Random Thoughts From a Long Run: Starting Too Fast

In all my years as a runner, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, “I started too slow.” If I’m wrong, correct me, because I’ve certainly been known to be wrong before. But I have heard runners say, “I started too fast” or “I came out too fast” more times than I can count. Every runner knows exactly what that means. You feel good at the beginning. Your legs are fresh, the adrenaline is flowing, and the pace feels easier than it should. So you go with it, only to discover several miles later that you spent energy you desperately wish you could get back.

The problem with starting too fast is that there is almost always a hill coming. Maybe it’s an actual hill, maybe it’s fatigue several miles later, or maybe it’s simply the point where your body reminds you that you still have a long way to go. If you’ve already spent all your energy proving how fast you can run the beginning, you don’t have nearly as much left for the part that actually requires it. Somewhere during my long run in Hudson, I started thinking about how often we do exactly the same thing in life and business.

Ryan and I had just spent three days training with Phil M Jones and learning his Exactly What to Say methodology. It was intense, and three days really only scraped the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning how to communicate with people more effectively. We learned how to ask better questions, how to listen differently, and how to resist the natural urge to immediately give someone our advice. Instead, we can help people think through their options, explore the possibilities in front of them, and choose the path that is best for them without us becoming married to the outcome.

It sounds fairly simple when you explain it that way, but actually doing it well takes practice. Some of the experienced people in the room talked about what happened when they first learned these techniques. They left training excited, tried to implement everything at once, and quickly realized they were doing a lot of it wrong. The more I thought about it during my run, the more obvious the connection became. They started too fast.

I think that tendency is especially common for entrepreneurs and people who genuinely want to help others. We learn something that can make us better and immediately want to put the pedal down. We want to use all of it, change everything, and somehow become proficient at it overnight. We confuse enthusiasm with readiness, and sometimes our desire to improve quickly actually gets in the way of improving well.

Running has taught me that progress rarely works that way. No one wakes up one morning and decides to run a marathon without preparing for it. You practice. You follow a plan. You build your endurance. You learn what works and what doesn’t. You put in mile after mile, and your body gradually becomes capable of doing something it couldn’t do before. Developing a new skill really isn’t any different.

Maybe we would execute better in life and business if we stopped treating every new idea like a sprint. Starting slower, being more precise, and taking a measured approach isn’t a lack of ambition. Sometimes it’s discipline. When you know there is a hill coming, you don’t need to prove how fast you are in the first mile. You need to manage your effort so you still have the strength to climb when the course gets difficult. Then, when the downhill finally comes, you can settle in, cruise a little, and enjoy what all of that preparation has built.

After three days of training with Phil M Jones and a long run to digest everything I learned, that is probably my biggest takeaway. I don’t need to implement everything we learned immediately. I need to slow down, practice the principles, get comfortable with them, and put in the reps. Ryan and I absolutely plan to do more training with Phil M Jones because these three days showed us just how much more there is to learn. We’re committed to continuing that education, but I want to learn it well, not simply learn it fast.

Whether it’s running, business, leadership, or life, maybe the goal isn’t to see how fast we can start. Maybe it’s to become strong and prepared enough to still have something left when we get to the hill.

And after choosing Hudson, New York, for a long run with these killer freaking hills, apparently I needed that lesson delivered in the most literal way possible.