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“Without commitment, you’ll never start. Without consistency, you’ll never finish.” - Denzel Washington

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3. The Discipline Bleeds Everywhere

One of the wildest things about marathon training is how it sharpens everything else in your life. When you're focused on training—truly committed—your nutrition improves. Your sleep becomes non-negotiable. You’re more efficient at work because most days before the sun has even fully risen you’ve clipped off 10,000 plus steps and flushed your mind.

And most of all, it puts your habits under a microscope. You start asking: Is this action helping or hurting my goal? If I can prep and commit like this for a silly race that nobody but myself truly cares about in the end, how and why am I not doing it in my other pursuits?

Running doesn’t just make you physically fit - it makes you sharper, more focused, and harder to shake in every area of life.

4. Sacrifice Is the Price of Clarity

People say things like “I wish I had your discipline.” But the truth is there was one day where I wasn’t disciplined. And with that fact on the table, the question becomes how did I make the turn, and what’s stopping you from making it too?

It ultimately comes down to commitment. If you commit to do something, you show up to do the work to do it. If you commit to losing 20 pounds, you show up to do the work in the gym and in the kitchen. If you commit to a project at work, you show up to do that work to see the project through, even though it’s often for someone else’s benefit. For running - I committed to this race - I don’t debate whether or not I’ll run. It’s on the schedule. I just execute.

That means sacrificing other things—late nights, spontaneous plans, that second drink, staying in bed when I’d rather sleep in. But those sacrifices come with an unexpected gift: clarity. The more I say “no” to what doesn’t matter, the clearer I become on what does.

If you’re trying to gain clarity in life, set a hard goal with a deadline. It’ll force you to reorder your priorities whether you want to or not.

5. Progress Isn’t Linear. Show Up Anyway.

Some days I feel strong, light, fast. Some days my legs feel like bricks. The trick is to detach your self-worth from the outcome of any single run (or lift, or meal, or work day).

Not every training session is a PR. That’s not the point. The point is to keep showing up.

Because even on the bad days, you’re stacking fitness. You’re teaching yourself that you don’t need perfect conditions to take action. And that’s the kind of resilience that pays dividends in life.

6. Running Is a Mirror

Running exposes everything: your mindset, your ego, your excuses. If I didn’t sleep well, it shows up in the run. If I didn’t hydrate or eat right, it shows up. If I’m mentally not locked in, it shows up.

You can’t fake endurance. There’s no shortcut to fitness. No cheat code to speed.

That honesty is brutal, but it’s beautiful because it simply can’t be found in many other arenas (at least that I have stumbled upon yet). Because it means the work always works. If you show up, consistently and deliberately, you will get better. Life doesn’t always work that way. Running does.

7. You Can’t Chase Peak Performance Casually

If I want to break 3 hours, I can’t treat training like a hobby. Casual effort leads to casual results. That applies in running and in everything else.

We live in a world that romanticizes balance. But sometimes, for short windows, life requires imbalance. It demands that you tilt the scales, go all-in, and live like someone who’s decided that “good enough” isn’t the goal.

This season of training is one of those windows for me. I’m okay with being unbalanced if it means showing back up to toe the line and redeem myself in the marathon, and to ultimately wake up one day with a Boston Marathon bib laying next to my bed, ready to be run in.

8. Confidence Comes From the Work

There’s something deeply empowering about hitting every session, even the hard ones. Every time I complete a long run or finish a workout I didn’t want to start, I’m building a private library of evidence that reminds myself I can do hard things, and that my mind is often the only hurdle I have to clear.

That’s where real confidence comes from - not hype, not motivation videos, but from stacking proof that you follow through.

By race day, that bank of evidence becomes unshakable. When the doubts come (and they will), I’ll have receipts.

Final Thought: The Goal Is the Excuse

The sub-3 marathon is the target. But the real value isn’t in the medal or the time on the clock - it’s in the person I hope to become while chasing it.

The goal gives the discipline purpose. It gives the suffering meaning. It turns everyday actions into something sacred.

Everything about this prep makes me nervous. This is the only endurance goal I have failed at. This is 26.2 miles of running sub-6 minute 50 second miles. This is months of 55 - 70 mile weeks on tired legs. The goal is very public, as the results will be too. But I’ve been here before. I’ve sat in this doubt, and come out on the other side. I know that if I have another 12 weeks like I have had this first four, the goal is simply inevitable.

And that’s why you run. That’s why you sign up for hard things. To force yourself to commit. The result will live on forever, and you get to dictate how successful that result is.

16 weeks of 6 days a week running is 96 days of training. But in the back of my mind, I just keep tricking myself into believing that missing even one of those could be the missing link to failing at this once again. So today, just like yesterday, we show up to log the miles. I hope one day you sign up for something to push yourself too.

Have yourself a week