Life Lessons Running A Marathon Can Teach You

Life Lessons Running A Marathon Can Teach You Completing a marathon requires months of hard work training in all types of weather. While there are certainly health benefits to the training, the discipline can also teach you important life lessons that can be applied to other parts of your life. First, a little background and perspective A number of years ago, I was working for a small financial services startup back when Chase Bank was the primary sponsor of the New York Marathon. They were also a customer of ours. I happened to be in the lobby of their NY headquarters the day after the Marathon and noticed they had posted the results. Out of curiosity, I checked them out. Now, keep in mind - I wasn’t a runner in school and never considered doing a race of any distance. So, I went straight to the end of the list to see who finished last and what their time was. It was around 6 hours, which really surprised me. I thought every marathoner was a 5 minute miler finishing in 2 hours and 15 minutes or faster. This random experience changed my life. I became obsessed with running the NY Marathon and immediately started reading up on how to train for a marathon. I hired a local running coach who happened to be a nationally ranked ultra-runner. 3 months into my training, I got my results from the lottery and found out I was not in the NY Marathon. Since I was so far into my training, I decided to do the Philadelphia Marathon. I went to graduate school there, so I was familiar with the city and it was only an hour from my home. I ran the marathon, finishing in 3 hours and 45 minutes - far faster than I ever imagined. Now I was hooked. I put in an extra effort, focusing on racing against myself and improving my time. On my 3rd marathon, I surprised myself, my friends and my family with a 3 hour, 20 minute finishing time - good enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I eventually qualified 3 more times. And after many years of trying, I finally got a chance to run the NY Marathon. It happened to be my last marathon and was just a few months after the bombing at the Boston Marathon in April, 2013. Since my marathon journey started with trying to get into NY, having my first NY Marathon experience being so soon after the Boston Marathon bombings was a bittersweet end to this part of my life. Every marathon I’ve run has special memories for me, but the ones that stand out are the experiences I had in Boston and New York. These experiences changed my life. Here are a few lessons that I learned which I’ve applied to many other parts of my life. • Lesson 1: You can accomplish a lot if you set your mind to it If you really want something that feels out of reach - tap into your desire to do it. You’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish if you really apply yourself to something you are passionate about. Pace yourself. Be patient. If you stick to your objectives and set interim milestones along the way you will continue to make progress towards your goals. Life lesson: Completing a difficult task, like a Marathon, has many benefits - including increased self-confidence, improved time management and the realization that you can accomplish a lot if you set your mind to it. • Lesson 2: Make a plan - break down big goals into smaller successes Completing a marathon is a major goal. You don’t just wake up one morning, roll out of bed and decide to do a Marathon later that day. You need to learn how to set a goal and have a plan that you stick to. It takes months of planning and training during which you’ll slowly build up your endurance and race mileage from 5Ks to half-marathons. Along the way, you have accomplished big and small milestones you can celebrate: A new PR. A distance you’ve never thought you can run. Making new friends. Life lesson: After you’re done, you’ll realize that with proper planning and hard work, you can accomplish a lot. • Lesson 3: Teamwork Most people think of a Marathon as an individual sport. While crossing the finish line is under your own two feet - who helped you get to the starting line? Your family with responsibilities around the house, with kids. Your training partners who ran with you for countless hours providing you inspiration and motivation to go the extra mile or run harder. Life lesson: Being a team player, even in an individual activity, can help you accomplish more than what you can do on your own. • Lesson 4: Overcoming obstacles - it’s about the journey, not the destination Training and completing a marathon is not easy. You’ll have good days and bad days. Learn from the bad days - see what you can improve upon and remind yourself of your ultimate goal. Life is like this. Difficult goals requires hard work. Instead of giving up, see what you can learn from it. Tomorrow is a new day where you can try new things, make improvements based on what you’ve learned. Life lesson: completing a Marathon is all about the journey you take and the memories you develop. Along the way you will face obstacles. Leaning how to overcome them will help you when you face other challenges in life.

Rich Pollner

Author

Rich Pollner has completed 11 marathons, including Boston 4x. He has a Masters of Science (Computer Science) from an Ivy League school (the University of Pennsylvania) and over 30 years of professional management and software development experience.

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