Go hard from the front
You have to give yourself a chance to win…
One of the defining realisations I can remember having as a teenager occurred during a cross country race. I was probably 13 or 14 and was running mid pack. Races were typically 4–6km long — so about 20–25 minutes or so from start to finish. For the longest while I thought that the best strategy was to “pace” myself — not go out too hard and leave something in the tank for a strong finish. What I found however was that the leaders were so far ahead, that short of running the last km in a world record I had buckley’s chance of a good result. And I was buggered anyway at the end of the race.
One day it dawned on me that the front runners never actually slowed down — really to be in it, I had to be in the front with the leaders from the get go. I was never going to win, but if I could go hard and just hang on, then at least I stood a chance of finishing with a good result. This change in tactics paid dividends immediately, results improved, I gave myself a chance.
Some days this failed spectacularly, (one memorable race I passed out just meters before finish and woke up in an ambulance). But generally I found myself running hard at the front and managing to hang on for a reasonable finish.
The truism cautions that you should pace yourself, life is a marathon not a sprint. My lesson as a youngster is to be careful that you don’t pace yourself to mediocrity.
Let me know what you think? I’d love your feedback. If you haven’t already then sign up for a weekly dose just like this.
More like this from 10x Curiosity
- Don Norman and the design of everyday things — 7 rules that help to reduce errors and make the user experience more intuitive.
- Scaling by doing things that don’t scale
When focusing on the insane little details might be the secret to grand success - You don’t learn to Juggle by learning to Juggle… — Throw. Throw. Catch. Catch. You don’t learn to juggle by learning to juggle — that is the outcome. You learn to juggle by learning to throw then learning to catch — that is the process.
- Antifragile — Becoming stronger with failure — Antifragile. A thought provoking concept developed by Nassim Taleb in a book by the same name.
