sports yet it took a team for me to cross that finish line. My coach patiently took the time to teach me basic running drills and to supervise my training at least twice a week. He also had an assistant who paced my runs many times. There were runner friends with whom I exchanged notes and who kept encouraging me to achieve the next goal or break my personal record. Finally, there was my wife who not only put up with my long training hours – I was out most Sunday mornings doing my LSD (long, slow, distance) anywhere between two to five hours – but also reminded me to do proper stretching and take my supplements.

At work, the more we collaborate and co-create with colleagues and clients, the richer our output, and the more likely we have a broad coalition of support essential to any significant change effort.

3.    When you think you can’t, you still can!

One key lesson I learned is that our limits are moveable mental constructs. The reason I kept going back to square one is I kept thinking I had to rest when I felt sick and would usually take an entire week off or more. That meant losing all my previous fitness gains and starting all over again. I learned from my coach that there is sickness that requires total rest like the flu with high fever and there are those that you can still run through – the common cold, for example – despite the discomfort. A training program is designed to stress the body and let it adapt so getting sick at some point is quite normal. So I learned to just go out and run even when my mind was telling me to just stay in bed. I then found out that after one round at the oval, I would normally feel better and actually feel stronger at the end of the workout!

If I look back at my own career journey, it was during the toughest times – when the pressure was so high I just wanted to quit – that I actually achieved a breakthrough and learned the most. Truly, growth and comfort do not coexist. It is by not quitting and persisting for one more day that one realizes what seemed impossible was actually doable. And then an entirely different level of performance becomes possible.

4.    Resting is as important as training

Another pitfall of my previously unsupervised running was my failure to understand the value of recovery. I kept increasing my distance from one run to another instead of taking a more gradual approach with periods of rest in between. It was my coach who had to tell me to keep my eagerness in check when I wanted to run four times instead of three times a week, warning me I was courting injury. What I learned was that it is when we rest that our muscles rebuild. If we do not rest enough, we accumulate fatigue and we start performing poorly. Only when there is enough time to repair the muscles we tear apart during training will they become larger and stronger to enable us to perform at a higher level.

At work, we need to stop glorifying long hours, sleep deprivation, and not taking leaves. It is when we rest that we restore our energy and generate fresh ideas. Instead of becoming worn out, we come back to work with a renewed sense of purpose. Nobody benefits from an employee – or leader! - who may be clocking in long hours but is really unproductive, sickly, morose, moody, and burned out. 

5.    Mental strength is as important as physical strength

Beyond all the physical training, running a full marathon also required a lot of mental resiliency. It took mental discipline to maintain a training program over the course of six months with all of life’s monkey wrenches. It was mental toughness that overcame the little voice in my head that said on some days it was better to stay in bed and rest. It was mental strength that pushed me to run for four hours on a Monday morning because I missed my Sunday run to celebrate Father’s Day, but then go straight to work in the afternoon! It took mental resiliency to keep running despite the pain and the fatigue especially whenever I hit the infamous wall, that time when runners reach 30 kilometers and all the energy stores of the body have been depleted and the mind is screaming for it to stop, but then I decided I will keep going. It took mental fortitude to overcome sheer boredom as those long runs can be really long. What exactly does one think about when running for five hours? From meditating and counting my breath, to replaying my life the past thirty years and planning the next thirty, I have created all sorts of mental tricks just so I can keep my mind off the physical discomfort. Yet there were still many moments when I asked myself what the heck I was doing this for? And my answer was because, to plagiarize Sir Edmund Hillary, it was there! There was a finish line to be crossed and a challenge to be overcome and I was not born to lie in bed all day so I might as well see if I could. And I did!

At work, it is the mentally resilient who thrive. Do we react when provoked and lose our temper or do we pause before we thoughtfully respond? Do we pile on and add fuel to the fire or do we try to be the adult in the room? When the going gets tough, do we quit and see if it’s easier in another company or do we persevere until the crisis is overcome and we become part of the solution?

The marathon as a running event is steeped in drama and history. It is named after Marathon, the place about 42 kilometers from Athens where the Greeks defeated the invading army of Persia. Legend has it that Pheidipedes ran that distance to the Acropolis to announce the Greek victory and then he died! And there have been many running champions whose conquest of the Boston Marathon or the Olympics have become part of sporting lore – Emil Zatopek, Abebe Bikila, Eliud Kipchoge and so on. 

My achievement was not quite as historic, but it still had all the drama of personal achievement. Tears welled up in my eyes as it dawned on me that I had finally done it. After lacing up to go for a run more than a hundred times; after racking up more than a thousand kilometers, I had done it! It was the hardest, and in hindsight, craziest thing I ever did, and I want to do it again!

Post Script: I wrote the above after my first marathon in 2017, and I actually did it again in July 2018 at the Milo Marathon, this time in less than five hours.