187 - The Miles You Can't Go Back To

I crossed the finish line at 2:56 and couldn't walk right for weeks. Sub-three marathon, shot hip flexors, and a lesson I should have learned a long time before that parking lot.

Going fast has a price tag. You just don't see it at the finish line.

In this episode I'm getting honest about three places I went out too hard too early: a race, a training block, and this podcast, and what each of them cost me. This is about learning to tell the difference between the pace that looks good and the pace that actually gets you there.

Ally and I are expecting, and something she said recently stopped sparked the idea for this episode. It changed how I'm thinking about pacing far beyond running or work. Some miles you get back. Some you don't.

What you'll take away from this episode:

• Why the cost of going too hard almost never shows up when you expect it
• How the ego sets a pace that serves your image instead of your goals
• The one question I ask myself before every episode that changed how the show grew
• Why patience and low effort are not the same thing
• Five specific actions you can take this week to recalibrate your pace

If you've ever burned out before the finish line, felt behind on a goal, or wondered whether pushing harder is actually the move, this one is for you.

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You're not lazy. You're not lost. You just know there's a gap between the life you're living and the one you're capable of — and that gap is getting harder to ignore.

Every week, I pull apart the mental patterns that keep capable people stuck — comfort disguised as patience, avoidance disguised as strategy, mediocrity dressed up as balance. I bring in philosophy, personal stories from the trails and the trenches, and conversations with people who decided to stop waiting.

This isn't a show about hacks. It's about the harder work: getting honest with yourself, building the discipline to act on that honesty, and becoming someone you'd actually respect.

Keep getting after it.

Transcript

The Finish Line Bill Comes Due

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The fastest I ever ran cost me three weeks of training. I crossed the finish line at 256, completed a sub-3 marathon. For about 30 minutes after that, I really couldn't move, and then I actually had to walk to my car. And kind of funny story, I took a nap that day with my wife, and during the nap I woke up screaming because I cramped so bad in my hip flexors. They were done. My hip flexors were shot. And I don't just mean like actually sore. I thought I was legitimately injured. I limped every run for the first few miles, and it was a pain that felt like someone was taking a brand and pushing it onto my skin. Like fiery, stabbing pain. I had to take a full week off, which I hate to do. Especially if there's not a good reason, but I feel like in this case there was a good reason. I I needed to recover. I needed my body to get back to where it was. The funny thing is, is during that race, my body was giving me every single signal to slow down, to take care of myself. And I ignored them all because I I I wanted that number so bad. And I got the number, but I also got a very impactful lesson that we're gonna talk about today. Because I've recognized that going fr fast has a price tag. Most of the time you don't see it at the finish line, you see it afterwards. Welcome back to the Getting After It Podcast, my friends. I am your host, Brett. And if you are new here, this podcast is all about ways that we get out of our comfort zone, we do hard things, and we try to become the best version of ourselves. And I've been sitting with this idea for a while. We're gonna be talking about running today, which it's been a minute. I've been talking about like more, more uh more topics that are relative to life and enjoying life while also pushing yourself and doing all these things. But I want to talk about running specifically because I think it's a a great metaphor for what we're gonna be discussing and specifically with pacing, not as a strategy, but more of a of a philosophy for how you build anything worthwhile. And I'm gonna talk about running. So that's where I first learned this idea with my with my body. And this episode, though, I want to make it very clear, is not just for runners. I try and make that uh connection every time just to let you guys know that I'm thinking of ways that I've learned lessons and how they can apply it to you. Uh but also if you're a runner yourself, like my buddies Braden and Jace, who are beasts and they always listen to this podcast, so shout out to you guys. You'll understand these concepts. Um like the idea we're gonna be discussing is for anyone who has gone out a little bit too hard at the start of something and and felt it come back around later. It could be a job, a business, a season of training, even a relationship. And if you've ever looked up and realized that you're you burned too hot early, this might be a little bit applicable to you, and I hope it is. We're also gonna get personal today. Uh, I have some things I want to share about where I'm at right now, about my wife Allie, and about what is coming for us. Because newsflash, if uh you don't know, Allie's pregnant, so pretty cool. And I think by the end of this, you will understand why pacing is the thing I keep coming back to with this whole topic. So let's get into it. And I want to paint the picture of my first sub three marathon because I I wanted to run one of those for a long time. You know, I my first introduction to a sub-3 was actually Nick Bear. I saw um, he always posts videos about his running journey, and one of them specifically was how his first marathon he was close to four hours. And then he put in the work, he trained, and the next one was faster, and then eventually he hit sub three. And I don't know why I thought that was just so cool to me. That you can run 26.2 miles in under three hours. Like, I wanted to do that really bad. In the sense of like, as a kid, same kind of thing here. As a kid, when you see a toy that you want really bad and you save up for it, and then that day comes when you open up the package and it's like, there it is. That's what I wanted. This was my toy that I was looking forward to, and I wanted to open up that package. I was working with a coach at the time. Her name was Jackie Hendrickson. She's great. Uh, if you ever need a coach, reach out to her or reach out to me. I'm I'd love to coach. Anyway, so I was working with her, she gave me a very detailed schedule, and I made sure that my training, my calendar was built around my training. It was so important to me. Um, I still, you know, did the things that I needed to do, but that was like my main focus at this time in my life. I had to put in the work. I knew what the training was and how much I would have to run and really push myself, but that's exactly what I wanted. You know, I felt good, I felt capable, and I felt like I was gonna do this thing. The months of training up to it, you know, I was actually pretty interesting. I I trained most of that uh mostly for that race on a treadmill because up in Utah it was snowy a lot of the times, and I didn't really want to brave going outside in the snow and trying to run. Um kind of a wimp that way. Gotta get better at it. So I'm I'm working on that. But I put in the work. I had my diet dialed in. I would stretch all the time, I would do strength training to help build up my muscles. And race day came. I think it was February 10th, 2023. 2024. 2024. And I was so pumped. This was our Team Tim race. I really wanted to do my best because I wanted to honor my wife's father who passed away. And a lot of people knew my goal. And so I wanted to really not impress them, but show them that I was capable of doing things like this, doing very difficult things. So when I got in the race, when I started at the race line, I was confident. I was like, I got this. I've trained for four months uh to get here. My paces went down. Um everything was looking like I was gonna get this result of a sub-3. During the race, it was interesting. I I started out so hot. Like I think my average mile around that uh during the first 10 miles is around 635 or 640, so pretty quick. And I was feeling good, and then it started to rain, and then I got freezing cold, um, which I feel like kind of helped me a little bit. My knees didn't hurt at all because they were basically frozen icicles, so that was kind of cool. But it started to rain, and then the the road got pretty wet and there were puddles everywhere, and I was soaked. Um, and I recognized really quickly that I burnt out because once the elements started doing their thing, I was feeling tired. And around mile 18, I noticed my pace was starting to go down, which freaked me out because I I knew that I was in a good space because the the three-hour pacer was behind me, and my goal was just I cannot let that person pass me. So I was doing all I could. I was digging deep, I was locked in. But during the race, my body was aching, especially in my hips. I I really felt a lot of pain in my hips. Uh I pushed through, and again, like I felt that fatigue. I would go to every aid station, grab as many gels or bananas, whatever they had to offer. I would take them, get them down, and I was like, I am not losing this. And eventually I crossed the finish line and I had a 256 um time. So I qualified for Boston, I got the sub-three marathon, but something was really interesting because the price that I paid for that race showed up later. Like my hip flexors were absolutely shocked. I can't explain to you. If you're a runner and you felt really sore hip flexors, it's like that, but it's almost debilitating. Like I had a hard time walking. I've I legitimately had a limp for three or four days after this race. And just like I said in the beginning, I I took a nap and I woke up screaming because I was in pain and my hip flexors cramped. Actually, I scared my wife to death. It was kind of a funny moment, but I I feel bad for that. And I want to make something very clear because I'm so glad that I ran that race. I'm so proud of the time that I got. But the whole point of that story is to show that I was going fast. And because of that, I paid a price later. And going that fast and ignoring the signals, there was a cost attached. I couldn't see until I was it until I already paid. And that is the thing about going too hard too early that I've realized. And again, you can take this principle and apply it to so many other areas of your life. But I didn't see it coming. Now I want to talk about Strava for a minute, and I want to say something on this podcast that I have never said directly before. For a stretch of my running life, after the Sub-3 Marathon, I was training for Strava. If you're on Strava, you know what the dynamics like. You everyone can see your runs, what your splits are, what your paces are, what your distance is. They can see it. It's there. They can even see your heart rate zone. And at some point, and I I could not tell you exactly when, um, but my training shifted from being about my own goals to being about what my activity logged look like. I started pushing my easy days to keep my average pace respectable. And it's interesting to say that because what's respectable? Like everyone's everyone's journey in running and in life is going to be different. And so there's no reason to try and go out and and perform so other people are like, hey, he got a he got a fast pace. Which that's probably the only reaction they would give you is dang, he was going quick. And then they move on, they forget about it. I was training so I could keep my miles fast and keep the distance high. And to be honest, I was running hard to impress people who were barely paying attention. And it's it's actually kind of embarrassing to say out loud, honestly. And that's why I've really never talked about it directly. But this podcast, hey, listen, I will always be honest with you guys. I'm going to tell you exactly what I'm going through or what I'm feeling. And during that time, my mileage really suffered. And my next goal was to run an ultra marathon. And I was so frustrated because I couldn't get the distances in. Because I I recognize that you can't run in the red every session and build anything. That is not how a body adapts. It's not how my my body adapts, at least. Adaption needs the volume, and volume requires recovery. And recovery requires you to actually take your easy days easy. And I didn't understand that at the time. I thought, you know, I was at this level, I wanted to stay at that level, and really push myself to make other people proud of me, which, again, I don't think they cared at all. I don't think they did. Anytime I see someone on Strava, I'm like, dang, that was awesome. I give it a like. And then I move on. That's really it. I'm not thinking about it for the rest of the day. And this adaptation is not optional information. This is that is physiology physiology. And training for an ultra marathon means you have to put in 50 plus mile weeks regularly. And you don't you do not get there by maxing your effort every time that you lace up. You get that by being smart and how you distribute your effort throughout the week. Like you can push hard on Saturday. That's going to be your big long run. You should push hard on Saturday. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you got to plan out what are you going to be your easy days so you can rest and recover on those days. You know, maybe Tuesday and Thursday are speed workouts or a little bit longer distance. It doesn't matter. But understanding that I needed to slow down really on my easy days to build up my base so I could be stronger, so I could get the mileage in, that was not anything I thought about. Now, I believe it's a crawl, walk, run approach, not a concept, but an actual practice. And I decided one day, I was like, I don't think I'm gonna get there. If I keep doing this, like if I keep trying to push myself as hard as I can, I don't think I'm gonna be able to do a 50k because I can't even get 40 miles in a week. And I had a conversation with my coach, I had a conversation with Allie, and they both said something very similar that, you know, it's okay to slow down, and you should slow down. And even my coach, who I would look at her Strava, and every day, you know, she would post a run. Some days her pace was like in the in the nines, other times it was in the the six fifties. Like she's quick, but she also understands that she needs time to give her legs some rest and and do some easy runs. And I didn't understand that. But after those conversations with both those people, I realized that I might be in the wrong here. I I might not understand truly what it means to take easy days or to recover. And I made the decision to actually not run for Strava, but to run for myself and to work towards the goals that I was setting for myself. And that made all the difference, honestly. Because when I stopped running for the app, I s and started running for the training planned, everything started to change. My mileage went up, my progress began to show up. My long runs stopped being a thing that I was trying to survive, and they became something that was building that I was building towards and I enjoyed. That's where I truly fell in love with running, was when I put aside the pressure of keeping really fast paces. The people on Strava are not watching. It might look like it, it might seem like it to you, and even if they were, they couldn't run the races for me. And so I had handed my pacing decisions to an audience that had zero stake in the outcome I was doing. And that is ego in action. It's loud, convincing, and completely pointed in the wrong direction. The same thing happened with this show. Like, and I think this is one that's worth being honest about because some of you have been here from the beginning. So you you might have heard some of these things. But when I started the show, my entire operating theory was okay, just get more episodes out. The listeners will follow if I just get more episodes out. Volume drives growth. That's what I believed at the time. So that's exactly what I executed. I was producing content at a pace I was proud of. And I was like, man, podcasting's easy. I can just get these things out, you know, and I would go very high level into a topic without diving deep or explaining what I thought about it. You can go back to the early episodes and understand what I'm saying because you can you can clearly hear it. Like I remember there was one, I think it's around like episode three or four, but it's all about the the benefits of exercise. And I would say something like, exercise helps uh your brain and it helps you have cognitive function. And then I would say, hey, and exercise helps you with this, helps you with your discipline. And there was never any context or actual meat to the subjects. And I wish I could go back and tell that kid, like, hey, you you gotta take your time, you gotta really think about what you're saying because there's someone on the other side that's listening. And also with like the guests that I had on, I had a list of questions that I wanted to run through with them. And sometimes in the early days, I would search on Google, like, okay, what are some good podcast questions? And I would follow those to a T. Thinking that, like, okay, if I'm just having a conversation, the the good content will come. You know, maybe I'll be like Joe Rogan. Which, if you listen to any of Joe Rogan's podcasts, he's not looking at quotes the entire time. He's not looking at questions he wants to ask the guest. He's just having a conversation with them. And that wasn't something I really understood. Um like during that time, the guests would answer the question and I would immediately move on. I did not follow up. And there were some guests that I had on that I really wish I I could go back and re-interview them, have another conversation with them. Because I feel like now I understand what it means to you know be in a place where you're bouncing ideas off of each other and you're having the time to listen to what they say and and saying, Oh, well, how did that make you feel? Or what lessons did you learn from that? And was it a powerful one? Or like you know what I'm trying to say. It's it basically just allowed me to rethink my strategy when I understood that okay, the listeners are not going up, and in fact, they're really low, so there must be something wrong. There must be something that I'm missing here. And the thing I was missing was the question of that I should be asking myself every podcast I do, every time I sit down and I I pull up my notes and I start typing away, is what will the audience take away? And will it be worth it? I never addressed that question in the early days of the podcast, which again is a great lesson to be learned. But I wonder where I could be now if I took the time to actually, you know, do that. And I'm not saying like, oh, I would be huge. I'm just saying as a conversationalist or as someone who has a podcast and tries to give valuable information, that is something that's important to me. And I don't think I've understood that until probably two and a half years into this podcast. I say the last year and a half, I've really tried to try to focus on that so I can provide value to you guys. It it means a lot to me that you are on the other side of this, that you're listening. Maybe you got me in your headphones, your car, or just on your speaker. But it doesn't like that doesn't matter the way that you listen to it. It just matters that you're listening to me. That means so much. And because of that, I want to give you something that you can take away and chew on and actually go into your next week and try some of the things that I'm talking about. Because, you know, I I talk about how getting after it's a community, and if I'm not even showing up for my community, how can I expect to build one? And now I think because I changed my relationship to this work and I asked myself the questions, it gives me ideas and it gives me time to think so I can truly give you guys value. Um and I recognize that quality is not something that you add at the end, it is built into the pace you choose before you start. There is a pattern in all three of those stories, you know, the marathon strava and the podcast itself. And it is that the cost does not arrive right away. You feel great at mile 10, you know, your weekly summary looks pretty good on your podcast. Um, you feel productive every time you hit publish, and the signal you are getting in the moment is positive. There's no doubt about that. The bill shows up later as injury, as stalled training, as content that nobody engages with because it's not ready, and candidly, it's terrible. The problem with deferred costs is that by the time they arrive, the decision is already behind you. You can't go back and change time. I was watching uh at the gym today while I was running. Shh, you know, I was watching Back to the Future. You can't you can't get the DeLorean and go back in time. I'm sorry to say. You can't get your I don't know what the doc's name is actually. Um I was watching it with subtitles. So, anyways, back to the future is not important here. All I'm saying is you cannot get that time back, you cannot go back and uh change that decision. You can't go back and rerun miles, you can't um go back and update earlier podcasts. What's out there is out there. What you've done is done. There's a line from Michael A. Singer that I love about this topic. He writes the truth is that most of life will unfold in accordance with forces outside of your control, regardless of what your mind says about it. Listen to that again slowly. I'm gonna slow down for you. The truth is that most of life will unfold in accordance with forces outside your control, regardless of what your mind says about it. The urgency that you have does not make the outcome arrive any faster. The podcast was not uh was not going to grow faster because I published more episodes. My race was not determined by how hard I pushed at mile three. The forces at work are larger than your hustle, honestly. And that's why I love studying the stoics because a big chunk of what they focus on is you know, there are outside events that there are outside actions that will happen to you in your life. And your goal, your job, is to respond in a in a good way. Like you have. Have control over how you respond to things, and that is power. You will get there sometimes by going quick, but you get there having paid more than you need to. And most of us are just running our lives at a fast pace, trying to move through. Definitely me. That's that's why I'm bringing this up and why I've been sitting with it for a while, because I've recognized that I do try to tend to move quickly with all things. I want to be at certain points faster than I than is is realistic and expected of me. And we do feel it in that moment, but just not right now. Now I want to address something directly because some of you are already thinking of it. You have the argument. Winners go hard from the start. You miss all the shots you don't take. Outwork everyone in the room. And I agree with the spirit of that. And I'm not telling you to coast. Do not get that mixed up. I understand that that's the counterargument here, and I agree with many of those things. But patience is not the same as low effort. And I will come back to that a little bit later. But here is what I actually believe. Going hard looks different depending on where you are. If you're a beginner runner at the pace someone five years deep into training is doing, you are not being bold. You're being careless. If you're not draining threes within your first week of practice, you know, that takes work, that takes reps. The shots worth taking are the ones you have built the capacity to make. The ego's job is protect is to protect your image. The ego sets a pace that looks impressive to other people. And your actual job is to get where you're going. Those two things are often running in opposite directions. On Strava, I was running at ego's pace. In those early days of my podcasts, I was running an ego race. In that marathon, I was partially running my ego's race because I had trained for this in the end. And I needed the people in my life to see what the training produced. That's really it. And that all those three examples, that's the ego talking. The sub three existed whether I ran 256 or 302. And Allie was not going to be prouder for me if I, you know, if I got three minutes faster in that race. She would be proud of me if I got the 302. She'd be like, damn, Brett, you ran quick. And most of us are not hiring a pacer to guide us through life, just like I had one in the race. But we are letting our ego call the splits and then wondering why we blow up. And here's the thing ego will always argue that you are behind. Always. And it's good at what it does. It'll whisper in your ear, like, hey, you see that guy over there? He's doing way better than you. Try and match him. Or, oh, your brother ran 10 miles today and you're feeling really sick. You can't let him beat you. Go do it. And it's good at what it does. It knows exactly what strings to pull to get you to do things. Ego is a nothing good comes from it. So I'm still battling that. I think everybody will. And the ego manufactures some kind of urgency that does not serve the goal. And if you let it, it will set your pace. That you cannot sustain. The discipline is not going harder. That's not it. The discipline is knowing your pace and holding it when everything around you is telling you to sprint. Now, I want to be straight with you guys about where I am right now, because I I think it matters to say. And my training, it's kind of suffered a little bit. I have a lot of things going on in my life. I am, you know, in the job search. I'm interviewing a lot. There's a lot of mental strain on me. I am traveling back and forth a lot. I'm going to be a dad. And on top of that, my health is not great. What I mean by that is I um I've taken hormones for my testosterone, which my body doesn't produce. And the doctor's instructions were that as soon as Allie gets through her first trimester, he wanted me to go completely off all hormones to see what my base level was at. And I don't say this as an excuse, but training has been harder than it has been in the past two years because my body's fatigued. I do not recover well. I am not as strong as I would like to be. And I imagine it's because of my testosterone, my sleep's bad, which are all traits of it. I have brain fog from time to time, and it's frustrating as hell. I hate it. But you know, I was dealt this card, so I'm not gonna complain because that doesn't get me anywhere. But it's real, the feeling is real. The fatigue, the soreness, the non-recovery, all that stuff, I have to deal with it. And it sucks. There's no way other way to say it. Like it just sucks. But here's the thing: I understand that I am not where I used to be in terms of my physical health, my fitness levels. And that's okay because this is my own journey. I'm running my own race. On top of that, I've learned how to be patient during times like this. Because there is the temptation when you fall behind to overcorrect. But I know where that gets me. And that's why we're having this conversation today. Because I do know where that gets me. And I can't compare myself to other people who, like Braden or Jace, who are crushing it with their runs and going fast and doing high miles. I can't do that because I know that I am not in a great place health-wise. I guess I am I'm healthy, but it's just testosterone. That's really it. I my body doesn't produce it. I have a pituitary tumor, and that's just my reality. And so I try to be patient. And sometimes being patient is hard. It is tough because I want to be somewhere that I'm not right now. I'm still working, I'm still putting in the reps, I'm still training and going hard as I can, but that's a different version of what I looked like when I was training for my sub three. And it's the best I can do right now. I have to be okay with that. I have to understand that I'm running my own race. I'm not Nick Bear. I'm not Andy Glaze, David Goggins, Sally McRae. I'm none of these people. I'm Brett Rossell. And my journey will look different. Just like yours looks different from mine, just like yours looks different from your wife's or your husband's, your friends, everyone's life journey is going to be different. And, you know, you can you can uh in in moments like this, you pile intensity onto a depleted body, like you get hurt or you get burned out. And now you are further behind than when you started. And what I would say is the right move, the hard move, is to reestablish a sustainable pace and trust that it will compound. Do not panic, do not try to make up all the ground within a week, get your miles in, keep your commitments, and trust that the base you built does not disappear in a few rough weeks. I'm hoping that I can get this resolved. Um, my hormone thing. Gonna meet with my doctor soon, so I'll have more updates then. But that is what I'm doing right now. I'm trying to re-establish my base. Re-establish my pace so I can build my base. Apologies. And I'm telling you this because I suspect some of you are some of you are in a similar place to me. You fell off some kind of goal. You lost ground on something that matters to you. And now you're trying to figure out whether to push hard and get back on track fast or whether to pace your way back. Pace your way back. I'm gonna tell you that's the answer. The ground returns when you stop running in the red. You'll re-establish your base. I think it's interesting to consider the miles that you can't go back on. My grandfather, on my dad's side, he passed away in 2009 from kidney cancer. And I wasn't really old enough to fully grasp it at the time and what it meant for my dad. But I understand it better now. My dad, he talks about him regularly, and he always says something that breaks my heart. He always says, I wish I could pick up the phone and call my dad and ask him for advice or just talk to him. There is a specific kind of grief in that. Not just the grief of losing someone, but the grief of knowing you cannot go back and be more present with them when you had the chance to. You know, the conversations that you have showed up to, the time you were physically there, but were busy doing other things. And what I've watched in my dad over the years is how he changes or how he changes how he shows up when it counts. Like when we get together now, his phone goes away. He's not distracted by sports, his attention is fully on you. You know, whatever else is going on, it goes all away. He is with his people. That's it. And I believe he learned something during that time in a very difficult way. And he has not wasted that lesson. I really admire him for that. And it's something that just from his example, I try to emulate in my own life is being with my people. You know, because I know one of the days is gonna come where I can't pick up the phone and call my dad. I've talked about Allie's father who passed away, and she says the same kind of thing. She just misses him. And it's sad. Like it it it's unfortunately death comes for us all, and that is the reality of life, but it doesn't make it any less easy, or any less hard, apologize. It doesn't make it any less hard to go through a situation like that, and the reality sucks. Now, Allie and I are gonna be parents soon, and that has changed a lot of how I look at the clock because everything looks different when you are standing at the start line of that particular race, the race being becoming a dad. And Allie, who was much wiser than me, we were talking about this, and she said something that really sparked this entire idea for this podcast. She said, Life is best enjoyed when we slow down. We will be parents. We only have a short amount of time with our kids. There is no point in rushing to the next milestone without enjoying the moment that we are in. If we take it for granted, we will miss it. I don't have anything clever to add to that. Because it's already the whole thing. Allie said it. And we're doing that now. You know, as she's going through pregnancy, we're, you know, feeling all the feelings. And it's so fun to be there with her and experience her pregnancy and watch her her body change over time because it's carrying our baby. It's a miracle, it truly is. And especially with my hormone stuff that was going on. Like it's nothing but a miracle. And there's a a quote from Eckhart Toll where he says, Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. What's behind you is memories, what's in front of you is the future. All you have right now is the present moment. So try to make the most of it. I've read that before, and I nodded at the way that you would nod at things that sound important, right? Like, oh yeah, yeah, that's good. Mm-hmm. Then what Ali said to me that day about our kid who isn't even here yet. It was like I heard that quote for the first time. You can PR a marathon, but you can't go back to your kid's first year. You can grow a podcast, but you cannot replay the conversations you you were distracted through. You can rebuild your training, and you cannot recover the time you burned running at a pace that was not yours to begin with. Some miles you can get back, some miles you can't. And the discipline of pacing is partly about performance, but at the deepest level, what I believe to be true, it is about deciding which miles you are willing to pay attention to. My dad figured this out through loss. Allie figured it out before she had to. Because I think that she went through the same experience my dad did. That she knows what it's like to have someone that you love deeply be taken away. I'm still figuring it out. I'm trying to learn this lesson, but I do know which direction I'm trying to go. Now, my favorite part of the podcast. What can you do with this? Well, this wouldn't be a great podcast if I don't give you anything actionable to do. So let's jump into it. Now, I want you to pick one thing and audit your pace in one area of your life. Pick one thing. Your training, your work, a relationship, a project. And ask yourself whether the pace you are moving at is your pace or the pace that you think you're supposed to be at. Those two things can feel very identical from the inside. But sit with the question until you get an honest answer. Because that honest answer is the only one that is useful. Number two, ask the question I use before every episode. What will someone gain from this? Take it and apply it to whatever you are building right now. A conversation, a decision, something you are about to send or launch or ship. If you answer, if you cannot answer it clearly, slow down before you send it. The question does not care about your timeline, it cares about the work. Number three, put your phone down for one meal this week. Not every meal, it doesn't have to be every meal, just one. But be in the room that you're actually in. My dad learned this through through grief. You have the option to learn it at a cheaper cost. Number four, find the leaderboard you are running your life against and make it very clear. It might be literal, like some kind of Strava app. But it might be a person's career you are benchmarking yourself against, or a timeline someone else on, or a timeline someone else is on that you keep measuring yourself by. Name it, then stop running that race. You do not have the right training for it because it's not your race. Someone else's, but come back, come back to your plan, yours. Come back to it. You can do it. Finally, number five. I want you to write down one milestone you're rushing towards and ask yourself, what are you missing right now in order to get there? Not what will you miss in the future, right now? Because, like that quote said, the present moment is all that we have. Allie's question. Put to wherever you are standing today. Take that, write it down. The answer will be something worth reading twice. Guarantee that. I will leave you with this. Sub three matters. That was an important moment for me. This show matters. You know, that's why I've been here for 187 episodes. Your goals are real and they are very worth it, and you should continue working towards them. But the way you get there matters too. The pace you choose says something about what you believe about the time that you have. My dad believes his time belongs to his people. Allie believes this season is not something to race through, something to be enjoyed and taken slowly. I am still learning what I believe, and if I'm honest, I'm somewhere in the middle of figuring it out. What I do know is that some of the best runs I have ever had were some slow ones. Long runs on Saturday at a nine minute pace, with nothing to prove or nowhere to be, just me, my thoughts, and the road. Easy miles that built that base, that made the race possible for me. Nobody claps for those miles. They do not look like anything. But without them, the race does not happen. Most of life is the easy miles. And the question is whether you are willing to run them with the same intention you bring to race day. My challenge for you this week is to find one place where the pace is not yours and slow down. Not to coast, but to go further than you would without burning out. Guys, this is an important topic for me. You know, being present is something that I think a lot of us forget to actually believe and to actually enjoy the moment. Life is hectic, it's hard. And sometimes we don't even want to be in that present moment. But that's all we have. And your race is your own. If you remember DJ Take 2 on this podcast, he said a quote where it was your race, your pace. And that applies very much so to what we're having a conversation about today. So do those things, and I promise you, you'll start enjoying whatever you're working towards a little bit more. But thank you so much for spending time with me today. I hope it was helpful. I hope you get a clear understanding of what it means to utilize the time that you have and to not try and put yourself above where you should be. Be patient. Be in the moment that you're in. And good things will come. If this episode helped you at all, it would help me if you gave the show a rating, sent it to someone who might need to hear a message like this, or left me a comment. I love hearing from you guys. Um if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, thank you so much. Um please rate the show. I feel like I'm I feel like I'm begging you guys now, but uh that's just something I want to say every episode because it does help me, honestly. The more people that rate the show, the more people will see it. So it means a lot, and I appreciate your time today. And until next episode, everybody, keep getting after it.