Enjoying the Journey

Reflections on training for a marathon and a lesson from my late Uncle Murray

When I signed up to run my first marathon this year, I knew it would be one of the happiest days of my life. I dedicated 198 days, 207 hours, and 802 miles to the pursuit of performing well on race day, and I remember repeating to myself on many difficult runs how, come November 5th, it would all be worth it.

Of course, it was, and it reinforced my belief that there is immense value in the act of sticking to something you care about. Committing to things is important. Optionality is cheap. Many of the experiences that shaped me most this year required at least some form of sacrifice. 

What focus means is saying no to something that, with every bone in your body, you think is a phenomenal idea, and you wake up thinking about it, but you say no to it because you are focusing on something else. — Jony Ive, on the lessons he learned from Steve Jobs

I remember when I first started training for the marathon, everything would hurt. My shins would ache, my chest would feel tight, and my heart rate would be through the roof. Forget listening to a podcast or being able to hold a conversation with a friend. At the beginning, every step was a challenge. I didn’t understand why people did this for fun. Of course, once you start to run consistently, your body learns how to adjust — things begin to feel steady, maybe even effortless at times — and the experience of runner’s high keeps you coming back for more.

But running is an interesting endeavor in that it never really gets any easier. Sometimes you go out and every step is hard. If you’re running for a long time, your body might feel like it’s actively fighting against you. Maybe it’s raining, or it’s so hot out that you can’t hit your normal paces. Maybe you’re doing everything right physically, but mentally you can’t get into a groove.

This is why I run. It’s not easy. I don’t think it’s supposed to be. Running is an intentional practice that you actively choose over and over, even — especially — when you might not want to. My friend Brooke once described running to me as a healthy ego death. No mileage is promised to you, and so much of the sport is out of your control. You can’t get too comfortable or confident. This is a positive trait that I have been grateful to find reflected in other areas of my life.

Anyway, back to my initial point. I knew the marathon would be one of the happiest days of my life. What I didn’t expect was the overwhelming feeling of grief that washed over me at the starting line. The race hadn’t even started, and yet I couldn’t shake this feeling of sadness that it was all about to be over. 

Celebrating Uncle Murray’s 100th birthday

Reflecting on this feeling, I am reminded of my late Uncle Murray, who passed away at age 100 in 2021. Murray lived an incredibly full life. His father (my dad’s grandfather) immigrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts from Lithuania a few years before Murray’s birth in 1921. As a kid, Murray worked for his father, who was a plumber. His job was to deliver cast iron bathtubs — several hundred pounds — to people’s apartments, strapping them onto his back and climbing up the stairs. Murray had no money for college, so after high school he joined the Merchant Marine Academy, eventually rising to be the captain of his own ship (the youngest person to hold the position at the time) and serving as Chief Engineer on tanker ships supplying troops during World War II. 

Upon his return to Massachusetts, Murray spent a year working for his father’s plumbing business before opening his own, expanding into commercial plumbing. When he went to bid on his first contract, he didn’t have any money, so he went to the First National Bank of New Bedford and asked for a loan. In theory, Murray should have never received the loan, as he had no collateral to offer — but because the president of the bank had done business with Murray’s father in the past, he chose to give him the loan anyway. This loyalty and vote of confidence was the catalyst to Murray eventually establishing himself as one of the city’s preeminent industrial plumbing contractors.

The sign for Murray and his father’s plumbing business. My family now keeps the sign on display in our home.

Over the next decade or so, as the business continued to grow, Murray and his friends began buying up shares of the First National Bank of New Bedford until they owned 51%, at which point they were appointed Directors to the bank’s board. At their first board meeting, the president of the bank asked Murray if he was getting fired. Murray reminded him that he gave him a loan when he was just starting his business, when he had no collateral to provide. He promised the president, “You have this job until the day you are ready to retire.” 

These are just a couple examples of Murray’s wildly entertaining and inspiring stories. He shared them with our family, to our great delight, throughout his old age, and I was lucky to hear them through my dad as well as from Murray directly, up until our final visit when we celebrated his 100th birthday together. I share them now because they provide important context to some of the final words Murray shared with my dad on their last phone call:

“Why is life so short?”

Murray lived to be 100 years old and yet he couldn’t believe it was already over. At risk of trivializing his words, I couldn’t help but think of them while running my race. I had spent the majority of my months of training in service of simply reaching the finish. In doing so, I failed to realize that the most impactful part of the marathon — and what I would miss most — was the training itself.

It is a commonly shared sentiment that running is like life. In What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami writes:

“If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life — and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree.”

I also revisit this piece often from Shreyas Hariharan:

“It takes many decades to do something meaningful and running simulates those decades… Repeating something seemingly mundane for many years turns it into something special and transcendent.”

In a generation addicted to optionality, training for a marathon taught me the importance of commitment. But it wasn’t until I actually ran the damn thing that I learned the value in enjoying the journey, too. When the only constant is change, working in an industry like technology can be difficult (crypto, exponentially so). The highs are incredibly high and the lows are painfully low. Sometimes you forget why you started, or you try to numb the present in pursuit of reaching the future. We make progress when we set ambitious goals and stick to them, and we should continue to do so. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that there is beauty in the practice of the thing. Regardless of what it is you care about, I hope you stick to it in 2024. Importantly, I hope you enjoy it. 

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The materials presented on Gaby Goldberg's newsletter are my opinions only and are provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. It is not a recommendation of, or an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to buy, any particular security, strategy, or investment product. Any analysis or discussion of investments, sectors or the market generally are based on current information, including from public sources, that I consider reliable, but I do not represent that any research or the information provided is accurate or complete, and it should not be relied on as such. My views and opinions expressed in any website content are current at the time of publication and are subject to change.