Greatness doesn’t come by accident: How one guy ran a marathon when a half was all he’d planned on
There are times when we stumble into something surprising and we’re not at all disappointed. Perhaps you took a wrong turn, but the tree-lined road that eventually got you where you needed to be was so beautiful, you’re actually glad you went off the too-familiar path. Or maybe you went into a restaurant because there were no other options and weeks later, you were still recalling the delectable meal.
But here’s something you probably have never done — run a marathon, 26.2 miles — by mistake. That distance requires intention. In 2016, 51,267 people finished the New York City Marathon. Another 26,640 completed the Boston Marathon. Thousands of runners, some competitive, all serious, make up their minds to cover the distance in all sorts of conditions. It’s grueling, even for the well-trained, but it’s a reasonable feat for countless degrees of athletes.
What do they all have in common? They do it on purpose. They train, preparing mentally and physically whether it’s their first or 51st.
This is what makes Mike Kohler different. He never saw it coming.
By now you might have read his story. Running in the Fargo (N.D.)Marathon, he set out to complete the half-marathon for which he’d trained. He’d done everything right ahead of the 13.1-mile run — eaten right and completed training runs no matter the weather.
But Mike took a wrong turn on the course. It wasn’t long before he’d realized his mistake. And here’s where his mistake turned into an opportunity to stretch beyond his supposed limitations.
Instead of turning back, getting back on track and maybe adding a few extra miles to his run, he doubled-down and ran the full marathon, something he’d never done before. His longest training run was 10 miles but once he’d committed to running the entire course, he says he never considered quitting. I asked Mike, a 26-year-old plumber and pipefitter, if he has always been the type of guy who could motivate himself to go beyond boundaries. His answer reminded me of a critical life lesson.
Discipline steps in where motivation runs out:
“ I would say I’ve been more a self-disciplined person. Motivation comes and goes but when you’re disciplined, that sticks around. There have been plenty of times that I felt very unmotivated to do my training but I had the discipline to do it anyways, because I knew that in order to do what I wanted to do I had to do the training.”
Mike first had to become a doer. A former high school football player, he’d often consider accomplishing a goal or living out a dream. But when it came down to it, he didn’t make a move. This time was different.
Put your want-to into action:
“For a long time I felt like I was always talking about doing things, but I never really did anything I talked about doing. I didn’t want to be someone who just talked about doing things; I wanted to do what I said I was going to do. I signed up for a 5k to give myself something to work towards. After that I decided I’d run a 10K the next year and a half the following year.”
Mike took off to Scotland on vacation after it was all over and is already considering running another marathon in the fall, with intention. Because he’d signed up for a half marathon, he got the post-race medal for only that distance. He’d run for 5 hours, 54 minutes and 26 seconds — not exactly what he had in mind when he woke up that morning in May to run.
Lesson №3: Don’t sell yourself short:
“This just kind of proves you can do a lot more than what you think you can sometimes,” Kohler told the Grand Forks Herald.
What Mike Kohler managed didn’t come by accident. He had what it took to make it happen before setting foot on the road. He says “something just came over me.” I’d argue that something was already inside him — and it saw him to the finish line.
Congratulations, Mike!
