I’ve been told “It’s a marathon, not a sprint” quite a few times over the last several months. This is in relation to my legal career, where I have shown a grinder work ethic and ability to work a lot of hours, at all times, and on nights and weekends to get an assignment done, and how the frenetic pace I’ve started working at might not be the most sustainable.
Of course, I am actually a marathon runner with a personal best of 2:34 (and dreams of running faster), so it is funny to hear this mantra over and over. And the lessons I’ve learned not only from doing marathons, but also from preparing them, carry very well into my professional life, as one can imagine.
For one, I have never gone into a marathon without running a step and just toeing the line. There was one marathon I ran in 2019 where I did not run much, and the results showed — I only ran 3:09, well below my expectations.
But each one has come with hundreds, if not thousands of miles of preparation in easy runs, long runs, and interval workouts. I have also been running long distance since I was 12 years old, although I was running maybe 10 miles a week in 7th grade, and I am trying to run 100 miles a week.
Marathon preparation has meant years, if not a decade and a half of preparation. It started with the mile, then the 2 mile, then the 5k, then the 10k, then the half marathon, then the marathon. Occasionally, I’ll run more than a full marathon distance on a training run.
This gradual distance progression was not always by choice — it was the distances available in high school, then college. The marathon was then the most popular race outside of college, but it took a whole other level and volume of preparation. I had to run more miles than ever, but I also didn’t have to do them as fast as I did before, so it took more discipline, self-motivation, and just raw volume in miles over intensity.
In the actual marathon, I theoretically know how to pace myself to not go out too fast and finish as strong as I start. I know the theory of this in ideal conditions. But it’s hard to actually follow through on this as you get more tired, especially in unideal conditions, including heat or wind. And recalibrating based on the conditions of the day is often essential.
As a runner, I have had many, many bad races. These bad races used to seem like the end of the world, but now I see them as more isolated incidents to bounce back from, moments to shake off the rust. I have done so many races that I know bad days just happen. But there is always the next one.
As a lawyer, the message was very simple and compassionate from more experienced attorneys. I was probably going too hard, and a lot of more experienced attorneys know what pace of work is sustainable and what isn’t. They likely had earlier stages of their career where they burned out and wanted to caution me against feeling the same way.
The message was that the pace I was working at was unsustainable at times. And everyone who told me that was right — it’s a long career that I plan on staying in for most of the rest of my working life. I could not work a pace where I was working more than 200 hours a month forever.
Part of pushing myself so hard in my new career is a desire to prove myself, but also to prove to myself that I can handle the grind and be a good lawyer. It’s the excitement and novelty that comes with starting any new career. I used to be a teacher, and my first year came with a similar amount of
Some of my pace is an attempt to replicate past accomplishments. I like to think that I’m not like a lot of other lawyers and law students. I did not go to law school straight from college. I worked a very intense and stressful job as a special education teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools. Many students had needs beyond mere instruction, so the job was always pretty intense. I worked in this job, but in a more administrative role while going to law school at night.
Thus, I had a very consuming and stressful job while I was in law school. I did most of my studying on Fridays and during the weekend. While I stumbled through the first year to keep up with both obligations, the next two years were years in which I prioritized being very prepared in class and doing all the readings. If a professor asked the whole class a question and no one answered, I would look around and try to bail the professor out, even if the answer was wrong. This gave me a reputation of always being well-prepared.
I also don’t always mention that I graduated a year early from law school. Part-time law programs for evening students are supposed to take four years because evening students take fewer credits and have less time than day students. Thus, the traditional three year program is spaced out for evening students to take more credits.
I finished in three years because I took a ton of summer classes. While working in a public school system is stressful because of needing to satisfy the different needs of students, parents, other teachers, staff, and administrators, the biggest benefit is the summers off. I did not work the summers so I could take classes, and with just law school classes and maybe an internship, it was a lot more chill than the actual school year.
The summer class schedule at law school and summer of my job did not always line up. There were usually two or three weeks every summer when I still worked and took anywhere from 6–9 credits of law school classes. But this would work out because the school year winding down meant less work in my job. The beginning of the semester meant going through syllabi and getting more introductory readings.
Anyway, I attribute being able to graduate early to being able to take a lot of summer classes. And that might be seen as minimizing what could be a substantial accomplishment on an accelerated timeline. The truth was yes, I did take a lot of summer classes, but this was a sacrifice since it meant forgoing some vacation and time off. And my last year, I did have to play catch-up with credit loads that were the same as some of my day student peers, all while working a full-time job.
On a personal level, I did all this while running 80 miles a week. Looking back, I’m not sure whether my life now or my life then was more intense, but I have grown accustomed to structuring all my time to be very efficient. This makes me antsy any time I feel like I’m not being efficient or productive enough, so it’s hard for me to relax, given I’ve become so accustomed to this pace.
I sustained this seemingly crazy pace in life for two years. For my racing brain, faster is often better. I am in a slower moment at work right now, but there were also moments of breaks and recalibration I needed then, like when semesters ended. There is an “on” and “off” switch to my brain that can often hyperfocus and simultaneously struggle to focus, but that is capable of maintaining a high volume and intensity for a long time, just like I have as a marathon runner.
When people say “it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” they talk about the analogy as if it’s an actual race. But I have learned the hard way that most of the success of the marathon is the preparation that goes into it. For me, it was the half year of 80 mile weeks where my body built up adaptations. It was the four years I spent running competitive cross country in high school, followed by running competitive cross country in college.
At the end of the day, there is also an end goal. It’s easy to lose sight of that end goal when there are frustrations and setbacks in a single run. I have had numerous runs that felt awful, that I just had to get through to hit overall mileage goals. I have taken weeks of only running 60 miles a week only to get back on track the next week when I have more free time and when my body feels better.
Applying this to most pursuits, this means that experience matters and matters a lot, and improvements always take time and effort. There are so many things I have learned about running marathons and training for them that I just learned through my 17 years as a runner. I learned them from coaches, mentors, and other runners I looked up to and ran with.
But I learned from quite a lot of mistakes where I paid the consequences. I learned from the training methods that got me injured. I learned when a workout would completely tank a race versus what pace was too hard to do on an easy run.
Applying this to anything, whether it is being a lawyer or my previous career being a teacher, there was a lot of advice I was given, but experience was the best teacher. Experience was the best at what made me better at both.
In the preparation, the rest and recovery mean as much as the actual training, too. For me to get better as a marathoner, to dip into the 2:20s in the marathon, I have to run around 100 miles a week and maintain that kind of mileage for a long time. There are a lot of days when I have to run twice a day as a result.
On those days, I have to make sure I get a lot of sleep and ensure my caloric intake is commensurate with how much I am losing. I need to make sure I’m drinking enough water. These things sound trivial, but they are the basics that make sure I have enough balance to counterweight the training.
That marathon mindset is important not only to my professional life as an attorney. It applies to other pursuits and relationships. Marathons are a lot of hard work. They require a lot of preparation over long periods of time. They require skill at different types of runs — the occasional speed workout, long efforts at marathon pace, and a whole lot of easy runs. They require the ability to bounce back from setbacks, reset once in a while, and keep going.
As a junior litigator, I need different skills and have different tasks too. I prepare for depositions, review documents, do legal research, and respond to assist in other elements of fact and expert discovery. Thus, like the marathon, succeeding as a lawyer requires some degree of versatility and different kinds of skills.
Endurance running has taught me quite a lot about success in other areas of life, and I abide by many of the same principles. A consistent routine and volume of work are important, but so is pacing, rest, restraint. It’s knowing when to cut a workout or run short because it’s not the day for it. It’s taking a rest week when needed, or time off as a whole. I don’t always have that balance mastered, but I continue to recalibrate as I gain more experience.
I think I will continue to approach life like it’s a marathon. What is done today matters, but it’s not everything in the grand scheme of long-term plans or careers. I think that was my biggest mental breakthrough in marathon training — one day where I did not feel great on a run or tanked a workout is not the end. I think more in terms of how each run and piece of training fits in the scheme of weeks, months, and years.
Similarly, this thinking has done wonders for my career. One mistake is not the end of the world as long as I learn from it and try not to make it again. One day, when I am struggling to “get” a particularly hard legal concept or assignment is also not the end of the world — I can try again tomorrow, or ask for help. After all, I just started my legal career and am still learning every day. Thinking long-term in terms of what a case or team needs and being an integral part of preparation has been a direct carryover from my marathon mindset.
I think anyone who says “it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” should contextualize that the journey does not start with just start when toeing the line and running a marathon. It comes several months, if not years, before. And the journey continues onto the next year and the ones after.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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