Why Run A Marathon?
“Why would you do that to yourself?” was the most common question I received from friends, family and clients during the preceding 6 months leading up to the BMO Vancouver Marathon. Quick pause here in the unlikely chance you did not know Trevor, Sam and I ran the BMO Vancouver Marathon. All 42.2 km of it.
Now back to the question of why do this to myself? I would commonly give a response such as “ Trevor and Sam peer pressured me into it” or “Just to say I did it”.
Well both those were true, they are the surface level truths. Peer pressure and glory are not reason enough for me to do such evils to my body…..
The Real Reason I Ran 42 Kilometers
“We must master ourselves unless we'd prefer to be mastered by someone or something else.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline is Destiny
When Trevor and Sam asked if I would do the event with them I immediately said no way. I had told myself that I would never run a marathon. However they kept asking. Which made we think a little deeper. I really didn’t have a good reason to not run it. It was also an opportunity to work on things that I struggle with. Thing like procrastination, prioritizing the right things, and really just discipline in general.
Now adding in the leadership position I am in with these things that I struggle with, can sometimes leave me struggling with imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome, if you're unfamiliar, is the condition of feeling anxious and not experiencing success internally, despite being high-performing in external, objective ways. This often results in people feeling like "a fraud" or "a phony" and doubting their abilities.
After reflection, I realized that this marathon gave me a chance to become a master of myself. I knew that If I was going to do it, I was really going to do it. It would be challenging to not skip quality runs, get my weekly km quota, and push the right intensities and time demands.
As corny as it sounds, the hope was that in doing this difficult thing, I would be able to be more disciplined and improve other areas of life.
Said another way, if I could be a leader of myself, I could be a better leader in every other area of life. This was the leading factor in my choice to run the race. Though, I would be lying if I said peer pressure did not play any role HA.
Now having finished and reflecting, it really has already made a difference in my life. It was absolutely the hardest thing I have ever done physically and mentally. I won’t bore you with all the trickle down benefits it had in my life, but I do feel like it's important to share 3 lessons I learned during this whole process.
Show Up
My training was far from perfect.
There were days that the schedule did not cooperate resulting in a shorter run or split it up into 2 sessions that day. The biggest setback came when I got injured for 6+ weeks with a knee injury from basketball men's league. (mini lesson, if you're going to do a marathon, it's a good idea to sideline team sports till it's done).
This sidelined me for a full week of running. Everything in me wanted to just chill and wait, but I knew that would only put me behind. To still train I hopped on the bike all that week instead. The only thing I hate more than running, IS BIKING. Still, I showed up.
Then with the knee injury I could not run distances longer than 7-10 km in a single session before pain started settling in for about 4 weeks. Extremely frustrating, but still showed up and did a large number of mini sessions daily.
The goal was consistency. The self-talk was simple, “do not miss a session, keep going” the execution of it though was hard.
It was worth it though, it translated into an above average marathon time for my first race ever. On what is considered to be a challenging course.
It is no different from any other goal we have. Whether it's a certain dollar amount we want to make this year, a weight loss target, or a new personal best max jump. Show up, do the work, and be consistent. It won't be perfect all the time, but it will always be better than not showing up.
Be perfectly imperfect with your actions, you will thank yourself later.
Surround Yourself With The Right People
The day of the race, I showed up to start line still not fully understanding what the process was and looked like. When I arrive Trevor and Sam are already there. The first thing Trevor asks is “what color is on your bib.” When you register for the marathon, they ask what you expect your finish time to be. I guess this puts you into different color groups that have slightly different start times.
I put 4 hours down for mine, which placed me in the 3rd group to start. Trevor had put 3 hours and 15 minutes, putting him in the first group! This meant he was starting with the fastest and most experienced people in the event. This is also where Sam was ( he put down 3 hours which made sense for him). We had a good laugh. I thought he was going to get left behind.
To my surprise, he finished 5 seconds behind Sam. Trevor ended up crushing my time and surpassed his own expectations. For myself, I couldn’t be happier with my experience but since then have been left wondering…. If I started in that front group would my time have been better?
I will never know but honestly, I think so.
The people we allow close into our life and spend the most time with are going to be a major influence on our trajectory of success. There are SO many examples all around. An easy example, I wouldn’t have ever ran a marathon if it was not for great people in my life like Trevor and Sam.
The otherside can be dark. A simple story to look at is that of Ja Morant, star of the Memphis Grizzlies. Ja, for the second time in a 3 month span, has been seen flashing a gun while dancing on instagram live. After the first incident he was suspended 9 games and disciplined severely. He made a formal apology, acknowledging the stupidity and that it does not represent who he truly is. Flash forward to the second time, not a quarter of a year after the first event, and he does the SAME thing again.
In addition to these two serious events there have been a handful of other controversial events involving him this past year. He is now at risk of missing an entire season and losing his shoe deal at Nike. Ultimately the whole ordeal is going to cost him millions and millions of dollars and his positive reputation at least in the short term.
According to reports, it's well known that Ja is a smart young man who is a good person at heart. So why is this happening and what is the commonality of all these events? It has been the same friend group with him each time. Is it more complicated than this? Sure, and obviously I'm making assumptions based on reports and articles since I do not know him personally.
Unfortunately, as we grow, so must our relationships. If we want to make positive changes in our lives that do not align with the closest people around us, it might mean we need to take a step back and surround ourselves with people who want to see us succeed and who are also in alignment with our life goals.
Its Okay To Be Bored
I'll keep this section short and sweet.
When you run 2 plus hours twice a week, there is a level of boredom that comes with it. Bored is perceived as a negative word. No one wants to be bored.
However there are a lot of positives in boredom that are not talked about much. In boredom we allow ourselves time with just our thoughts. We can sort through our thoughts, figure out what is serving us and what's not. We can be more creative and formulate ideas. We can work through complicated problems in our private lives and work lives.
In most sessions, a combination of boredom and running would organize my brain. I was getting more work done with less available time than pre marathon training. I felt less general anxiety, less stress and overall felt more gratitude and bliss in my life.
Now I look for opportunities to sit with myself and be bored. You don’t always need a show in the background to cook, music to walk the dog, or to be scrolling on your phone when you're sitting on your couch. Take those opportunities to be with yourself, you wont regret it.
Thank you.
If you made it all the way through, thank you for reading my ramble. I hope you were able to get something out of the lessons that I took away from this challenging endeavor. I will leave you with one last thing. If there is something challenging you have been putting off….. Go do it. You won’t regret it.
Until next time, all the best!
Coach Nate.