There was a time Chicago seemed impossible to me 🌄

Sat Aug 29 · 🇺🇸

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Why your running dream feels out of reach

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👋🏻 Hey Reader!

Saturday August 29 · Week close

We're closing the week with something more personal.

This week I announced a seven-edition series for a marathon I ran eight years ago. And putting it together reminded me of something I rarely mention: there was a time when that distance seemed flatly impossible to me.

If your goal feels too big today, that isn't a sign it's the wrong goal. It's almost always a sign you're measuring the distance wrong.

The perception error

You're comparing your day one
to someone else's day 500.

That gap is almost never real. It's bad arithmetic.

🌄 The three reasons it feels impossible

Almost every week someone tells me a version of the same thing: "I'm not a marathon person", "at my age you can't start", "with my weight, my knees, my schedule... that's not for me". And none of the three real reasons has anything to do with your capacity.

① You're measuring the whole goal, not the next step

If your goal is a marathon and today you can't run five minutes straight, your brain does the whole subtraction — 42 km minus 0 — and panics. But nobody trains that way. You train in blocks, with 8-10% volume progressions and structured rest. The final goal is a horizon, not tomorrow's session.

② You're comparing your body to an idealised "runner"

There's no such thing as a runner's body. There are runners with different weights, histories, ages and biomechanics who train intelligently for their situation. Your fitness today isn't a permanent obstacle — it's your starting point.

③ You don't have a plan — you have a mental deadline

"Someday I'll run a race" isn't a plan, it's a hope. And hopes without structure generate anxiety, not action. That anxiety is what makes the goal feel further away every month that passes.

What the evidence actually says

The heart adapts at any age. Measurable, functional cardiac remodelling in response to sustained endurance exercise has been observed in both younger and older athletes [PMID:40667749]. The heart of a 55-year-old starting today has the capacity to become more efficient — not just that of someone who's run since their twenties.

Your body is already responding, even if you can't feel it. Exercise biomarkers let us track how the body responds to training with increasing precision [PMID:41922043]. Adaptation begins at cellular level long before it shows on the stopwatch.

🌉 How the bridge gets built

This is what I tell every athlete who arrives feeling their goal is impossible:

›	Start with the "undeniable minimum" Don't ask "can I run a marathon?". Ask "can I walk 10 minutes today, four times this week?". If the answer is yes, you've started. Serious training doesn't begin with heroics — it begins with boring consistency.
›	Use progression, not motivation Motivation is fuel that runs out. My job with every plan is literally this: take the weight off willpower and put it on structure.
›	Respect what your body signals If one day you need more rest, that isn't weakness — it's information. Ignoring it leads to injury, and injury is the number one reason people abandon their dream. Not lack of talent.
›	Trust what you can't see yet Every session, even one that feels slow or insufficient, is building something. The heart becomes more efficient, running economy improves. You don't see it in real time, but it's happening.

The uncomfortable truth

Here's the part that sometimes doesn't get said clearly enough: you can probably reach your goal, but not the way you're imagining it right now. Fast, linear, without setbacks.

The real road has good weeks and weeks where you feel like you're going backwards. It has niggles that force adjustments. It has days when work, family or weather derail the plan.

That doesn't mean the dream is out of reach. It means the reachable dream is different from the fantasised one — slower, more human, and, paradoxically, far more satisfying when you get there. Because you know exactly how much real work sits behind it.

I compete in the 3000 m in the masters 45-49 category. And I'll tell you from both sides of it: what's missing is almost never capacity. It's structure.

📖 Full article — 2 PMIDs · 9 min · the five practical steps to start today

🇺🇸 Read full article → 🇪🇸 Leer en Español →

Your question today

What's the goal that feels too big for you right now?

Reply and tell me what it is. I'll tell you what your first step would be — the undeniable minimum.

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