My running journey started wrong in basically every way possible. The basic motivator was to be healthier and get in better shape but the main driver was to be faster than my friend Trevor. This meant that every effort was a max effort and if I had anything left in the tank when I got back to my front door after a run, I did something wrong.
This got me through my first 5k race and was my mindset as I continued running longer and longer (6 miles was a long run for me at this point). As I headed into the new year in 2022, Trevor stopped running and I slowly got motivated by the mental challenge of running and not just beating a friend. Around this time, I started to see people talking about training slow to go fast. It didn’t make any sense.
People were saying online that I was supposed to run 80% of my miles at a “conversational” or easy effort. I had run 0% of my miles at an effort that I would describe as easy. As I looked into it more, people were claiming that I needed to be running in a low heart rate zone to improve my base foundation and that would result in faster and farther runs. I tried it and went from running at a 9:30 minute per mile pace to around a 12:00 minute per mile pace. Embarrassed is the only word to describe how I felt about my running times.
As I began to train for my first half marathon at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023, I was talking the talk but refusing to walk the walk. I just couldn’t break my pride down to run as slow as I needed to. This led to a frustrating training block and a very slow and painful race in February of 2023.
After recovering from that race, I signed up for the Disney Marathon (which we are about a month out from as of the writing of this) and another half marathon in September. This time though, I committed.
I bought into the slow, easy miles and began to build my foundation. At first, progress felt like it was never going to happen. I had to run/walk basically all of my runs and I was going slower than ever. I didn’t give in to the temptation to push myself though and trusted the process.
Day after day, run after run, I built my miles slow and steady and didn’t worry about my pace. Then out of nowhere, it clicked. Suddenly sub 10-minute miles felt easy and longer and longer runs felt effortless. The pounds started falling off every time I stepped on the scales and miles continued to increase week after week.
Now 6 months after buying into the process, my outlook not just on running but on life has completely changed.
Nothing I did was extraordinary or even hard in itself but I committed to the monotony of slowly improving and doing the work. Day after day I showed up and did the boring runs. The slow runs. The runs that don’t turn anyone’s head.
The result? I built a foundation that was dug deep so that when the long runs started to take off and the paces increased, it seemed overnight.
Now I am not a fast runner by any means but I am a lot faster than I was in June!
So what did this all teach me and in turn, what can it teach you?
Sustainable success is earned by committing to the mundane, daily, foundation-building tasks and trusting the process.
You see, no one singular run was the difference maker in my training but rather by showing up every day and putting miles on my legs and conditioning my heart, I was able to build up to runs and paces that seemed impossible 6 months ago.
The same is true in business and life.
Posting that one YouTube video probably isn’t going to change your business. 5 years of weekly uploads will.
Putting your phone down at one family dinner to be engaged won’t immediately deepen your relationship with your spouse and children. Doing it every day for a year will.
A lot of times we know the exact answer and solution to the problems in our life. We just don’t want to commit to the daily sacrifice and time commitment that creates sustainable change and instead want to find the quick fix temporary bandaids that will fade and leave us in the same or worse place than we were before.
Make a plan. Commit. Show up every day for yourself and your family. Be patient.
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” - Ephesians 6:9