You Can’t Sprint a Marathon, Yet Many of Us Try This in Life
You wouldn’t keep running in shoes with torn soles and expect your feet to survive. But emotionally, we do this all the time — pushing forward wearing the same gear that once got us through.
There are people in this world who carry a burning desire to achieve something extraordinary—something that sets them apart. I’m one of them. For people like me, being in the top 1% isn’t a dream—it’s the only option that makes sense. I know others feel differently. Many are content with the lives they’ve built, and I think that’s beautiful. But for me? The idea of leaving this Earth without giving everything I have? That doesn’t sit right. I want to know I emptied the tank.
For the past two years, my divorce has been trying to teach me something I’ve only just started to understand: sprinting can only take you so far. No one sprints a marathon. But that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do — push through deep emotional terrain at the speed of urgency. I’ve been cramming healing, grief, growth, forgiveness — all the heavy, long-haul stuff — into the short, tight frame of a 400-meter dash. I kept thinking if I could just move fast enough, I could outrun the discomfort. The pain. The waiting. The truth. That’s when I realized that…
We often think discomfort is a problem to solve. We write plans and stack goals on top of pain hoping structure will save us from feeling. But discomfort isn’t always a signal to act — sometimes, it’s an invitation to be still long enough to understand what’s actually going on underneath the urgency.
I haven’t been pacing myself. I haven’t been breathing deeply or resting between stretches. I haven’t stopped to take care of the parts of me that were clearly falling apart. I didn’t change my shoes when they wore out — I kept forcing myself forward in the same sprinting shoes I started this race with two years ago. And eventually, the cost showed up. In my body. In my heart. In my relationships. I got hurt. I burned out. I found myself farther back than where I started, not because I wasn’t trying — but because I was trying the wrong way.
We often see burnout as a failure of strength, when really, it’s just feedback. You can be wildly capable and still be doing too much, too fast, for too long. Ambition is not about whether you can keep going. It’s about knowing when you should.
Marathons are about endurance, patience, and care. They’re about listening to your body mile after mile, adjusting your stride when needed, hydrating, pausing, respecting the terrain. And I haven’t been giving myself any of that. I’ve treated this process like something I could conquer with willpower alone, when really, it requires compassion. It requires time. It requires tending.
You wouldn’t keep running in shoes with torn soles and expect your feet to survive. But emotionally, we do this all the time — pushing forward wearing the same gear that once got us through. Not realizing that the shoes that once protected you might be exactly what's holding you back.
And that realization? It’s deeply unsettling.
It’s unsettling for one simple reason: I don’t know how to pace myself. Even when I train for actual marathons now, I set my training by time, not distance. I don’t tell myself I’ll run 10 miles today—I tell myself I’ll run for one hour, and then I end up trying to squeeze those 10 miles into that hour. That same approach spills over into how I tackle the goals I have right now.
I want to write a book that inspires others to know they’re not alone in their journey, yet I get frustrated when I struggle to find the time to write even one article a week for Substack.
I want to do something in fitness because I love it, but instead of focusing on one path, I find myself overwhelmed by all the different certifications I could get—without actually taking the time to explore and test which direction feels right.
I want to get out of debt, but I’m still struggling to manage the lifestyle I currently live.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting more, it’s a part of being human. But if progress becomes your only source of safety, you’ve stopped building a life and started running from one.
It’s unsettling because I want to have a clear goal, but I’m uncomfortable giving myself the time to simply explore and figure things out. Exploration feels like a waste of time—I just want to fast-forward and create a solid project plan for my goals already. But I realize this need for a strict plan isn’t really about clarity; it’s about control. It’s about trying to feel safe instead of being willing to take risks. It’s the urge to skip steps rather than patiently sorting through all the puzzle pieces first. Honestly, I don’t really want to know just the next step—I want to know exactly how to get to step ten.
I won’t pretend that writing this has made me feel settled. Usually, when I write, I find some kind of resolution—emotionally or mentally. But not this time. Right now, I’ve processed a lot, and I understand where I’m at. What I don’t have yet is clarity about what comes next.
Here's what I do know. My approach needs to be different.
You can’t starve your present self and expect your future self to flourish.