Brian Gubernick ran the 2023 Chicago Marathon with unconventional training: cross-training and hiking instead of long runs, plus unusual race-day nutrition. His watch showed 3:59:58, but the official chip time was 4:01, missing his sub-four-hour goal. He argues that maximum effort matters more than hitting the target.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into it. Today I want to talk about my recent experience at the Chicago Marathon, some lessons I learned. Of course, because when you get to run for for 4 hours and be in your own head, well, you learn a lot. At least I do. And so I want to share my experiences. One really big lesson or big takeaway for me that I thought was worth sharing with our audience. And so here goes. So I just recently ran the Chicago Marathon. And to be honest, I didn't train all that well for it. You know, I've been training, I've been cross-training, I've been doing all sorts of things, hiking and whatnot. But I didn't do the traditional marathon workouts, which essentially are just super long runs, uh, and putting time on the pavement, right? Just putting time on your feet and getting it in, in terms of, in terms of those runs. And then on the weekends, you're getting some longer runs in, and I just didn't do that this time. Again, I had a pretty solid baseline given that I'd recently done some events. I talked about 29.029, and I've been doing some other things, so I don't know, I wanted to give it a shot. You know, I wasn't, uh, I wasn't feeling the marathon training, but figured I'd, I'd try to do something a little different. And so not only did I train— change my training up a little bit, I also changed my nutrition, specifically race nutrition, like while you're running, what I was eating. And so fast forward, you know, I'm running the race, and historically around mile 16, 17, 18, I start to feel it. And by feel it, I mean my, my legs start cramping a little bit. Uh, I have a tendency to get a little nauseous and, uh, that's usually how it goes. But this time I got to 16 and I was okay. And I got to 17, I was okay. And I got to 18 and I was okay. And I'm like, wow, it must be, must be a good day. It's going to set in in a little bit. And 20 came and 21 came and I was feeling pretty good. Then to make matters worse, I know I'm on a— not just a PR pace, but I'm not a particularly fast distance runner. And I was running some math in my head and I'm like, I have a shot at cracking 4 hours, at running under 4 hours. Never done that. I knew it was— I was on a faster pace, but I haven't really been within reach of 4 hours. And doing the math, I was like, I think I got this. I think I could do this. So mile 22, then 23, and I'm looking at my watch and I still got a shot. And so I give it my all. 24, I ratcheted it up. 25, you know, I'm now pushing. I'm on mile 25 and I said, You know, I did get a little bit of the "I don't get tired" mantra going in my head that some of you know. You know, Jesse Itzler shared with us something he heard from his buddy Chad Wright is "I don't get tired." I would be lying if I said I didn't have that going on in my head, but I just went as hard as I possibly could. And I ran my fastest mile of the 26 in my last mile, which includes the slight hill towards the end. And as I'm looking at my watch and I'm closing in on the finish line, I think I got it. Like, I literally was thinking I might have to dive at the finish line. And I got to the finish line, I looked at my watch and it had it 3:59 and 58 seconds, and I was pumped. And then I looked at the official scoring and they had me at 4:01, 4 hours and 1 minute. Now fast forward, I realized I had stopped my watch early in the race and totally had forgotten about it. So I messed up the timing and I totally messed up. I forgot about it. But where am I going with this whole story? You know, I thought I was gonna crack 4 hours and I had a couple people ask me, well, gosh, how disappointed were you? And yeah, I was a little bummed, but I'll tell you what, I was okay with it because I went as hard as I freaking could go at that, at that, towards that end. Actually, the last 5 miles, I went as hard as I could physically push myself to go, like to the point of, you know, wanting to fall down and collapse at the finish line type of effort. And you can't really be mad about that. You can't be mad at yourself if you empty the gas tank. I would have been disappointed with myself if I had a little bit left, because nothing irks me more than regret, feeling like, God, if I could do that over again, I would have done this or done that. I wanted to get across that finish line and know I did everything I possibly could do. And I did do that. And as a result, I didn't hit the goal. I didn't achieve the objective, but I wasn't really disappointed. I wasn't really disappointed because I gave it my all. So why do I share this story with you today? Some of you here, high achievers that you are, you know, very goal-oriented individuals that you are, I think it's good for you to hear it's okay to miss your objective. It's okay to miss your goal. It's not okay to not give it your all. You will regret, regret, you will be disappointed with yourself if you don't empty the tank. But if you give it your all, if you empty the tank, if you lay it all out on the line, how could you be mad? How could you be upset? Sure, maybe you could plan a little better. Maybe I could have not made the mistake with my watch, but you know what? I screwed up. Doesn't mean I didn't drop the hammer at the end and go as hard as I could. And so for all of you today, I think the focusing question: where do you have to give yourself a little grace? Do you deserve that grace? Where have you set a goal and you haven't achieved it? Did you go as hard as you possibly could go? Did you push? Did you empty the tank? Did you feel like you were about to collapse at the finish, win or lose? If you did, good for you. And if you didn't, cool. Now we have some awareness. See, I don't think it's always about achieving the objective. I think it's always about giving the effort required of you in that moment to win. Sometimes you end up on the other side of the coin. Sometimes you get beat. It doesn't necessarily mean you lose. That's all we have for today. The No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get after it.
