Hey Reader,

A friend of mine reached out this week.

He’s got a hundred-mile race coming up this weekend, a mountain race called Run Rabbit Run, which I’ve done before.

And he told me he wants to try to negative split it.

For anyone who doesn’t run, that means running the second half of a race faster than the first half.

My first reaction was, dude, that’s insane.

Nobody negative splits a hundred miles.

Your body breaks down, and you get slower.

But he’d been listening to a podcast with a guy called Nick Coury.

Back in 2021, Nick broke the American record for the 24-hour distance, running more than 171 miles.

And he ran more miles in the second 12 hours than he did in the first.

He’s been negative splitting races ever since, even really mountainous ones.

It really challenged the way I’ve always thought about how we chase really big goals.

🧠 Overcooking the start

As high performers, when we commit to a really big goal, we commit fully.

There’s a lot of excitement at the start, and we want to make the most of it.

So we go all in with long hours, take on everything at once, and push hard from the very first week.

That’s not a bad thing.

It shows how much the goal means to us and how ready we are to do the work.

But that kind of effort is really hard to keep up for a goal that takes months, or even a whole year.

Somewhere a few months in, we can start to feel drained, and our energy starts to drop.

It almost feels like we’re losing motivation and momentum too early.

It becomes a thing of just pushing through because we don’t want to quit.

The mental and physical exhaustion hits hard, and we can start to lose touch with the excitement of the journey.

We still get it done, because that’s how we’re wired, right?.

But it’s almost like we end up dragging ourselves over the finish line.

Going out too fast and blowing up later.

❤️ Measure the effort from the start

The best way to chase a really big goal is to pace it from day one.

You look at the whole stretch of it, lay out a plan, and spread the effort so it builds gradually toward the end.

It might feel slow at first, and that’s okay.

That reframe keeps you steady all the way through.

You’re not feeling burnt out or mentally drained halfway through the journey.

You still have the energy and focus for the last stretch of the project.

That mental clarity sustains your focus and gets you through challenging moments.

The excitement, momentum, and passion will still get tested, but you’ll be more mentally and physically capable of getting through it.

You also get to enjoy the process.

You get to finish strong and recover quickly.

And you walk away more confident and ready to go after the next big thing.

So what’s that really big goal you’re chasing right now?

Thinking back to how you started it, how much did you give in those first few weeks?

Is there even the slightest sign you’re starting to run out of steam?

What would it look like to lay out the effort across the whole thing?

What pace can you actually keep up, week after week?

And when the final push comes, what do you want to have left for it?

Pace it well.

You’ll be amazed at how strong you finish.

With appreciation,

Huw

P.S.: We got into negative splitting on this week’s pod.

I also shared the new big goal coming up in 2027, and loads more interesting stuff.

Worth a listen.​

Ep 27. Huw has exciting news... Sep 22 · Two Average Runners 34:27   ​

Huw Edwards Founder & CEO, h3.xyz​

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