I thought I had failed.
Nineteen miles into what was supposed to be a confidence-building long run, and the first seven miles had felt terrible. Heavy legs. Heavy shoulders. Heart rate spiking. Paces drifting slower than they should have been. I finished strong, sure, but those early miles haunted me.
So I did what any modern runner does when they’re confused about their body: I uploaded my data and asked my AI running coach what went wrong.
“What you just described is not a failure,” came the response. “It is textbook marathon physiology.”
The Data Doesn’t Lie (But It Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story)
Let me back up and explain what actually happened on that run.
Miles 1-6: Everything felt wrong. Legs heavy, shoulders tense, paces drifting from 12:00 down to 10:18 minute miles. Heart rate climbing sharply into the 170s.
Mile 7: Something flipped.
Miles 12-15: Controlled 8:45-8:54 pace. Relaxed breathing. Legs felt good.
Finish: Strong. Honestly felt 100 times better after mile 7 than before.
My coach’s analysis was calm and methodical: “You literally ran through the ‘this sucks’ phase and into rhythm. That is a huge mental win.”
But there was more to uncover. When I mentioned that during those strong middle miles, despite hills, my breathing felt completely controlled and I was focused on finding rhythm rather than speed, the conversation took an interesting turn.
Then I mentioned something I probably should have led with: I have eye problems and can’t see beyond a few feet in front of me. I strain in the beginning to see where I’m going, worry about where my feet will land, always start runs super slow because of this, and am probably more tense when I start.
“That context changes everything,” my coach replied.
The Hidden Tax of Limited Vision
What I thought was a setback or poor fitness was actually something much more complex: nervous system taxation.
When you can’t see far ahead, your brain goes into protective mode:
Shoulders tighten
Neck stiffens
Breathing becomes shallow
Stride shortens
Heart rate rises disproportionately
You’re not out of shape. You’re bracing.
It occurs to me that this is how I’ve approached most difficult things in life. New jobs, difficult conversations, public speaking. I brace. Shoulders up, breathing shallow, over-preparing for threats that may not materialize. The energy cost is enormous. But here’s what I’m learning: the bracing isn’t weakness. It’s how some of us enter uncertainty. The question is whether we know how to settle.
When vision is limited, the brain increases muscle co-contraction to stabilize joints. That costs energy. It literally makes running feel harder than it is, even when you’re running slowly.
Then around mile 6-7, I settle. My system realizes: I’m safe. The terrain is predictable. Nothing is attacking my ankles.
Tension drops. Breathing deepens. Efficiency returns.
This explained everything. My early “I feel terrible” wasn’t fitness, it was vigilance. And vigilance is exhausting, whether you’re running with limited vision or navigating a world that feels unpredictable. I’ve spent years in hyper-vigilant states, scanning for the next crisis, the next thing that could go wrong. In work, in relationships, in health scares that come without warning. The running coach called it “protective mode,” but it’s really just another word for not trusting that you’re safe enough to relax.
Most runners don’t deal with this consciously. I was expending extra cognitive load early, processing my environment differently than other runners. And yet, I finished 19 miles strong and ran controlled 8:45-8:54 pace late in the run.
“The fact that you can settle and run relaxed marathon-adjacent pace afterward tells me your engine is solid,” my coach concluded.
The Pattern Repeats
A few days later, I did a track workout: 10 x 1600 meters with 90 seconds rest. The same pattern emerged, but compressed into shorter intervals.
My mile splits: 9:17, 7:58, 7:46, 7:43, 7:44, 7:38, 7:50, 7:54, 7:51, 7:49.
“You are extremely good at settling into rhythm once your system unlocks,” my coach observed.
I didn’t explode out fast. Instead, my body gradually warmed up and then locked into a narrow band between 7:38 and 7:54 pace. For interval work, that’s disciplined pacing, according to my coach.
But the human element remained: I was breathing heavier in the first three intervals, then settled down. Heavy legs by the eighth repeat, but nothing I couldn’t manage by focusing on form.
“Your engine is warming up slowly, then locking into efficiency,” came the analysis. “Early in a workout the body hasn’t fully transitioned from resting metabolism to steady aerobic production. Once circulation, muscle recruitment, and breathing synchronize, the effort feels smoother even if the pace is the same or faster.”
Watching my splits stabilize after those first three intervals, I realized this is how I’ve learned most things that matter. The beginning is always messy, inefficient, full of doubt. Then something shifts. Not because the task gets easier, but because you stop fighting the process and start trusting it. I’ve seen this pattern in building companies, in relationships, in recovery from illness. The early stages feel like failure. The middle is where the real work happens.
The Deeper Pattern
Across all my runs, a consistent story was emerging. My best miles appear when I stop thinking about pace and instead focus on rhythm and form. The moment I do that, my body organizes itself more efficiently.
This might be the most transferable wisdom from running to everything else. Stop thinking about the outcome and focus on the process. Stop measuring progress every few minutes and trust that consistency compounds. The moment you do that, everything organizes itself more efficiently. In writing, in work, in relationships. The magic happens when you stop performing and start flowing.
My coach noted something important: “Your natural pattern pushes you toward conservative opening miles. Many runners accidentally run too fast early because they feel fresh. That approach tends to preserve glycogen and stabilize heart rate.”
My natural pattern pushes me toward conservative opening miles. In running, this might actually be an advantage. In life, I’m not so sure. How many opportunities have I approached too cautiously? How many times have I held back energy in the early stages of something important, waiting for permission to really try? But then again, how many times has this saved me from burnout, from overcommitting, from the kind of spectacular early flame-out that kills more dreams than slow starts do?
In other words, what I thought was a weakness, my cautious, tense starts, might actually be protecting me from the classic marathon mistake of going out too fast.
“The marathon is not decided by mile 3,” my coach reminded me. “It is decided by how you handle tension at mile 18. Today you proved you can move from tension to rhythm. That is a race skill.”
Running Economy as Relaxed Coordination
There’s something profound about learning that your body knows how to settle, even when your mind doesn’t trust it. That your limitation, in my case, restricted vision, creates a compensation pattern that might actually serve me in the long run.
“Running economy is often just relaxed coordination,” my coach noted.
Relaxed coordination. I keep coming back to this phrase. It’s not just about running, it’s about how to move through the world when you can’t see all the variables. When you’re managing a rare disease, building something new, raising children, or just trying to figure out what’s next. You can’t control the terrain, but you can control how much energy you waste fighting what you can’t change. The art is learning when to brace and when to trust.
I run alone. I always have. I like the quiet. But I’m also running through a world I can’t fully see, where small cracks in the road become trip hazards, where I follow the lines when everything goes grey, where I sometimes have to stop and sit down and cry from frustration.
But the data doesn’t lie. When my system settles, when the vigilance drops, when I stop bracing against what I can’t control, I can run. Really run.
My interval pace (7:40-7:55) is 20-40 seconds faster than my marathon goal pace (8:35). My long run splits show I can hold steady effort once my body finds its rhythm. The engine is solid. The speed reserve exists.
There’s something humbling about learning that your weakness might be your strength in disguise. That your careful, measured approach to starting things isn’t fear. It’s wisdom. That the very thing that makes you different is what makes you resilient. I think about all the times I’ve been told to “just go for it” or “stop overthinking” when what I really needed was permission to warm up slowly, to find my rhythm at my own pace.
Sixty Days to London
As I write this, London is sixty days away. I’m targeting a 3:45 marathon. A Boston qualifier. My training is progressing well: 19-mile long runs, 52 miles per week building to 60, lifting three times a week.
But more importantly, I’m learning to trust my body’s unique adaptation pattern. Those heavy, tense early miles aren’t a bug. They’re a feature. They’re my system’s way of being cautious with limited information, then gradually opening up as confidence builds.
The marathon will likely have a rough patch around mile 4-6. It often does for everyone. Adrenaline fades. Pace reality sets in. But I’ve practiced running through that now. I’ve learned not to panic in mile 3 when everything feels terrible.
“You stayed patient instead of forcing it,” my coach said about that long run. “That is maturity.” I am almost 60 after all.
Sometimes the thing you think is holding you back is actually teaching you exactly what you need to know. My visual limitations force me to run more carefully, more mindfully, more in tune with what my body is telling me. In the same way, maybe the constraints in other parts of life, the budget limitations, the time restrictions, the health challenges, the responsibilities that prevent you from taking big risks, maybe those aren’t obstacles. Maybe they’re guardrails that force you to find a more sustainable way forward.
I run anyway. Through the grey vision, through the early tension, through the miles that feel impossible until they don’t.
Because on the other side of that bracing, that vigilance, that protective crouch, there’s rhythm. There’s flow. There’s the runner I’m becoming, one careful step at a time.
The lines aren’t always clear. Sometimes I can’t see them at all.
But I follow them anyway.
Follow my training for the 2026 TCS London Marathon here on Substack. Because sometimes the most interesting conversations happen when you ask your data the right questions.