Most people find one marathon hard enough. You train for months, you count down to race day, and when you cross the line you are allowed to stop. In the World Marathon Challenge you don't get to stop. You run a marathon, get on a plane, land on another continent and run again, seven times over, with a marathon every 24 hours or so.
I ran all seven: Antarctica, Cape Town, Perth, Dubai, Madrid, Fortaleza and Miami. My total time was 5 days, 21 hours and 51 minutes. People usually ask about the legs first. The real story is what happens in your head.
The battle nobody sees
From the outside, endurance looks physical. Splits, kilometres, recovery. On the inside it is a long conversation with yourself, and much of it goes against you. Around the third marathon your body starts sending very convincing arguments for quitting. You are sore, short on sleep and running somewhere you only reached a few hours ago. By the fifth and sixth, the pain is no longer the main problem. The main problem is the voice that keeps asking why you are doing this.
That mental battle is what grit actually is. It isn't the absence of doubt. It is the decision to keep moving while the doubt is still talking. When I sat down with Spencer Lodge, most of our conversation was about that hidden side: the psychology of resilience, and the emotional toll of pushing through pain that nobody else can see.
Three things that kept me going
1. Shrink the finish line. Seven marathons is too big to hold in your head at once. One marathon is still big. The next aid station is manageable, and so is the next kilometre. When I made the goal smaller, the effort became something I could do right now. In business the same applies. A three-year transformation feels abstract, but this week's next step does not.
2. Decide before you're tired. The worst time to choose whether to quit is in the middle of the pain, because tired people make short-term decisions. I had decided long before Antarctica that stopping was not an option unless my body actually failed. That meant that during the low points I wasn't deciding anything. I was just carrying out a decision I had already made.
3. Expect the low point and name it. Every long effort has a dip. If you expect it, you can recognise it for what it is: a stage you pass through, not a sign you've failed. When I hit a bad patch I would say to myself, "This is the bit I knew was coming." It sounds simple, but naming the low point takes away much of its power.
Why this matters away from the running
I don't tell this story so that anyone runs seven marathons. I tell it because the same mental pattern shows up in every team I speak to. Leaders face long projects, repeated setbacks and stretches where progress is invisible. The people who get through are rarely the most talented. They are the ones who have learned to manage the conversation in their own heads.
That is the heart of my keynote, The Grit Code. It takes what I learned on the World Marathon Challenge and in 39 days rowing the Pacific, and turns it into practical tools that teams can use on a Monday morning. Grit is not a personality trait you either have or lack. It is a skill, and like any skill it can be trained.
The emotional cost, and why it's worth it
There is a part of this that rarely makes the highlight reel. Pushing through pain for days at a time is emotionally draining. There were hard, low moments, and there was real joy at finish lines in cities I would only see for a few hours. Both are part of it. Mental toughness doesn't mean feeling nothing. It means feeling all of it and still putting one foot in front of the other.
If your team is going through a long, hard stretch, that is the message I would want them to hear. You don't need to be fearless. You need a clear reason, a smaller next step and a decision you have already made.
Bring this to your event
I speak to leadership teams, conferences and companies around the world about grit, resilience and mindset. If you're planning an event and want your people to leave ready to push through their own hard stretch, take a look at my mindset keynote or get in touch to check availability.
This article builds on my conversation with Spencer Lodge on The Spencer Lodge Podcast. Watch the full episode on YouTube.
