You CAN Sprint a Marathon

I’m an idiot, but that’s not a bad thing. I’m no brain surgeon, I can’t save peoples lives by diagnosing their ailments, I’m not working towards a cure for cancer and I’m certainly no rocket scientist. A thinking man I’m not, a man of action I am.

Not so much of a ‘Act now ask questions later‘, more of a drive at full throttle and learn how to drive on the way. The old saying of it’s a marathon not a sprint has never made sense to me. I understand why people say it, but since a very early age I have always had the opinion of ‘Why can’t I sprint a marathon?’

• Speed

Everybody is different, the way I do it isn’t right or wrong, but it is working for me. When I passed my Physical Training Instructors course in the military I was only 19 years old, but I set a record for the fastest 4 mile weighted run. I think the reason I set that record was partially down to the fact everyone else was saving themselves for the rest of the tests throughout the course.

Why save yourself? I firmly believe that by pushing your self as hard as you can for as long as you can, you achieve a higher state of fitness than anyone else around you. By publishing posts at the rate I do I have become a writer. A writer! Me, the guy who struggles to read a single page of a book and until a few weeks ago didn’t know that ‘and’ didn’t have a comma in front of it!

By going at it full force, I personally think you get stronger and can cope with it as your body will adjust, it has too.

• Fuel

OK I know a thing or two about fueling your body and I know that if I was going to go and run a marathon with absolutely no fuel in my body I would be in a bad way. I’m sure I would complete it, but with no food or water in my belly, it would take me all day and I would be in a right state afterwards.

I also know that if all I ate before the race comprised of burgers and alcohol then I wouldn’t have the right type of fuel to finish at a decent pace. Your fuel is extremely important if you want to push the pace, so visit others sites or business in your market, read magazines, talk to others that are outside your market and if you can’t write about anything then write about not being able to write about anything!

Ultimately it comes down to how quickly you want to get where you want to be, the better your fuel and inspiration, the quality of your work will be much better and if you wanted to, you could increase the pace.

• Wall

Every time I have raced in marathons I have hit a wall, on a ultra marathon (54 miles) I hit 3 walls. A wall is when you physically or mental don’t think you have the energy to carry on. This is your writers block or ideas anchor and can be dealt with extremely easy.

I look at life in a very simple way, it’s only a human brain that makes things complicated. Think about it, you don’t see birds or ants feeling sorry for themselves or thinking they can’t do it. When I used to hit the wall, your initial reaction is to slow down or stop, I always got round this by looking at my watch and thinking, I’m not going to let a fake $25 watch on it’s tenth strap beat me, that watch is telling me I have another hour left to run ‘you’ll never make it’ I’m saying, you’re a watch and you will never beat me, so I’m going to pick up the pace.

Think about this in your work or website, those little keys on your keyboard, or your to do list is literally laughing at you, grip it around the scruff of it’s neck and take control.

• Finish Line

Some people think taking little baby steps works, I think this is a great approach sometimes. However, I live most of my life by never really having an ultimate goal, I do have goals but I don’t focus on one thing in which I tell myself  ‘at that point, I can relax’

When I used to race, no matter if it was 1.5 miles or 54 miles, I would always aim beyond that. So when I set off on that marathon with everyone else I used to say to myself ‘This is an ultra marathon’ or ‘10 hours till the finish’ It’s the same theory behind fighting. When I punch, I don’t aim for the target, I aim behind it, so that when I connect there is still force pushing through the target area and beyond.

By all means set yourself targets and hit them but as soon as your getting anyway near them, set new ones and keep pushing your self forward.

You may feel a bit overwhelmed by all this, but this is just the way I do it and the results speak for themselves, speak to your readers and customers, create great content or products, reply to everything and if you can squeeze a bit more out of yourself or business, then go for it.

What does everyone think?

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