The Long Term

Running ultra-marathons by doing less, seeking out the truth and exploring alternative paths.

If you haven’t listened to the latest Stratagems episode on Polaroid, you’re missing out. It is a fantastic story of how Edwin Land willed others to do the impossible. Plus, the nostalgia factor of relieving your favorite polaroid moments cannot be beat. The episode is available everywhere you can find podcasts or on the web.

Zone 2

Running a marathon (26 miles/42 kilometers) can be difficult for new runners and will take several hours of non-stop running. You would need to train for months to develop the necessary endurance and before you can slap a number across your chest.

If you have gone through this training process, it may seem impossible to fathom the training required for ultra-marathons, races with hundreds or thousands of miles.

Take the Self-Transcendence race which requires you to run 3,100 miles or 4,988 kilometers over a 52 day period. You would need to average 60 miles per day or just over two marathons worth of running. Then repeat that 52 times in a row. Only 12 people are doing it in 2024.

As it turns out, training for ultra-marathons is counterintuitive. 

Ultra-marathon athletes focus on “zone 2” heart training, an intensity just a little beyond speed walking. You would still be able to maintain a conversation while in zone 2 mode. No huffing and puffing here or trying to push yourself to your maximum capacity.

Athletes then ramp up their total miles over several months to get ready for longer distances. Their speed increases but more importantly, their capacity for more running goes up.

In a 3,100 mile race, you’re not focused on going the fastest. You focus on slowing down the least and maintaining a sustainable pace. The challenge for these athletes is not overexerting themselves; they need the discipline to slow down and relax into a long haul effort.

We sometimes need to sprint in life but other times, we need to find a way to sustain a consistent effort over a long time. The key is doing less. 

The Truth

Readers of this newsletter know I love Robert Caro and I recently finished his book titled Working (about his work style) and a documentary about Caro and his editor titled Turn Every Page.

In the book, he talks about his experience covering Lyndon Johnson's early years. All the existing biographies were consistent in their portrayal of LBJ as someone who was loved by his high school classmates and friends. And yet, Caro felt that something was missing. 

He found himself in a conversation with yet another high school classmate and she was getting exasperated with Caro. She had told him everything he knew and besides, Caro could see for himself how his classmates saw LBJ in the yearbook. She told him to check out pages 22 - 26.

Caro then realized that his copy of the yearbook did not have pages 22 - 26. They had been carefully ripped out. It took several tries before he found one copy that had pages 22 - 26. In those pages, he saw that his classmates did not like LBJ and in fact, did not trust him. They had given him all kinds of nicknames like “Bull Johnson.”

Caro’s books ended up portraying LBJ drastically differently than other biographies because he was willing to go farther in the search of the truth.

The initial statements we hear in our organization are usually only partially true. We need to dig deeper to find the truth.

Quality

The common belief in today’s internet is that you need volume to stand out. Youtube channels and TikTok accounts release professionally produced videos daily and sometimes even multiple times per day. Linkedin, Twitter and other platforms reward you for posting frequently. 

If you started a podcast today, what frequency would you pick? 

If you said weekly, you would be close to the average show. According to Buzzsprout (a podcast hosting solution), 35% of podcasts publish an episode “every 3 to 7 days and 40% every 8 to 14 days.” The average length of an episode is between 25 and 30 minutes.

This all aligns with what we hear. People don’t have time to consume content. Things should be short, frequent and to the point.

This is why a podcast such as Hardocre History doesn’t seem to make any sense. On average, they release one episode per year and each episode will be around 4 hours long. Each episode is downloaded millions of times and the praise for the podcast is overwhelmingly positive. The podcast has been running for just under 20 years.

Hardcore History breaks all the rules and yet, it is successful. 

The short, frequent, ephemeral approach to content also works but it is not the only approach.

Whenever you hear someone say “this is the only way,” you should know that there are always different approaches that may be a better fit for your organization.

Ruben