146 days out from the Richmond Marathon, what is this marathon training cycle teaching me? To slow down. Not just my training paces, but in thinking about my preparations for the marathon I need to slow down.
I have to slow down to think carefully about what I want to accomplish.
I have to slow down to think carefully about what my plan will be to accomplish my goal.
I have to slow down to think carefully about what kind of transformation I want to undergo to achieve that transformation.
So much slowing down, but I don’t have time. We are approximately 20 weeks out from the marathon, and so I must get started. There is little time to waste, and I have to start locking in my workout patterns. A little wasted time here, a missed week there, an overuse injury because I waited too long to get started, and my goals could be shot. Even though there seems to be a lot of time until we #RunRichmond, decisive action must be taken now.
This all reminds me of something I read when I first became a professor: you must make haste slowly.
I was reading a book called What the Best Professors Do, and that book described little things that fast starters did which differentiated them from slow starters. When you start out on the tenure track, you have the whole tenure clock ahead of you. However, you must make decisive choices in the small things that add up over time. A few missed writing sessions here, too many missed grant windows there, too many negative student evaluations late in the clock, and your professorial goals could be in jeapordy. As a professor starting on the tenure track, it is critical to take a lot of small steps urgently early on, while at the same time slowing down to deliberately consider your overall plan and the bigger picture of your work. You must make haste to publish your work and engage in your professional community, but you must do so slowly and deliberately.
While I was thinking of all of this today, I reflected on how much I was yelling at my kids or treating my wife with contempt. I realized that I have automatic reflexes towards them that are not loving, but controlling. I thought a bit more about it and realized that although I am not satisfied with the ways I speak to them and interact with them, I never slow down long enough to consider the reasons why I am about to respond the way I do. Sometimes, time is of the essence. This is usually why the automatic reflexes take over. But almost all situations can benefit from an extra moment of reflection. I have to make haste slowly when loving and living with my family.
146 days out from the marathon, this is the most important thing training is teaching me. Make haste slowly when responding to my wife in the moment. Make haste slowly when addressing my kids. Make haste slowly when doing something that needs to be done around the house. Take decisive action in the moment, but in that same moment be deliberate and thoughtful.
I hope you will remember to make haste slowly with whomever or whatever is important to you.