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I have never been a great finisher.
As a runner, we call the sprint at the very end of the race a “kick.” It’s when we finish a race and speed up and tap into a second gear when the end is in sight. And sometimes when I have to kick, I don’t have that second gear or the reserves of sprinting that other athletes have. In one particularly bad race in high school, I got outkicked by at least 40 people at the finish when I was particularly gassed. During my junior year of high school, close to the end of the season, I ran my worst race of the season — at least 40 people would outkick me in the final 300 meters, again.
But my coach told me I had a terrible race because he watched that race — I’d made so many sudden surges during the race, which sapped my finishing speed. I made a lot of these surges when the crowds were there to watch, and during challenging parts of the race, like big hills. My coach told me you only have one move during a race, and in a long-distance race, it’s more often a marathon than a sprint. You have to save your finish for the end.
The next week, I had a mantra going through my head: “no surge.” I decided to not go off the line for a 5k race sprinting. I ran my own race and ignored splits telling me I was running slower than I normally was. I told myself not to surge no matter what, until the end. I let the race come naturally to me instead of trying to force a pace I couldn’t maintain.
I ended up finishing first on my team and in my best race of the season. But that would only be one race during high school — during too much of my running career, I’ve lost sight of the running advice not to surge. As a distance runner, sudden, erratic moves sap a lot of energy out of you, and I would always get caught up in the moment and respond to what everyone else was doing instead of running my own race.
Recently, I have gone on runs following the “no surge” mantra for the first time in a long time. And I was pleased that I didn’t make any dramatic fluctuations in my pacing. Yesterday, I ran a 5-mile tempo averaging 5:48 mile pace. I kept it steady, without surging the whole time, and each mile got faster than the next. Today, I ran a 12 mile run with consistent pacing the whole time, only speeding up when I felt great at the end.
To be clear, I know runners who can put their foot on the gas pedal and never take it off. I know people who can run like they’re sprinting for hours or people who put in crazy surges all the time and never miss a beat. I know some people who just never run slow. Surging is often used as an effective racing strategy, but runners are very strategic about when and how often they surge. There’s no one way to run, but all I’m saying is that I’m not one of those people, and what works for me might not work for everyone.
Not surging not only applies to running but to a lot of things. I’m not big on self-help, but “no surge” most certainly applies to most facets of life. The old adage that life is a marathon, not a sprint, is something I’ve always known, but never truly internalized until I’ve run. I think back to my best races — my 2:40 marathon and 15:36 5k. In those races, I never surged until the very end of the race. I never gave 100% of what I had — I gave 90%. At the very end of races, I would have better finishes than most of my other races because some energy was still saved up.
My friend Tim Denning writes about the 85% rule, where you can get the most done and do your best work by applying 85% effort all the time. Tim uses the analogy of Carl Lewis, Olympic champion American sprinter. In almost every race he was in, Carl Lewis would be last or almost second to last after the first 40 meters of every 100-meter race, but he would eventually go on to win. The reason he won, with data from race coverage, was because Carl Lewis did the same thing he did at the 50-meter mark or 60-meter mark, not changing his breathing or form. Other athletes undoubtedly would.
As a runner, I know Usain Bolt, the best sprinter of all time, has a similar trend. He is known for having bad starts, similar to Lewis, which I have simply attributed to taller sprinters, like Bolt and Lewis, needing more force to propel forward. But also crediting the 85% rule is important — watching Bolt sprint, he often celebrates before he even crosses the finish line, and looks like he’s winning effortlessly.
Usain Bolt and other elite runners aren’t putting in no effort, but they’re being strategic about how they allocate their effort — they put in somewhere around 85%. Look at whether Eliud Kipchoge looked like he was straining himself or putting in 100% of his effort when he broke two hours in the marathon — he’s also celebrating at the end, waving to the crowd, looking like he just went on a jog.
The whole point of “no surge,” to me, is that you’re always gaining momentum by letting it naturally come. But if you force effort, if you over-utilize your willpower and you try to go 100% all the time, your mind and body will catch up to you. I don’t aim to be going balls to the wall, 100% all the time anymore. Instead, I aim to give it 85–90% so the effort I give is sustainable, and I find myself more productive, more at peace, and above all, not frantically rushing through everything all the time.
This strategy helps me not only for running and for doing my work — but it also helps me with my relationships, with my girlfriend, friends, and students. I got feedback from my boss recently that everything I did, as a teacher, seemed rushed. I expected my students to answer a check for understanding question immediately. I’d speak really fast because I needed to get every part of my lesson at the right time.
Instead, what has helped me and my students is giving my students adequate wait time to think. It’s going with the natural downstream flow of a lesson instead of what I planned. It’s making sure my students have a deep understanding of one or two essential concepts and skills instead of a CYA, shallow understanding of six or seven concepts.
Slowing down has also been extremely beneficial for my relationship. My girlfriend’s critiques of me often are a result of me being rushed and careless. The dishes will still have stains. The clothes will be poorly folded. Everything is a checklist task instead of something to take my time with. Recently, I ordered Christmas presents for my girlfriend and friends in Baltimore— except I accidentally shipped them to my parents’ house in New York, since we share an Amazon Prime account. Now, I have to bother a lot of people to get those packages sent back to Baltimore.
I am king of the jerky, erratic lifestyle where I’m constantly stressed, overwhelmed, and mental and emotionally all over the place. I force having to get a report in, doing chores, and getting everything on my checklist done. To me, it’s the only way to survive.
The trick is that mindset of having to conquer the whole world at once works — for an hour or two. And then my mind is burnt out from drastic exertions of mental and emotional energy. I’ll need to reset myself by taking a nap or watching a TV show after, so it’s not like the 100%, all-out intensity effort is sustainable.
I can work hard until the world burns. But it won’t get me many places when working super hard isn’t sustainable. Instead, the goal is to work smarter, not giving 100% to everything we’re doing, but giving a bit less. I don’t need to make everything rushed, and in the process, I’ll make less mistakes and leave myself less burnt out.
Even high stress and high pressure situations like emergencies require a calm and collected mind. “No surge” helps me take one task at a time and confront each task like it’s meant to be confronted. It’s a strategy to not use all my energy and all of myself at once, since panic mode doesn’t help anyone. Pacing yourself is a necessity no matter what you’re doing.
Takeaways
How I’ve applied the same mindset in even, consistent, and smart running to life is imagining that each day is a race. I know the best way to optimize your performance in a long-distance race is not a series of sprints. At all points of the race besides the end, energy must be conserved, and 100% of your effort shouldn’t be used, except for the very end.
I can’t tell you how many road 5ks, 10ks, and other races result in people sprinting to get off the line. Most of the time, I’ll catch up to those people less than a mile in. In my less experienced days, I’ve been one of those people who has gone out too hard and died later in the race. It’s the most painful way to run a race, by far.
So you can’t operate on 100% mode all the time as you navigate your day. Operating at 85% isn’t a step down. It’ll actually help you have more fun, accomplish more, and have a more sustainable way of pressing forward. It’s working smarter, not harder.
And following “no surge” often means taking everything naturally, and not trying to take the whole world by force.
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This post was previously published on Publishous.
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Photo credit: Pixabay