Christopher Harrison

So before we get started here, I want to acknowledge the fact that I am a cisgender man, and that there are certain stereotypes that exist between genders when it comes to certain aspects, in particular competition. My goal, however, is to focus in on a couple of my idols and lessons that I think we can all learn from the seemingly individualistic sport of marathoning.

Now, I'm a marathoner, so of course I'm going to talk about marathoning. As the old joke goes: a vegan CrossFitter walks into a room. What's the first thing they talk about? The answer is marathoning.

Now for those of you that are not already familiar with the marathon, it is based on the myth of Pheidippides, who ran from Marathon to Athens in Greece to alert everybody to a big naval victory. He died when he got there. That, of course, then inspired everybody to go out and run really long distances.

The actual distance that we run, though, 26 miles, 385 yards, is based on the 1912 London Marathon, where Pietri here, who won, was so severely dehydrated that he spent three days in the hospital, nearly died, and that just encouraged more people to run.

So we're a different breed, which begs the question: why do we do this? Well, to quote one of my favorite comedians: it's just cardio. It's just an abusive amount of cardio and some unresolved family issues.

But all kidding aside, the main reason that I run is because it helps my mental and my physical health.

Now, when you stop and think about it, it really is an individualistic sport. After all, you're the person that needs to go out and run all of those miles. But as somebody who's non-competitive, I have a fantastic community that I can go out and I can run with, and I can share all of that with.

But at the elite level, that's not the case, because after all, they're competing for prize money. They're competing for sponsorships. They're competing for shoe deals. But as it turns out, helping one another actually enables everybody to do better.

One of the best examples of this was from the 2018 Boston Marathon, some of the worst conditions that we ever had. Dez Linden, who's currently pictured in front, was not feeling it that day. She actually was going to give herself up and help support one of her countrymates, Shalane Flanagan. Shalane actually needed to visit the porta potty, which is not something that happens at the elite level. Dez stepped back to help her, was so buoyed by that that she actually held on to win the marathon, becoming the first American woman to do so in a couple of decades.

Now that's her partner pictured there. Find yourself somebody who celebrates your successes like he does. Ability to rock a 'stache like that, while optional, is certainly preferred.

Now this is really all preceded by Shalane Flanagan here, who won the 2017 New York Marathon. And when she did, Dez actually tweeted at her. Dez is a competitor, although a countrymate, and Shalane responded, "Now it's your turn." That tweet turned out to be prophetic.

Now, this has been coined the Shalane Effect, that Shalane has really built her career around building a community.

I need a slide on community. That's the TV show. Most of my jokes are purely for my own entertainment. I'm okay with that.

Now, this has really continued and propelled, in particular, the American women to be able to compete on the world stage. Molly Seidel, pictured here, who trained with her three American competitors, went on to win the bronze medal in the most recent Olympic marathon, in actually her third ever marathon.

So what's the lesson then that we can all learn here? Well, when we think about how we go about our business, there's always going to be some set of limited resources. There's only going to be one promotion. There's only going to be so much in the bonus pool. And so we've got a couple of options here. We can either tear everybody else down.

Or what we can do is we can focus in on our strengths. And we can focus in on lifting up those around us. And as we've already seen in a seemingly individualistic sport, doing so will actually help not only those around you, but it will help you as well.

Going back to that New York Times article that I highlighted, I love these two closing paragraphs, but in particular the point that I want to call out here is that when you make it to the top and you didn't bring people with you, it gets kind of lonely.

Thank you.