Ways in which a PhD is like training for and racing a marathon (or vice versa)

Disclaimer: These similarities are based on my own experiences and perspective. I do not intend to belittle the triumphs and tribulations of those who tried to, are trying to, or did complete either of these endeavors. This is intended as 1) a reflection on these experiences for myself, 2) an effort to show others in the same boat that they are not alone, and 3) as a joke; like many jokes, there is some truth to it. If you’ve shared similar experiences let’s laugh about them together before we get back to work.

1. “Oh you run, have you done a marathon?”

Alternatively, “You’re getting a BS in [insert science discipline], are you going to get a PhD?” People sometimes focus too much on the most well-known/prestigious aspect of the activity you are engaged in. Just because you run/race any other distance (i.e. 5k, 10k, 13.1, etc.) doesn’t make you any less of a runner. It may seem harder to make that same argument within the sciences but just like it’s not the distance that makes the runner nor does the degree make the scientist. People are just as keen to assume that you are going to get a PhD as they are to assume that you don’t need one anyway (see number 14) because of the famous person they just found out had dropped out of college (i.e. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, etc.)

2. “I don’t even like to drive that far”

I often try to take this as a compliment instead of a hidden statement of, “why would anyone do that?” Just because it isn’t something that you have done or would want to do does not mean that it is not worthwhile. Personally, I’m excited to know that my long runs are longer than your weekly drive to the grocery store. Just because you’ve never even considered continuing school after high school or college doesn’t mean I can’t.

3. “Oh, my [insert 3rd tier acquaintance] ran a marathon!”

Great, that in no way means their experience was the same as mine. They could be someone who walked/jogged a marathon to support a charity, someone’s college age child who ran at a D1 school and wanted to hit a qualifier for the olympics, or someone who actually did a half-marathon or marathon relay but the person relaying the information doesn’t know the difference. In the sciences you might know someone who got a PhD 20 years ago, getting a PhD in Physics from MIT, or someone who got their MS and assume it’s all the same. There might be similarities but they are not all the same. Different programs require different skills and duration of dedication. Assuming someone’s experiences are, or will, be the same as yours is an insult to the journey no matter how hard, or easy (is it ever easy?), it is.

4. You’ll succumb to believing everything the “more experienced” tell you

It’s easy to look up to those that have already accomplished what you set out to do but you must always be of wary assuming that just because someone sounds like they know something doesn’t mean that they actually do, partly because your experience may be greatly different than their own. “I never do X”, “I always eat Y before the race”, “No, I’ve never worn Z during my run”, “ABC is the best way to approach this”. Statements of “best” and “worst” should be red flags. You are not that person so what worked well for them may not work well for you. In science, someone may have never even done the thing they are telling you is better but heard it from someone else or read about it but never did the thing themselves. They may have even done it themselves at one point but forgot the really hard step and instead tell you how that their method is the easiest and most effective.

5. After crushing a workout you’ll feel you can take on the world

Some days are just really, really, really good. Everything comes together and you come away feeling like you’ve really made a lot of progress and are doing all the right things. It’s great when this happens but then…

6. After bailing out of a workout 3 miles in, you’ll doubt yourself

Some days are much worse. Nothing will go right, you’ll feel like crap, and you’ll come away wondering whether anything you’ve done the past few days, weeks, or even months have been worth it or if you’ve done all the wrong things and have wasted a lot of time. Doubt levels can be at an all time high and it can be hard to get yourself out the door the next morning to try again or determine if you need to reevaluate your approach. All the planning you did suddenly feels on the table again and you begin to question what the next steps are.

7. I’m not a real runner

This often follows #6. You look at everyone else around you that is doing most all of the same things but they seem to be getting better than you faster than you. You begin to think that maybe this isn’t what you wanted to be. You might think, “There are so many more people doing this that are better than me, what is the point?” Impostor syndrome is rampant in most any discipline. If this is something that you want to do, get after it. You may not do it the same way as others but you’ll do it all the same. Will there be people better than you? Oh, most definitely. With the internet the “local pond” of your running/science community quickly becomes an ocean and it is easy to suddenly feel like a much smaller fish. First, you are a fish. Second, there are lots of fish in the sea and many of the ones close to you are jealous of how your scales shimmer in the light even though you never noticed it before.

8. Eating everything and still feeling hungry

After weeks of higher mileage your body will need some extra nutrients/calories. Sometimes, it feels like it’s never enough. In science, you might read every article/book you can find and still feel like you haven’t learned anything. Know that the food/information you are taking in is still valuable and make the most of it.

9. Social life on pause

The minutes and hours of all your activities begin to add up. Sure we all might work 40+ hour weeks but when your workouts are also totaling 10, 15, or maybe even 20 hours (no, not me. Some people) you really have to start cutting out a lot of activities those around you might be enjoying. You may not have time for drinks on Friday with the crew, or going on that trip, or even watching the season premier of that show. Whatever it is you’ll have to slim some things down. Hopefully it is just a temporary sacrifice and you’ll still be able to enjoy some of those activities on a limited basis and then more once your goal race is finally behind you. In a PhD program, just substitute more science for the running and working parts of your life, maybe eating and sleeping too if it is absolutely necessary to get the data you need.

10. Jealous of those with all the gear

When you’re still running in shorts you’ve had since high school and the other local runner you always cross paths with on your morning runs is in the new $200 Nike jacket you might get a little jealous. Even though running is one of the “cheapest” sports that doesn’t mean there isn’t still a spectrum of “haves” and “have nots”. This is even worse in the sciences where some groups may have multi-year, multi-million dollar grants and you and your professor have to fight to spend a few hundred a month on supplies. More often than not you don’t need the newest, most high tech piece of gear to put in the miles that you need to to be successful. Get what you need and feel all that much better when you pass the person wearing $500 worth of clothes in the first mile of a 10k. Tech may make certain parts of your science easier but being able to understand what the information means and how to connect that to the bigger picture doesn’t cost anywhere near as much and can be more impactful than a lot of data from a new technique that costs $1000/hr but produces meaningless data.

11. It’s okay to take a day off

After all that work you might be pretty exhausted. You’re body may even want to take a break but your mind says, “I can’t stop. I still have so much I need to do. If I miss a day I’ll lose fitness and will be behind my scheduled plan!” One day isn’t going to kill you. Taking a mental or physical day can do wonders and afterwards you’ll feel so much better you will have wished you did it a couple weeks ago instead of going a whole month without a day off. If you’ve been banging your head against the glassware (which you shouldn’t do) trying to understand why your experiment isn’t working maybe take a few minutes to stop and do something non-science related to clear your head and come back to it after you’ve “recovered.” Unless you’re samples degrade in that timeframe in which case wait until after they are destroyed before you take that break.

12. You get really excited talking about running with, well, everyone

As your social life outside of running dwindles because of number 8, you won’t have a whole lot else to talk about. You may even find ways of bringing running into any conversation you are a part of. Perhaps you’ve already been telling everyone that you’re training for a race the past few months that you’re hoping anyone will ask you, “how has your training been going?” just so you can unload on them all of the ups and downs you’ve had. You’ll tell them all about your weekly mileage, paces, rolling sessions, that tough fartlek, and the two shoes you’ve been going back and forth about buying before realizing that the person has no idea what you are talking about. There are even more science terms that hardly anyone is aware of besides your immediate research field so remember your side role as science ambassador and try to explain it so they will understand it instead of explaining it in a way to convince yourself that you understand it.

13. After finishing a 2+ hour long run you’ll forget every good idea you had during that time

At mile 9 you finally cleared all the mental clutter out of your brain and had time to think about that problem that’s been on your mind. Maybe you came up with a great idea for… I honestly don’t know because I already forgot what it was now that I’m back home. Sometimes it feels like a dream. You had all this time to think about something, even that one thing you really wanted to focus on, and by the time you get home to write it down or tell someone it has already drifted away. Perhaps you spent several hours pouring over some recent data. You plotted it multiple ways and finally have something that “looks good.” You’re just about to tell your peer or advisor about it and realize that some fundamental principle would not allow for the trend you are seeing and it probably means you need to re-examine how the data was collected in the first place. Back to the drawing board for you.

14. You’ll get caught up in the metrics

Miles per week, training stress score, average pace, max heart rate, VO₂ Max and so on. You can easily create, and be bombarded with, a lot of data after all of your workouts. You’ll be tempted to over-analyze every bit of it before you realize that 4 hours have gone by and you don’t have any better an idea if you are getting faster or not. Sometimes you just have to race to know where you really stand since everything else is just numbers on a page. There is always some form of data tucked away in the science/measurements that you do and it’s important to know which ones are valuable and which ones are not (see number 10). That, or you and your advisor will go back and forth about which journal is most appropriate for you to publish your paper in based partially on the content but more on the latest “impact factor” numbers to increase the chances someone else may actually read your work or so your advisor can get tenure.

15. Have to convince others why this is a good thing for you

Right around the time that you are really in your groove, making good progress, and ready to keep on pushing forward someone will overhear about what you are undertaking and will quickly begin to explain to you why it isn’t as healthy/valuable/important as you think it is. You might even begin to be swayed by their arguments depending on your mood (see numbers 4, 6, and 7) but remember that they are not the one doing this and they don’t know your reasons. There are much worse things people do to their bodies/minds and if you are doing this in a knowledgeable and responsible way you can get a lot of benefits out of it. Don’t feel the need to convince them why this is good for you but if you can provide a stat about how people who run are 82% more likely to find a unicorn or people with a PhD are 26% more likely to live in the first colony on Mars to impress them then go for it!

16. A little bit of bad sleep can really throw you off balance

You had a big day planned. Maybe it was a really hard marathon simulation workout, a double, or a whole series of experiments/tests you planned to run that you hoped would be the foundation for your next paper. It’s 2 AM and you’re still awake. You’ve been tossing around the past 5 hours and you’re really starting to get stressed. You finally fall asleep but wake up 30 minutes later than your alarm and already feel like your plan is shot for the day. It takes you a little longer than usual to do all your normal activities and your mind isn’t 100% clear. You do the best you can with the work that you planned but it doesn’t go as you had hoped earlier in the week. You know you’ll recover from this but it may still take a couple days before you really feel ready to tackle the big challenge you originally set out to do that week.

17. You cannot reach the big goal without smaller ones

You have to take a step back. How are you supposed to run 26.2 miles when 14 already feels too long? If you are always looking towards the end of your plan at the final goal you will miss the purpose of the present day or week. This can throw your ultimate goal off track more than you realize. Without taking the time to remind yourself of what it is you want/need to get out of this week and how that fits into the bigger, longer-term goal you’ll really struggle those last few miles of the race you trained all these months for and not know where you went wrong. Writing that dissertation will always feel overwhelming if you don’t break it out into parts and realize that a smaller goal of writing just 200 words today (even if it will be edited to smithereens) is 200 more words in the right direction than zero and being one day closer to the deadline that you self-imposed on yourself.

18. You never know if you’ve done enough

There is always something more you could do. More time stretching, doing core, strength training, more workouts, more mileage. reading more journal articles, running more experiments, plotting more data, publish more papers. The list is endless but there are also only so many hours in the day. You may already be limited by number 9 and have to establish where to draw the line based on your priorities. Doing more may be useful if you want to improve upon the level you are already at but keep it realistic. Do what you can when you can but try to keep the “I shoulda” to a minimum.

19. You’ll wish you had done more of the “little things”

This goes hand in hand with number 18 in a lot of ways. As someone who has had to go to PT a few times I’ve slowly learned how doing more of the little things in terms of strength conditioning and injury prevention can save you a lot of time in the long run. Having to take a week off due to an injury could mean 5-10+ hours of training missed. That’s the same amount of time if you did just 15 minutes of prevention once or twice a week and that is much easier to handle (mentally and physically) than a week in “rehab” mode. Sure it might be more relaxing sitting on the couch watching the latest episode of “Stranger Things” but you could still watch that episode while doing some stretching on the floor, just saying. In science there is more to a PhD than just running your experiments, plotting the data, and writing a paper. There are so many components that go into those primary elements and doing the little things to save you time in the future can provide huge dividends. Things like writing out a standard procedure, writing a “quick” program to automate a repetitious task, keeping your lab space organized and labeled, or managing your citations to find the right paper sooner can all make the day-to-day life easier in the lab.

20. “Keep going, you’re almost there!” -Everyone that has never done this before

This is frequently said at mile 20 and afterwards. Similarly I recently heard someone say to me about my loosely planned defense, “Oh, that’s only 6 or 7 months away. You must be so excited!” In both instances I appreciate the encouragement and sentiment. However, please do not assume that you know how I am feeling at this point. Just because I am more than 80% done with this race does not necessarily mean I am “close” to finishing. There are a lot of things that could still happen and I am intimately aware of every pain my body is experiencing. I frequently hear that the marathon is made up of two races, the first is getting to miles 18-21 or so and the second race is making it to the finish. I feel the PhD is similar in a lot of ways. The first 4-5 years is getting into your groove and executing a lot of science and writing and the last 6 months or so is frantically doing all the things to tie it all together (last big paper, dissertation writing and formatting, and finding a job). It’s that last stretch where everything becomes a little too real and you just want to get it done without people telling you how close you are.

21. You’ll question why you ever wanted to do this in the first place

About the time you reach #20 (maybe even a few miles before that point) you may begin to question whether this whole thing was the right decision. Sure you’re closer to the finish than you’ve been before but you could also stop at this donut shop and cheer everyone else go by as you embrace the warm fluffy pastry that grabbed your fancy. You spent all the time training for this, now is not the time to lose sight of that. Lean into the reasons and motivation you pursued this endeavor and use that as a mantra to get you through this point.

22. You’ll make it through with the help of your support crew/coach/team

At those low points it can be a lifesaver to have someone nearby who knows you and can objectively see if you are on the “struggle bus.” Knowing you are struggling, instead of saying, “Way to go! Keep it up!” they could say, “What do you need?” I asked Lindsey for an extra gel around mile 22 and she rode her bike along side to make the delivery. Whether the gel helped what I was going through or not having her there was a huge help. Having someone to turn to at those critical moments can be a real lifesaver even when you are still doing 99.9% of all the work yourself. Whether you get help from a peer in the lab or if it is from someone on the outside don’t forget to turn to them when you really need it. Similarly, don’t be afraid to be that person if you are the one on the sideline and see someone struggling. We can all use support from someone who knows what we are going through.

23. Taper crazy, self-talk, and distraction

Throughout periods of training and racing there will be moments where you have more time in your head than in your body. Key examples might be the week or two leading up to the race where your miles/intensity begin to drop or in the middle miles of the marathon where the effort still feels “easy” but you need to keep it under control. This is the time for a lot of mental focus or distraction depending on what your style is. During the taper I found distraction worked best to keep my mind off the race. During the race I needed focus on my pace more frequently than I normally would to check myself and went through my fueling strategy in my head to make sure everything was still going well. In a PhD there can also be lull points but I think they are a little more hidden. It might be waiting around for an experiment to finish up, that period between waiting for feedback on a submitted paper and kicking off the next big project, or the 20 minute window before you go to a seminar that feels like wasted time. Being able to stay sane during those little windows or having something you can do to fill that gap can be important to maintain long term stability.

24. Feeling as if you’ve pushed yourself to your absolute limit

As I approach the finish and the volume of the crowd matches the level of my screaming legs I begin to wonder if I’ve pushed myself as far as I can go too soon. That’s always the razor’s edge an endurance athlete runs along; push yourself too much too soon and you can’t endure the distance, too little too late and you didn’t reach your full potential. I started to feel the onset of cramping with a couple miles to go and worried I had done the former. In a PhD the “limit” is more of a psychological limit than physical (though not always). Working towards a single goal over multiple years makes each new challenge that much more frustrating. Your mind will return to #6, 7, 18, and 21 and you may wonder if you’ve made it as far as your capabilities can take you, making the PhD an unattainable goal, reserved only for those who are “real scientists.” Don’t lose sight of the finish in this moment and don’t undervalue the strength it took to get to this point.

25. You’ll finally have the confidence that you can finish

With a mile or so to go you’re mind will start to recalculate the effort needed to finish. The barrier is lessened to convince yourself that this is something you can do. The crowd has increased in numbers and volume, helping to toss some gasoline on the smoldering coals that was your motivation. The little pains seem to vanish as your optimism takes hold and you prepare for the final stretch to the finish. I may not be at this point personally in my PhD but I think this would come about as you close in on finishing that final paper and you realize that you probably have all the data necessary for your dissertation and won’t need to run any more experiments. You may even have a job lined up at this point and the only thing that remains is finishing the dissertation and presenting your research to family, peers, and your committee.

26. When you’re that close to finishing you’ll do whatever it takes

As you make it around the final turn and can read the lettering on the finish line you know you’ll finish even if you have to crawl. It could come to that depending on how you feel and what the previous 26 miles has done to your body. Whether you have the strength to pick it up and sprint past the person that has been out of reach the whole race or if you are in a woozy tunnel and all that exists in the universe is you, the finish line, and the hard ground between the two you will make it to that line. As the final weeks approach to your defense date you’ll realize it is coming to an end and you’ll do whatever you need to to ensure that you’ll make it out the other side. If a small section has to get cut from the dissertation so be it. If a couple presentation slides don’t have elaborate animations and a color-coded scheme that’s fine, no one will notice. You will make it to the end and that is what matters at this point.

26.2. “Oh, did you win?” or “Are you going to do another one?”

After you’ve finally caught your breath and your body starts to recover you may be bombarded with questions from those acquaintances that are curious enough to ask questions but naive enough not to know quite what they are asking about. In the marathon it might be, “did you win?” after you just ran the Boston marathon and finished more than 30 minutes behind the winner. In the PhD it might be, “are you going to become a professor?” There are very few open professor positions compared to the number of PhD graduates, and many industry positions may not even care about post-doc experience. Completing a marathon and a PhD are an accomplishment in themselves and do not need to be heightened further by how well you did in it or whether you are going to continue to do more things like it again. Take a deep breath to be present and enjoy what you have just done. Tomorrow is still a few hours away so enjoy a drink, some greasy food, and extra dessert before going to bed and thinking about what the next challenge will be.