What Training For My First Marathon Taught Me About Running My Own Business (Updated With Results)

Keep reading to the end of this post to see my updated 2019 race results, reactions, and where we go from here.

If you’re reading this, you may be aware that we’ve soft-launched Betterstrike’s website! It has been a Frogger-like journey to launch a consulting business, especially one focused on marketing. The consulting industry cares very much about your firm’s brand and how you present yourself to others so every step forward takes careful planning, and like Frogger, you often need to take steps back to get to your goal. 

To launch Betterstrike, there have been branding exercises, market surveys to find a blue-ocean brand/domain name that I can own, and the actual work to plan, write, design, and code a website, all while managing the ups and downs of pitches and client work. It has been overwhelming at times, but honestly, it has only been the second-hardest thing i’ve been doing since the spring of this year. That title goes to training for the Richmond Marathon happening Saturday, November 16th, 2019.

A 26.2 mile foot race is no joke: more than four people die from attempting them every year. The race distance is even named after the island that the Greek soldier Pheidippides ran across to inform the Athenians that, “Rejoice, we conquer!” (over the Persians) before his heart burst and subsequently a race was named in his honor. That seems like the least they could do for him, right?

Usually completed between two and four hours, recently the stakes have been raised as the unofficial world record was shattered by a Kenyan athlete named Eliud Kipchoge. His time of 1:59:40 is seen by some as a close-to impossible feat similar to Roger Bannister running a sub 4 minute mile in 1954. However, for us mere participants at the marathon distance, setting a personal best is secondary to actually making it across the finish line. For marathoners, as for business owners, you are the only person who can get yourself there. That is precisely where my tale of two passions begins.

The Business of Running

I turned 33 in June of this year–just in time to have a third-of-life crisis. Here I was, accomplished at marketing, but ultimately feeling stuck. Work was great, but repetitive. So long as I worked for someone else’s dream, I saw limitations in the value I could bring to the company as well as to myself.

Enter setting a big hairy goal: run my first marathon and do it before the end of the year. Ok, I thought, here’s something that’s hard to achieve, this effort will keep me focused and motivated to accomplish something difficult every day.  I had always run cross country as a kid and into my adulthood, but never at these distances. So I signed up for the VCU Health Richmond Marathon in November, only six months out at the time!

During this period, I also started to hypothesize that if I could do something as audacious (to my mind) as train for a marathon, why couldn’t I take the next step in my career and start my own business? I had been focusing on my seemingly limited options, but realized if I bet on myself and failed I could always turn back to the corporate world. But if I pushed all my chips in and succeeded in doing something I’m passionate about while navigating my own ship, that could be worthwhile to me in my work and life. 

I was already making inroads with my personal fitness goals, so why not also use this time to take the plunge into consulting full-time? I’d built the skills, made the connections, and had enough runway to make it work. Therefore, after conferring with my wife (always talk with your trusted loved ones before making life-changing decisions!) I set out to figure out what it was my business would be, what we would offer, who we would serve, and how to turn my experience into something that could bring value to my clients.

Flash Forward Six Months

At the tail-end of a soggy-slow 20 mile long run two weekends ago, it struck me that race day is almost here! My nerves are on edge just thinking about it.  Not only have I been training physically for this moment, but I’ve been making the work of building a business a reality. As both endeavors progressed, I started to think that maybe these pursuits have many similar aspects and if I put my musings into words on the internet, maybe I can inspire others to start their own business or accomplish something they never dreamed possible.

Without further preamble, here are: 10 Things Training For The Richmond Marathon Taught Me About Running A Business:

#1 – No one will do it for you.

You and only you are the engine that drives your marathon, your business, and your life. Others can help along the way, but no one is going to cross that finish line for you. Before starting out I interviewed a consultant-friend of mine, Navjit Bhasin who eight years ago founded a returns reduction consulting group called Newmine, and one of the key takeaways from our call that stuck with me were his words on self-starting:

And it’s absolutely true. If you’re not out there pounding the pavement every day (both figuratively and literally for a marathon), then you’re not making any progress and no one will make progress for you.

#2 – Just by starting you’re already in elite company.

This thing you’re trying to accomplish? Not everyone can or will do it. Talk is cheap, but action is hard. Just by lacing up your shoes and heading out the door, or rededicating your effort to improving your services when they don’t reach product market fit, you’re already in elite company. There’s an old runners saying that:

So as down as you can feel when things are not going your way, at least you are making progress toward your goals and little by little you will begin to realize them. 

#3 – Be dedicated. When you experience failure, re-dedicate yourself and start again.

Injuries are to running what setbacks are to business. You’re cruising along and then *bam* your pricing model doesn’t fit the market need or 40 miles a week with 20 of those miles being high-effort injures your IT-band and you’re out of running for 2-3 weeks. Either way, you’ve hit a roadblock. 

Hitting a roadblock is OK! Without learning what doesn’t work you’ll never learn what does! The key is to rededicate yourself after setbacks and proceed forward a little smarter and a little more agile than you were before. 

#4 – Success doesn’t come from the idea but from the sweat equity you put into it.

When I began marathon training I would be winded after mile two and my average pace per mile was low nine minutes or at best high eight minutes. That type of pace wasn’t nearly where I wanted to be. However, as the training progressed slowly the pace I could hold for distance dropped and I think (fingers crossed) I should be able to average about 7:40/mile over the course of 26 miles if my pacing goes well.

All that is to say that just having the idea of running a marathon or starting a business wasn’t the key differentiator; putting in the work is what made the difference. There is no substitute for hard work because even marginally good ideas can be made successful if you dedicate yourself to their success and put in everything necessary to succeed.

#5 – Find your “why” and make it your own.

One of my all time favorite sporting quotes comes from George Leigh Mallory, a mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. He was giving a speech on the preparations for summiting the mountain and he was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest to which he quipped: 

That audacity to explore, push the limits of human endurance, and to do it for your own reasons inspires me. So when I look for motivation I remind myself that running a marathon and building a business are goals that, although hard to achieve, are just sitting there waiting for me to accomplish them.

So for me, “Because it’s there” resonates, but you’ll have to find your own “why” and then use it as fuel to keep going.

#6 – If you don’t like the rules, change ‘em.

The “experts” say you should run this many miles a week, or eat this or that combination of macro and micro nutrients. But you’re overtraining and getting injured or the food you’re supposed to eat is making you feel sick. Don’t worry, just change the rules.

You are the one running the marathon, so you have to live with yourself to get there. If something isn’t working for you, change how you approach the problem. Morning runs don’t work for your schedule? Bring a change of clothes and run at lunch. The meditative trance of running alone is too stoic for you? Find a training group on Meetup or Strava.

I found that high-intensity workouts were leading me to injury, so I added in more long and slow runs. In my business life, I also found that in order for me to feel credible in that role, I had to get into the weeds and build my own website from the ground up to stamp credibility to my brand name and work ethic. By building in that time for me to leave my own mark, I feel confident in my abilities and have a place to refer people when they ask what it is I do.

#7 – Pace yourself.

It’s a marathon not a sprint. Pacing matters. You don’t have to accomplish all of your goals and dreams right this second, today, but you can set a path that helps you obtain those accomplishments as you go. Focus on today, and make sure you take care of yourself. Get enough sleep, tick off those boxes on your check list and live to run another day.

By not trying to go out too fast in the beginning, you leave yourself energy and options. You won’t feel like a failure because your sales cycle ended up being longer than you anticipated. Although you are ready and willing to land new business, they may not be ready to work with you, yet. By being steady in what you do and enjoying the process you’ll find more results over time than thinking everything has to be done all at once.

#8 – Look at what others are doing to get a sense for what’s probable, then rely on yourself to create what is possible.

Overnight successes don’t exist and everyone’s path is different. But you can learn a lot from seeing what others in your field are doing. Often times you can even call them up and learn from them on what worked and what didn’t as they started their own journey. However, don’t let their pace dictate yours. You have a vision for what you can do and what you can bring. So rely on yourself and create something that no one else could even dream about, because you bring your own perspective and a drive to make it happen.

#9 – It takes more than what outsiders can see.

From the outside looking in a marathoner just needs shoes and dedication. But there’s nutrition, supplements, rest, training schedules, training groups, coaches, and trial and error all to factor in. The same can be said about starting your own business. Now it’s just you and you’ll need to decide what you can do yourself and what you need to outsource. Winning new business pitches takes salesmanship alongside an ironclad understanding of legal contracts and business financing. Not all of those skills come in one person’s wheelhouse, sometimes you will need to rely on outside resources to get things done in a better way than you can accomplish it by yourself. Just because someone makes starting a business look easy (it isn’t) you’ll have to endure the hard work so you too can make it look easy to others.

#10 – Share your success.

Running a marathon or a business is a very personal journey. That doesn’t mean you can’t involve others along the way. People like it when you’re helping yourself and doing something they themselves might want to consider doing. Share with them your successes and lessons learned from your failures. They will appreciate it and come to see you as a leader.

There you have it, ten things my marathon training has taught me about running my own business. In the end, both are difficult but worthwhile pursuits. I would recommend that you pursue your passions; mine just so happen to be running and running a business but yours can be whatever you want.

If you like what you read here, please share it with someone who might benefit from it. I’ll be keeping this blog updated in future entries and always appreciate your feedback. You can follow Betterstrike on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and you can get in touch with me by going to our contact page or learn more about us on our about page. Looking forward to having you follow along on our journey.

Results are in! The half was great, the full–a monster.

Wow! What an experience.

First off, there is no way that I could have gotten through that race without the help of my family, friends, and supporters. Being new to this distance, I had a system and executed it to the best of my ability, but as Iron-Mike Tyson says, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” That is exactly what the second half of the course did on Saturday.

If you look at the graphic above, for 13.1 miles I was ahead of pace. I had thought my most-likely sustainable pace would be 7:40/mi, instead I set a personal record for the half-marathon with a 7:22/mi average pace!

All was going well until mile 15 when we turned north to head back into the city and began taking 15mph sustained winds to the teeth for the next six miles. You can see the spike in average mile time over what looks to be a flat and low elevation on the course from miles 15-16 in the chart.

Combine those less-than-ideal conditions with the hitting “the wall” (physical exhaustion that comes with running out of glycogen to burn and instead burning fat during the race) and from a time to finish perspective I am ecstatic to have completed the course in 3:39:24 averaging 8:22/mi.

Reflecting on the overall experience, accomplishing this goal has taught me three simple things: A) be prepared B) keep going and C) do it again. I won’t deny it, after going through the highs and lows I’m certain that it will take me a few more cracks to feel like i’ve performed to the best of my ability.

Until the next one, i’ll see you out there on the course of life.