Latest news with #marathontraining
Forbes
28-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
How Heidi Durflinger Runs Her Business Like An Ultra-Marathon
A group of leading runners takie part in the Two Oceans ultra-marathon, close to Kalk Bay, in Cape ... More Town on March 31, 2018. This is the 49th edition of the race, which is over 56km, and comes close to both the Indian and Atlantic oceans, hence it's name. / AFP PHOTO / RODGER BOSCH (Photo credit should read RODGER BOSCH/AFP via Getty Images) When EF World Journeys CEO Heidi Durflinger signed up for her first ultra-marathon, the prospect of running 75 miles in a Spanish desert seemed overwhelming. So she intellectually set that number aside. Instead of approaching the incredible effort as one big job, she broke it down into more manageable steps. Not only did this make training more feasible, but it allowed her the chance to celebrate each small win along the way. 'When you break that [mileage] down into smaller bites that you work towards, it becomes achievable,' said Durflinger in a recent podcast interview. She's right. No author writes a book in one keystroke. No musician completes an album with one strum. And no competitive runner finds the finish line in a single stride. For Durflinger, to run competitively means to stay focused on the journey and to celebrate the progress you make. Then when each mark is achieved, she simply extends the goal out further. 'In my marathon training,' she explained, 'I'll suddenly realize, 'Wow, I just ran 13 miles and I felt fine, and then I ran 15 miles, and then I hit 20, and I'm still feeling great.'' TOPSHOT - Runners cross the Verrazano Bridge before competing in the 52nd Edition of the New York ... More City Marathon on November 5, 2023. (Photo by Kena Betancur / AFP) (Photo by KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images) This strategy applies to the way she approaches her role as a leader in business, as well. Whether she is running 75 miles in the desert or guiding her team at EF World Journeys, Durflinger's secret lies in strategic, incremental progress. Breaking down a goal into smaller portions and celebrating the victories in smaller moments remains key to sustaining the objective. As a leader in the workplace, she knows that behavior works. For example, during the 2020 pandemic, it quickly became clear that no one was going to solve the problem of the shutdown and get the world back on track overnight. But instead of wallowing, Durflinger pivoted. The CEO found a new goal to tackle. Durflinger, who learned the value of culture at a young age when her parents hosted foreign exchange students in their home in Belleville, Kansas, is acutely aware that there is an emotional quality to her work. Travel isn't a product. It's an experience that requires personal connection. '[We were] a travel company that [couldn't] help people travel at that moment,' Durflinger said. Unable to perform their normal duties, the company found other ways to contribute. 'We made wellness calls to our customers,' she explained. 'Just to check in on how they were doing.' She made it clear to her customers that they were not merely transaction points on some ledger or spreadsheet. Instead, she worked day in and day out to strengthen her business's relationship with the people they did business with. 'It's important that we hear our customers, connect with our customers,' she offered. Of course, Durflinger isn't the only business leader who approaches their role this way. Indeed, any major undertaking requires serious foresight and endurance. PARIS, FRANCE - AUGUST 10: Eliud Kipchoge of Team Kenya, Gabriel Gerald Geay of Team Tanzania, Jie ... More He and Shahoui Yang of Team People's Republic of China run past Eiffel Tower during the Men's Marathon during day fifteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Esplanade Des Invalides on August 10, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by) Just as in matters of business, when you're running a race, even the strongest competitors can 'hit the wall' from time to time. But when that happens, explained Oscar Munoz, an avid runner and the former CEO of United Airlines, it's important to push through. You can't let the wall impede your progress. In that way, he said, you must make it simply another marker to speed past. 'You have to know it's coming,' Munoz said in a recent interview, 'and you have to know it's going to pass, and you have to keep busting through it.' Durflinger accepts that challenge, too. In 2024, when the World Journeys CEO participated in the 120km Marathon des Sables in Spain, she placed 99th overall and 42nd among women in her age group. The seemingly impossible trek took a remarkable 28 hours to complete. But that's how it works. Just like the construction of the great Roman Empire, nothing incredible happens overnight. It takes time. It takes small steps that, when you finally look behind yourself at the totality, have made for an incredible journey.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Mark Armstrong: The fear is real – but so is the excitement
It's all starting to feel uncomfortably close now. Four weeks from Sunday, I'll be standing on the start line in Pietermaritzburg, about to take on the Comrades Marathon. Just saying that makes my stomach flip. It's a scary thought - but perhaps not quite as scary as it was 10 days ago. That's when I decided to take my training up a notch, spurred on by the perhaps unwise decision to properly look at the elevation profile for the so-called 'down run.' I say 'so-called' because I've grown a bit weary of the reactions I get when people ask if I'm doing the up or the down run - and then look mildly disappointed when I say down, as if it's some kind of cop-out. For those unfamiliar with Comrades, the route alternates each year between an 'up' run from Durban to Pietermaritzburg and a 'down' run from Pietermaritzburg to Durban. While the down run might sound easier, it still packs in nearly 4,000ft of ascent - just with more quad-shattering descents along the way. It may be downhill overall, but this is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done from a running perspective. That course profile scared me. Then I thought about how my weekly mileage hadn't yet matched what I'm expecting my body to handle within a single 12-hour stretch. Cue a few 3 a.m. wakeups where I found myself staring at the ceiling thinking, 'why on earth have I signed up to this?' But fear can be a good thing. It was the jolt I needed. Since then, the mileage has ticked up, the hills have become part of the routine (yes, that Trowse hill is getting plenty of attention), and so far, the body is holding up. I've come to realise that this part of the build is all about treading a fine line - learning just enough about the race to inform my training, but not so much that I start overthinking every single detail. At the end of the day, endurance running demands you think on your feet. You have to respond to what your body's telling you in the moment. That's part of the skill. I'm also being realistic. There will be walking - and quite a bit of it. That's part of the strategy, not a sign of failure. With that in mind, I decided to see what my natural walking pace is. So I bribed my kids with ice cream at the local café and walked there while they biked beside me. It was semi-successful - I got a feel for my pace, though I spent most of the time making sure no one cycled into oncoming traffic. Still, it was useful, and got the kids out and away from screens. As I write this, I'm gearing up for my longest run of the training block - and weirdly, I'm looking forward to it. It's reminded me of the way I felt training for my very first marathon in Edinburgh back in 2017. Back then, every long run was an adventure into the unknown. I didn't know how my body would respond. I didn't know if my mind would hold up, but that was part of the magic. That same feeling is creeping in now. There's no guarantee of success. No spreadsheet can predict how I'll feel at kilometre 78. But I'm doing everything I can to prepare. The hard part now is trusting that the work will be enough - and not letting fear write the story for me. How will my mind and body cope over the next month? I've no idea, but I'm strangely excited to find out.
