7 Lessons From My 2:49 Marathon (That Have Nothing To Do With Running)

Curiosity Chronicle

The host recounts his recent failure to meet a marathon goal and his subsequent solo successful attempt at a 2:49 pace six days later. He us

Key takeaways

• Apply progressive overload by slowly increasing the load on any system to force growth.
• Visualize the actual process and work required rather than just the end result to avoid premature satisfaction.

Main topics

• Marathon running
• Progressive overload

Notable quotes

Never bet against the person who just keeps showing up.

Conclusion

Success is not about heroic single acts but the cumulative effect of s

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) One week ago, I had to talk about failure. Today, I get to talk about success. This is one of my strongest held beliefs. Never bet against the person who just keeps showing up. So last week, I sent out a newsletter, recorded an episode about my marathon failure. It was my raw thoughts on the experience, my surprise, quite frankly, at falling short of my goal and what I learned through it. I also closed that with a note. I said, quote, I'm going to run another marathon this fall to go get that two hour, 49 minute, 59 second goal, not because I need it, but because I want to feel my feet in the arena again soon. End quote. Well, I did just a bit sooner. than I expected. On Saturday morning, just a few days ago, six days after the failure, I drove back to the marathon course at five in the morning and started running by myself in the cool, brisk pre-dawn darkness. And I got it done. The final distance, 26.25 miles. The final time, two hours, 48 minutes, 47 seconds for an average pace of six minutes, 26 seconds per mile. When I shared the piece, on the previous failure. I admitted that I'd had an issue all planned that I'd been forced to scrap, which was lessons from my 249 marathon that have nothing to do with running. Well, today, I am proud to share that piece, albeit one week later than I originally intended. No matter what goals you're going after, these lessons that I'm going to talk about will improve your journey and outcomes. So let's dive into it. Number one. Progressive overload is the key to progress in any arena. There's this story that I love. Milo of Croton was a six-time wrestling champion of the ancient Olympic Games in Greece. He was known for incredible strength. The legend of how that strength was built is one we can learn from. One day, a young Milo saw a small newborn calf near his home, a baby cow. He picked up the calf, placed it on his shoulders, and started to carry it around. It was a challenging feat as Milo was still young, but the next day he returned and did it again. Then the next day, and the next, and the day after that. Each day, the calf grew, but so did Milo. After some time, Milo was no longer carrying a small calf, but a young bull. And Milo was no longer a young boy, but a grown man with legendary strength. In modern terms, this is called progressive overload. It's the principle of slowly increasing the load on a given system to force adaptations and growth. The idea applies to anything you want to improve at in life. If you want to get stronger, slowly increase the load over an extended period of time. If you want to focus better,