My wife is a running coach, and her specialty is half-marathon runners who are injured, who want to come back stronger than before, and (ideally) beat a sub 2 hour half marathon time.
A marathon is 26.2 miles.
A half marathon is…anything over 13.1 miles.
A sub 2 hour half-marathon pace is 9:09 per mile for 13.1 miles.
Believe me, that is a pacy run time.
Now if Olivia, my wife, was presented with 2 different running candidates, which one do you think she’d work with?
Person A) Regular runner, current PB for a half is 2:10. Previous run was 2:15 before injury.
Person B) Never run before. Looking to get going. Wants to do a 5K first, then a 10K, and then a half.
Out of person A or person B, who is more likely to get results faster?
It’s not a trick question – person A is far far more likely to break the goal of a sub 2 hour half-marathon.
And what’s funny, is that even though we’re talking about only shaving 11 minutes off the total 13.1 miles, that’s less than 45 seconds a mile faster, person A is more likely to pay HIGHER to break that barrier.
Person B just wants to get started. They haven’t even HIT a plateau. They literally don’t value 11 minutes MORE than person A.
But to person A, that 11 minute barrier could be worth thousands of dollars (and it is to many people).
If you want an insight into my process for delivering results to clients, my wife has it down to a T.
The process I use, to deliver results, is to work with people who are CLOSER to the goal but they just can’t get over the hump.
