Life Lesson Learned: It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint, but we Need to Train for the Long Run

When I set out to write a LinkedIn Newsletter, I wasn’t sure if the frequency should be daily, weekly, or whatever was convenient.

Yesterday, I tested Thursday as a publish date when I had been putting my newsletter/blog post out on Sundays. And by putting this particular newsletter/blog post out, I’m breaking that frequency rule again.

So I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry, because I had an aha moment while walking on a treadmill today at Cardiac Rehabilitation.

This Was My Aha Moment

This morning was just Day 2 of Cardiac Rehabilitation at Waterbury Hospital, and it’s been 30 days since my cardiologist at St. Vincent Medical Center performed cardiac catheterization and angioplasty to insert three stents to repair blockages in my arteries.

At both sessions, I was told I was going too fast. At my orientation last Friday, I was told that I should not have been going on a treadmill at home without being monitored. My target pulse for a workout in 100 to 134 BPM, but I wanted to go faster.

Unfortunately, to keep up with the Joneses and to win the rat race, we’ve been conditioned to run at full speed and to give 110%. But in reality, it’s physically impossible to give more than 100%, and we have to learn to walk before we can run.

Life Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

It hit me today: Life is a marathon, not a sprint. But we have to go as fast as we can in life to achieve our goals and feel successful and break the bank and get that promotion and so forth. Unless you’re a Tik Tok star (and very few people in the world are), you’re not going to hit the ground running and become an overnight success.

But what we don’t think about is marathon training, or even training for a road race. Someone of sound mind and body doesn’t just wake up one day and compete in a road race, whether it’s a 5k or a marathon. Just as someone of sound mind and body doesn’t just wake up and launch a company without a solid business plan and financing in place.

Whether it’s recovering from heart disease, wanting to create the next big thing, or even running a road race, patience is necessary. When I look back at my own history – from sports to business to personal relationships to personal finances, I’ve always come out sprinting when I needed to take baby steps.

The sad thing is that despite knowing the saying “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” it’s not something I comprehended. Either that, or it’s something I understood, but I didn’t practice what I preached. It means that we need to train ourselves for the long run.

And when I thought about it, too, there's a reason I'm in Cardiac Rehabilitation. It's to improve the health of my heart and learn healthy habits, not to train for a Marathon... that will have to come later, if I choose to do so.

Listening to My Heart and Slowing Down

On Fridays at Cardiac Rehabilitation, we will watch an educational video that has to do with prevention of a cardiac incident (such as a heart attack or a stroke). When I watch these videos, I always wonder where they found the actors, and when it was made based on the fashions.

The video today was about stress management. As we know, life is full of stress, and everyone handles stress differently (I will go more into this in a future post, and how stress NEEDS to be managed). If we don’t learn how to manage stress, it can lead to a heart attack or a stroke.

But I never thought of stress management while working out. While we’re told that exercise is a great way to relieve stress, we don’t put into consideration how high our blood pressure could rise during physical activity.

And that’s why, instead of being ambitious and making running a road race a goal for this spring, I’m going to slow down the pace and do what’s reasonable, guided, and monitored at Cardiac Rehabilitation three mornings a week until Easter. I’m going to listen to my heart and slow down.

***Also, as I mentioned in my intro blog post… If something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. Get to a doctor – or call 9-1-1 – before it’s too late.?