After quite a big year athletically (completing my first full Ironman in July was a lifelong goal, and I had two solid personal records in the New York and Philadelphia marathons this month), it’s worth looking at the key takeaways.

I’ve said this before—lessons you learn through sports are highly applicable across domains. Running teaches me as much about entrepreneurship, relationships, goal setting and magic as it does about running.

So, as I look toward 2026, and back on 2025, here are five lessons I’ve learned from running and triathlon this year:

1. More is not crazy if done safely

In November, I ran the New York City and Philadelphia marathons four weeks apart. While I wouldn’t recommend this if you were training for your first marathon, I do recommend it if you love running and want to test yourself.

The only way to get good at something is to do it a lot. And I attribute so much of my success in Philadelphia to the fact that I made mistakes in New York and was immediately able to fix them.

When something goes wrong in a show, I can usually fix it within a week (on tour, I can often fix it later that night or the next day). But so often in running, you might run a spring marathon and a fall marathon, which means you have months between attempts, and that’s simply too much time if you’re trying to make meaningful adjustments.

For me, three to five weeks between major races is a perfect amount of time where I can let my body recover, but not lose the mental headspace of preparing for a race.

Again, this is by no means necessary, nor is it meant to discount anyone who runs one marathon and thinks that’s enough. It is more than enough. But, I genuinely love doing it, so I don’t view two marathons in four weeks as a burden. And if it sounds appealing to you, I genuinely recommend it as a quick way to improve.

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2. Nobody will clear your schedule

Too many people wait for the right time to start something, when in reality, there is no right time. I think we inherently understand this concept when it comes to having kids. There’s no right time, but when people decide that it is time, they adjust—whether that’s moving to a more child-friendly house, changing work schedules, and maneuvering their social lives.

It’s the same when you train for something big! You will have to adjust your life. Quite honestly, that’s the point. You’re doing a marathon not because of what it feels like at mile 22 (it often feels like shit), but because of who you’ll be on the other side.

If you want to do something hard, it is always worth it. But you’ll have to do it yourself, because I promise you, the world is going to push you toward the night club, not the run club.

3. Discipline wins championships

The usual phrase is “defense wins championships,” and it refers to football, but I often repeat this phrase to myself during a race.

Before Philadelphia, I was going over my spreadsheet with my mile times. My cousin, who is not a runner, was watching. But as I walked him through it, and how I was planning to negative split, he said “Oh. It’s a budget.”

I’ve never thought about it that way, but he was completely right. You have X amount of energy going into the race, and you must budget it so that you’re left with zero at the end. But, you still need to go into mile 26 with enough for that to be your fastest mile.

Quite the equation.

Running a race effectively is the same as budgeting effectively, which means it takes discipline. You can’t get excited about bright shiny objects (a big downhill, feeling good at mile 2 and assuming that you’ll feel the same way in 20 miles).

So, you need mental as much as physical strength. I think that’s what makes running so fun. It’s a mental game.

I almost gave up on my PR at mile 15. I was a good three minutes behind my pace at the half marathon, and had very little margin for error for the final 11 miles.

However, due to mental, and not physical, discipline, I was able to bring my mind back into the race. I told myself: “It’s hilarious that you’re even considering that you’re out of this. You have eleven miles to fix this. Keep going.”

It’s so easy to think of a marathon as a huge show of physical strength. But it is the quiet, mental resilience that gets anyone across the finish line.

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4. Allow yourself to be perfect

I don’t think I’ve ever finished a magic show and thought “Wow. That was perfect.” I’ve had great shows, and I’ve acknowledged them, but perfection is a weird word that in general is good to stay away from.

However, after the Philadelphia marathon, I kept thinking that I ran a perfect race. Because by my standards, I did. I negative split the race. My fastest miles were my final miles. I got my PR by a definitive 90 seconds. And I had fun. Considering that this is a hobby and I’m accountable to no one, it was perfect.

Derren Brown, one of my favorite magicians, says that you must take your magic seriously but not solemnly. That’s a key difference! I took the race very seriously in that I meticulously prepared for it. But not solemnly.

Life is too short to be hard on yourself about a hobby. Magic is my job, and if I walked away after every show thinking it was perfect, I would never improve. But I run for fun, and I’m proud of myself for being proud.

I put a lot of work into this, and when the day came, I executed to the best of my ability. I’ve run so many races where I’ve made mistakes, and it felt great to just go out there and do what I planned to do.

5. For the hope of it all

The best part of running a marathon? The anticipation and the aftermath. The final 6 miles of Philadelphia were pretty fun too. But what made the whole weekend fun was preparing for it with my cousin Brooke and my friend Nell, and celebrating with my family after.

The marathon took a little more than three hours, but the memory will last for the rest of my life. The actual event is a tiny portion of the whole experience.

So why do we run when we’re not being chased? Why do we pound our bodies into the pavement for hours? Why do we pay other people to let us run around in circles?

It’s because humans were built to work and challenge ourselves! It is the greatest privilege to get to test your own limits. And in the fleeting moments where you are running at your full potential, it is a glorious reminder that you are alive.

It’s funny that we should need a reminder that we’re alive. It is, after all, the default state until we eventually die. And yet, so much of life is spent in meetings, or in line at the grocery store, or completing a menial task. It is the essence of mindfulness to be able to enjoy those moments too. But we owe it to ourselves as humans to give ourselves a goal, and the chance to accomplish it in an epic way.

I spent the entirety of 2025 dreaming that in the final miles of a marathon, I’d be running, not just surviving. I tried in May, and the final miles were a slog. Then I ran an Ironman, where I was in no position to be running quickly. I thought I’d fix it in New York, and in the final miles, I wanted to die. It took four marathons this year to get to a point where I was enjoying the final miles.

And yes, it was worth it. Because for a fleeting 20 minutes in Philadelphia, it felt like I was flying.

Running, more than anything in my life, is where I find that magic. I hope you can find it too.

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I’ve got a few public shows to round out the year! I’ll be in Denver tonight, and then have shows in New York, Austin, and Denver again in December. In February, I’m doing a 10 city tour, so there will be plenty of chances to see a show. Here’s what I’ve got for the rest of 2025 and beginning of 2026:

November 28th, Denver, SOLD OUT

December 5th, Austin, 6:00 PM

December 7th, New York, SOLD OUT

December 28th, Denver, 7:00 PM

January 31st, Denver (Meow Wolf), 7:30 (Tickets selling very quickly)

February 5th, Boston, 7:00 PM

Long distance sports are some of the best teachers you’ll ever have.

So, here are 13 lessons from 13 hours (and five minutes) from one of triathlon’s toughest stages:

1. Don’t worry about other people

I could see the lake from my hotel room. The first morning I was there, I saw dozens of people doing practice swims from my window. I caught myself thinking I was behind—despite the fact that all I did was wake up in a new time zone and eat breakfast. It was literally 8 A.M.

Of course, I wasn’t actually behind. It just felt that way because I could see people training.

The reality: There will always, always be people doing more than you. Let it go and focus on yourself. I literally went on a practice swim (and bike, and run) later that day.

2. There’s never a right time to do an Ironman

Few things are certain in life, but I promise that no one will ever sit you down and say “I cleared your calendar for the next year. Have fun!” You MUST create your own time for the things you care about.

Unless you physically cannot move, the right time is simply whenever you want it to be.

So, if you have the urge to do something crazy: You’re right.

Go make it happen.

3. Looking at your watch doesn’t make you go faster

Early on, when I was training in New York, I’d bike laps of Central Park. At the very end of the lap, I had to bike up Cat Hill—not particularly large, but big enough to slow me down to the point that I wouldn’t hit my goal time for the lap. I used to check my watch to see my speed as I was going up the hill, before I realized that that simply wasn’t helping. In fact, I went slower because I had to look at it.

It’s easy to get caught up in metrics, when in reality, what you’re trying to do is execute. Look at the numbers later. Execute now.

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4. Sometimes you’ll need to improvise

I had a very specific plan to control the three main levers of fueling:

• Carbohydrates

• Sodium

• Water/hydration

After finishing the swim, I followed that plan for approximately five minutes, and spent the remaining 11.5 hours of the race improvising my way through.

A few factors forced me to deviate:

First, I hadn’t spent enough time training my gut immediately after getting out of the water, so once I swam for 90 minutes, I felt a little nauseous. I was totally fine, but my stomach felt tight, as it often does after a long swim, because what I actually felt was hunger.

I knew if I immediately ate a ton of carbs, my stomach would churn, and I would be in danger of throwing up. So I slowly dosed extra carbs without overdoing it.

Fine, but why did I abandon the rest of plan?

Due to a number of factors not worth boring you with, I had to pee at every aid station on the bike. Which was ten times. Why state this publicly? So you know that an Ironman isn’t just the glory of the finish line, it’s the fatigue of standing in yet another muddy porta potty.

Then, the weather gods made it rain for six and a half hours.

But this is why you train.

I had literally years of data and knowledge to be able to improvise my way through. I found some carb bars (solid food instead of gels). I ate bananas. Took gels when I could handle them. Switched to Mortal Hydration, and started to feel some life come back with the extra electrolytes. I ate my way back into contention.

Basically—I was able to use my knowledge of my body to deviate from the plan, while still having a skeleton to return to.

5. Don’t be afraid to publicly state your goals

It’s terrifying to state your goals because if you fail, you fail publicly. The flip side, however, is that if nobody knows what you’re doing, you don’t get to celebrate with them, either.

This race was a huge deal for me. So I made it one. Yes, it was a big risk—if I didn’t finish for any reason, I would’ve had a lot of explaining to do.

But I also would’ve been ok. I knew that the people who truly cared would’ve been with me no matter what. And in this case, we got to celebrate together. See here for my thoughts on publicly failing.

6. It all comes back around

A year ago, I had a stress fracture and I couldn’t run. I told the doctor that when I got better, I wanted to race Ironman Lake Placid. “Cool!” He said. “I’ve done that race about ten times.”

Make it 11 times, because I came up behind that very doctor at Mile 17 of the marathon. Both of us running strong, both of us soaking up what it means to be alive.

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7. Train in any weather

In June, I had one of the most defining bike rides of my training—after climbing to the top of a mountain, it started pouring rain during the way down. I had to descend five thousand feet while I was pelted by freezing rain and hail. It’s hard to describe how demoralizing it was to bike in the rain, but it sucked.

All this to say—it rained for 90% of the bike ride in Lake Placid. This included, you guessed it, a massive descent, where I had to try and hold speed while navigating pouring rain and slick roads.

All of a sudden, this training ride from hell came back as a valuable lesson. “I can do this,” I thought, “because I’ve already done it, on a much longer, much more difficult road.”

Shying away from unpleasant things doesn’t help you. It was precisely that brutal training ride that gave me the courage to keep going during the Ironman.

8. Let your failures be your failures

Six weeks prior, I raced a half Ironman in Boulder. Given that I was prepping for a full-distance race, I genuinely thought that it would be a piece of cake.

Tell that to the guy throwing up.

Granted, the conditions were much different (95 degrees and no shade in Boulder versus 64 and raining in Placid), but still. I learned a valuable lesson about nutrition that day—if I hadn’t, I would probably still be on the run course in Lake Placid.

Boulder was a failure. I failed in my nutrition and was unable to execute as I had planned. That’s ok—that doesn’t mean that I am a failure. That doesn’t mean that other parts of the race didn’t go my way. It means I did not accomplish what I set out to do.

But because I was able to learn lessons about fueling in Boulder, I nailed the run at Lake Placid. Mission accomplished.

9. Embrace the dark

During an Ironman, there will almost certainly be a dark spot (or many). I was lucky that I primarily had one. Here’s what happened:

I found myself at mile 102 of the bike. I had 10 miles to go, most of them uphill, rain pouring down. Marathon incoming. Cold. Annoyed that this loop was taking an extra 30 minutes. Legs hurting. Less people around because most of them had already started the run.

And look, none of those were dealbreakers. You’re allowed to be cold in the rain. It would be weird if your legs didn’t hurt after 100+ miles of biking hills. And nobody said that being slow is a crime.

However, two things were genuinely bad:

• First, I was tired. As in, I felt like I needed to fall asleep. Not so good if you need to run a marathon.

• Second, and worse, I was bonking. I needed solid food ASAP.

Essentially, I was in no position to run a marathon. So I did a few things:

• First, I accepted the situation. I am tired. I am bonking. You can’t fix the problem if you don’t know what it is.

• Then, I started to eat, but methodically. I didn’t stuff my face, because at that point I was within 30 minutes of starting the marathon, and I’d make myself nauseous. But food will really, really energize you, and it did for me.

• Finally, I hyped up the crowd: If you’re cheering a race, you’re just hoping the athletes acknowledge you instead of stare into the pain cave. So I’d cheer back, and the crowd would cheer louder, and it really energized me. I gave a big “come on!” to a group right after I got over the final big hill and I’m telling you I rode that wave for miles.

This wasn’t some magic formula. The food did its work, the sun came out, I woke up a bit, and prepared myself to run a marathon. Which leads us to…

10. Embrace the light

I am a runner.

Yes, I swam and biked a lot. But I know where my heart is, and I’ve always been able to run well off the bike.

Call it luck, call it strategy—the fact that I had to stop and pee so many times on the bike meant I got ten mini breaks to rest my legs, and I came out on the run course ready to rock.

When you realize that you’re doing well, you need to embrace it. And enjoy it. So I did.

I knew I had it on lockdown pretty early in the marathon, so I thought “Alright dude. You somehow have the legs not only to finish, but to finish strong. All of this doubting and wondering is over. You are going to finish an Ironman. Don’t fuck it up.” As in—don’t eat too much or too little. Don’t go too fast because you get too excited. Pace this, walk and eat when you have to, and bring it home.

I’ve run 10 marathons. I have never, ever enjoyed one as much as this, despite it being objectively the hardest.

I enjoyed the scenery (truly some of the best views ever), chatted with other runners, bantered with volunteers, and walked when I needed a break. It’s one of my happiest memories.

It’s also a critical reminder that your fortune can change within a long distance event, which is its own reminder not to give up.

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11. This is the last time before it becomes a memory. Enjoy it.

My coach, Rich, made a great point: Those moments before you cross the finish line—and that includes all aspects of training and racing—will slowly tick away before this entire journey becomes a memory.

For the rest of my life, I’ve done an Ironman. I will never do it for the first time again.

So when you’re struggling, and it’s hard, you must remember that this is the end of a massive chapter in your life. Once it’s over, you’ll live with the knowledge that your crazy dream is possible, but for just a moment, as the sun sets, you live with the knowledge that you are the one actively making it possible.

12. So—why do we do hard things?

A sign at Mile 25 read: “What’s your why?” I’ve struggled throughout the process to fully answer that question, wavering between “because it’s there,” and anything else I could come up with on the spot.

But I realized at Mile 25 that I was doing it, completely and fully, for me. Quite simply—to prove to myself that I’m capable of doing hard things, setting goals, and finishing what I started.

A selfish goal, perhaps, but there’s a caveat:

When these selfish pursuits are deeply and purely you—as in, when you aren’t doing them for external approval—people take notice.

I got more messages about completing the Ironman than anything I’ve ever done in my entire life. When you do something you love, it radiates outward, creates community, and inspires people.

That’s how I was introduced to the sport—the first time I heard of an Ironman was second-hand, when my parents told me that my neighbor, Aaron, completed one. I couldn’t fathom that you ran a marathon at the end. I thought it was the craziest thing I’d ever heard.

And despite being a kid with no real understanding of it, that lit the spark.

Who knows—maybe I just lit the spark for someone else.

Which is why, perhaps, these wild pursuits aren’t selfish at all. They’re to show the world what’s possible.

13. It’s all we got

“Worrying about people and having people worry about us is like…everything we got.”—The Bear, Season 4, Episode 6, in one of the few scenes that isn’t a montage

By a rough estimate, there were many dozens of people tracking me during the race. Many more who wished me luck in some form. And of course, I had an amazing family with me every step of the way. Yes, they cheered (like, I saw them ~10 times during the race), but they did so much more. They gave their time and money to be there. They made logistics easy. They calmed my nerves. They carried my stuff. My dad even took my bike back to my hotel room while I was still racing so that I didn’t have to do it afterwards.

To say I’m grateful for everyone who even said “go Max!” during the race all the way to my family who showed up day-of is the understatement of the year. I am forever indebted to all of you.

And the volunteers! They stood in the pouring rain for hours. Whenever I’d say “thank you!” (which I did a lot) they’d often respond with “no, thank you!” Why? I don’t know. But that’s just the kind of people they are. The kind who dance in a downpour.

An Ironman looks like an individual sport. It is not. It is a group effort, a bit like the Tour de France with a team supporting a rider, the rider knowing very well he’d be nowhere without his team.

Worrying about people and having them worry about us…If you have that, you have the world.

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The hype was real.

Nike sponsored the event. They rented a stadium. She had 13 pacers. Global coverage.

The world watched as she ran a 4:06—which, to be clear, is a world record and a monumental accomplishment.

But she fell several seconds short of her very public, audacious goal.

She could’ve done this discreetly. And when she didn’t get it, no one would’ve really known.

Instead, Faith had the supreme courage to put herself in the spotlight, knowing she could fail. And fail she did (if you can really consider a world record a failure. Again—still one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of running. Just not what she was after).

The point is, some people are too afraid to publicly state their goals because they might not achieve them. The flip side is, when you do achieve them, you won’t have anyone to celebrate with if you haven’t told them about it!

Faith only failed in the time she ran. She succeeded on every other metric. Courage. Training. Representing female runners.

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Last year, David Roche set the impossible goal of not only winning the Leadville 100 (a 100 mile footrace through the mountains), but setting a course record.

Win and set a course record he did, so he set his sights on doing the same at the Western States 100 Mile Race (if Leadville is the New York Marathon of 100 milers, Western States is Boston—just a little more prestigious).

At this point, Roche was famous. He’d just come out of nowhere to win Leadville, so his popularity skyrocketed. He got a sponsored video series, following him from January through June 29th, 2025, as we watched him train to win.

And on June 29th—literally last weekend—we watched David Roche DNF (did not finish), pulling out at mile 61. Not even close.

The truth is, he could’ve easily finished the race if he’d taken it easy from the start.

But he decided instead to push his body to the limit. And when you ride that close to the edge, you occasionally fall off.

Like Faith, what Roche did took extreme courage. He was never cocky about his pursuit. He admitted, time and time again, that this was a moonshot. That he might fail.

And while he failed, like Faith, he succeeded in teaching the world how to fail. Here’s what he said on Instagram the next day:

“You’re going to fail in life. A lot. Success is basically progressively failing on bigger and bigger stages. But take the stage. The world needs your voice, even if it’s embarrassing when it cracks at exactly the wrong time. The people who matter will be proud of you no matter what.”

“Success is basically progressively failing on bigger and bigger stages.” It means that things actually get harder the better you get.

You can win the championship as the underdog. But can you repeat when all the expectations are truly on?

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A few days later, Roche explained on his podcast that one of the reasons this hurt so bad is precisely because of how public it was. He felt ashamed that he put out a whole video series about winning Western States when he didn’t even finish.

But the truth is—this won’t be the end of the story. It’s the end right now. But at 37 years old, he’s got a few more years of legitimate competitiveness.

Look—we can all coast through life. You may never fail much if you play it safe, but I can assure you that you won’t have huge successes, either. Extreme highs generally come after extreme lows.

One of my favorite parts of training for an Ironman has been getting to experience it with my family and friends. And let me be clear—I might fail! I might tear my ACL or get sick or experience any number of challenges that would stop me from even getting to the start.

And if I do start, I might have a mechanical failure on the bike. Or I could crash. Or I could have what is by far the most likely problem—I bonk because I mess up nutrition.

Or I could succeed and finish strong. That is very much on the table.

Regardless, knowing I overcame or avoided those obstacles would make the finish that much sweeter.

As a fan, I’m thankful to Faith and David for wearing their hearts on their sleeves, putting themselves in the spotlight, and daring to fail.

As Faith herself said after her attempt: “It’s not if, it’s when.”

When you truly, deeply believe, it’s always when.

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1. Most races, even at their absolute longest, don’t exceed 24 hours. To make this hard, my endurance race lasts for five years.

2. Every night for five years, you have to be awake for one hour (usually between 2-3 am), and often more. But when you sign up, you don’t know how long you’ll be awake for, or what the time slot will be. It’s up to the organizers of the race. An alarm will randomly wake you up, and then you have to stay awake until you get a notification that you can to go back to sleep. It might be morning by the time you get that notification, though, so there will be times when you need to head to work exhausted.

3. Sometimes, but not always, your middle of the night session will include picking up human feces and vomit.

4. For the first two years of the race, in order to make it psychologically, as well as physically, challenging, you have to completely eliminate your social life. You can slowly ease back into it during the remaining 3 years of the race.

5. This sounds fun, right? The entry fee is only $100,000. Also, you might have to quit your job.

6. After the race ends, there’s an option to continue for another 13 years. You’ll get some sleep back, but it’ll cost you about $900,000. And society will frown on you if you quit.

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So why would anyone want to have kids?

As I’ve trained for my Ironman, a lot of people have called it crazy. But I think we forget the fact that some of the most “normal” things we do are equally, if not significantly more, insane.

I think that having kids is legitimately one of the most ridiculous things we do.

But we don’t question it. Nor do we flag people who go to law or medical school.

Why?

Because we understand that despite the legitimate hardships, you’ll end those trials with a family, or a high paying job to support that family, or the ability to save someone’s life.

What’s less obvious is the benefit of running 26.2 miles.

What’s less obvious is the decision to pursue professional magic, or comedy, or athletics.

There’s a common thread, though, between all things that are both difficult and worthwhile—they require endurance. Usually extreme endurance.

Because whether you’re having kids or starting a business or running an Ironman, the rule is the same:

• Time under tension builds strength.

• More time, under more tension, builds more strength.

• And a shit ton of time over medium tension, dolled out over months or years, builds supreme strength.

• So—we endure not because it’s pleasant in the moment, but because of who we become after.

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Endurance is one of the most important skills we can cultivate.

It’s how you get through a race, sure.

But it’s also how you learn the patience needed to save a relationship. It’s how you stick with a new skill, even when you’re failing. It’s how you learn to finish a project at work rather than bailing on it because you don’t know the answer.

I remember calling my mom a few months into pursuing professional magic. I just want one gig, I lamented. Literally one person to say they’d hire me. I felt absolutely hopeless. I couldn’t see how this would work.

But I just kept following the process. I went to networking lunches. I kept cold emailing. Kept producing my own shows and begging people to come to those too.

It wasn’t pretty or sexy. It was mostly slow and stressful.

But I ended the year with 100 shows. And the next year with 150.

So how do we actually cultivate endurance in daily life? Because the answer can’t be “just sign up for an Ironman” or “just go to law school.” If you’re already doing that, great. But we’re all on our own journey.

We do this by remembering rule number 3: A shit ton of time under medium tension builds supreme strength. In other words: Just keep persevering more often than not.

Roger Federer was one of the greatest tennis players in history. He only won 54% of his points.

The highest batting average in the history of baseball was .466. A hit in less than half of Josh Gibson’s at-bats is the greatest stat of all time.

And then people have the audacity to ask if a magic trick ever goes wrong.

Of course it does. (Here’s an article about it).

But if we can endure through the inevitable failures, we’ll come out the other side.

We’ll cross the finish line of a marathon.

We’ll pass the bar.

We’ll raise a kid.

Whatever endurance event you’re pursuing, if you feel in your gut that it’s worth it, it probably is.

If you’re actively enduring toward an end goal, you’re doing something right.

The only “wrong” path is one with no pursuit, no destination.

Without one, life is just hollow.

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And this article is about failing in athletics. Last week, as part of my Ironman training, I had to bike for five and a half hours. It was brutal. I went far slower than I hoped. And I lost a lot of confidence.

After reflecting on the ride, however, I realized (unsurprisingly) that what I thought in the moment wasn’t an accurate reflection of reality. So, maybe you are:

• A comedian who just bombed

• A lawyer who just botched a negotiation

• A teacher whose lesson didn’t land

• A marathoner who just quit your long run because you couldn’t go any further

• A magician who messed up a trick in front of the person who hired you

We all struggle and fail in our own unique ways. The question is—what actually happened? And how do we fix it?

The short answer: Act now, judge later. Here’s the details:

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The centerpiece of The Ironman is a 112 mile bike. Saturday’s long ride was a great chance to assess how I would do at the distance. So even though I went 80 miles, I could extrapolate my time across the remaining 32.

I went significantly slower than I thought I would. And as I was literally riding up a mountain, I got pretty negative as it dawned on me how long just the bike portion of the race will take. Which is, I believe, 7 hours.

So, that shift made me pretty upset.

I got home convinced that I had a bad ride, but then I looked at the numbers. According to Strava, this bike ride was:

• The second-longest ride of my entire life

• The 3rd most elevation of my entire life

After re-assessing the data, I realized: The bike ride wasn’t bad. I still went for 80 miles over nearly 5.5 hours in the heat and at altitude. That’s great! I didn’t suffer a failure on the ride. I suffered a failure of expectation. I expected to go a certain speed. I didn’t go that speed. But that doesn’t mean I failed. It just means I misunderstood my own fitness.

Likewise, as the second longest ride of my life, it was unfair of me to expect to be much better. You can’t be great at something the second time you ever do it. You can barely be great at something the hundredth time.

It’s why I love putting all my data in Strava—it makes it really easy to reflect and learn from my past workouts.

This was also another chance to be reminded of a vital fact:

You won’t learn the lesson during the activity. You will learn it after.

Hour 4 riding your bike up a mountain is a pretty horrible place to make judgements. You’re tired, hungry, and hot.

One of the things I’ve been training myself to do (and I did a horrible job of this on Saturday) is to refrain from judging until after I’m done with my session.

You simply are not in a good enough headspace to make accurate judgements while you’re also pushing your body to its limits.

And if you’re recording on Strava, the objective data might tell you a different story.

It’s the same logic when you’re on stage. You might think it’s going poorly, only to watch the footage later and see that it was far better than you thought.

The point is that you don’t know what you don’t know. You certainly don’t know enough when you’re in the middle of biking up a mountain. And the data—Strava, show footage, whatever—will give you a far more accurate picture.

We’re all going to mess up. And we’re all going to learn from those mistakes. If there’s a mantra you can hold onto in those moments, hopefully it’s “act now, judge later.”

As one of my favorite triathletes, Kat Matthews, said, “a happy mind makes fast feet.” You’ll go farther and perform better if you can keep yourself in a good headspace. Delay the necessary judgement and critique until you’re in an appropriate space to do so.

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Steve Jobs put it beautifully, noting that the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

It seems that whenever someone does something incredibly impressive, we’re left to call them crazy:

• Breaking the world record for fastest marathon? (Kelvin Kiptum, Chicago Marathon, 2023). Crazy.

• Inventing the iPhone? (Steve Jobs & Apple). Crazy.

• Setting the NBA record for most wins in a season? (Golden State Warriors, 2016). Crazy.

But those accomplishments aren’t crazy. In fact, they’re entirely logical, albeit extremely impressive. Here’s why:

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What society deems “crazy” is, in fact, the accumulation of extremely logical and mundane tasks.

What does this mean?

Let’s take, for example, one of the most impressive human accomplishments of all time: Alex Honnold’s free solo of El Capitan in 2017.

If you don’t know—Honnold climbed the 3,000 foot El Capitan without a rope. Already a grueling climb with a rope, one wrong move for Honnold would’ve spelled certain death.

But he succeeded, and the world called him crazy, with the exception of one person: himself.

The documentary is a must-watch, and you’ll notice that Honnold spent years studying, quite literally, every inch of the route.

And he wasn’t acting impulsively. He wasn’t being a daredevil. One of the most illustrative scenes is when he goes out to make the attempt and then turns around because he’s not feeling 100%.

Honnold acted slowly and deliberately for years until he was as certain as possible that he would be safe.

“But I’ll never climb El Capitan without a rope.” So what does this have to do with me?

We’re afraid of doing “crazy” things because once we brand them as such, we’re less likely to pursue them. Crazy feels “out there” and like something we wouldn’t want to associate ourselves with.

But when we call something crazy, we’re looking at the result, not the process.

Take an Ironman. A lot of people call it crazy. And I don’t want to undersell the difficulty of it. A 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run are all large feats on their own, let alone on the same day.

But as I’ve trained, I’ve realized that most days are completely mundane.

• Swim for an hour

• Bike for two hours

• Run ten miles

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It’s hard, yes, but it’s nothing that most people would turn their heads at.

The thing is, if you do those workouts for enough time, your fitness accumulates, and suddenly you can do a five hour bike ride. Or run a marathon. Or do them back to back.

And before you say “yes, but this is only logical for someone young and super fit,” watch this video and see how many people there are in middle age and older completing the race.

Regardless of your age, eventually those five hour bike rides become an Ironman, and people see you that day and call it crazy. And when you only see the result—like seeing Honnold on the wall without a rope, or the distances of an Ironman, it’s easy to put it in a box of something you could never do.

And the thing is, you’re right. You couldn’t climb El Capitan without a rope. Just like you couldn’t run an Ironman without training, or have an album go platinum off the bat. But you know what you could do?

• You could swim for twenty minutes.

• You could go to your local climbing gym.

• You could try to write one song.

Crazy accomplishments are simply an accumulation of mundane tasks.

Our problem is when we think we’re chasing the “crazy.” We’re not. We’re chasing the mundane task that gets us there.

The “crazy“ thing? The Ironman? It’s literally the result. It’s just what your body will be capable of if you train.

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Last week, Maggie Rogers gave the commencement address at NYU. Rogers became famous overnight when this video of Pharrell Williams listening to her music went viral.

Crazy?

The moment itself was, perhaps.

But as Rogers herself said, “What people saw in this video was the moment of alignment…but no one saw all the hard work. Or all the times I almost quit. They never heard the songs that didn’t work or the shows that were just bad.”

It was the same when Paige Bueckers was criticized last year for her constant travel and *apparent* lack of time in the gym. Except, as Bueckers clarified, “They see me 3-4 hours a day and they think they know my entire 24 hours…everybody saw the world tour, they didn’t see the work tour.”

That was October of 2024. In March, she led UConn to an NCAA championship.

Crazy.

Except it’s just not. Because Bueckers put in the work. Because Rogers showed up in the studio. Because Honnold memorized El Capitan.

The championship? Simply the result of the fact that Bueckers spent thousands of hours making the exact same shots she made in the clinching game.

Maggie Rogers selling out Madison Square Garden twice? Simply the accumulation of a fan base large enough to fill it, and a body of work robust enough to deserve that hallowed stage. A body of work created by, you guessed it, showing up every day.

So what’s the answer? How do we do crazy things?

We don’t. We do the mundane things, and accept “crazy” as a result.

If you’re doing it right, it should only seem crazy to the people watching.

But it won’t seem crazy to you, because you’ve done the work.

Because you’re still doing the work.

And when you do the work, your hard thing will seem, truly, like the most logical thing in the world.

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How much is enough?

When do you stop working?

How do you structure creative sessions?

Creativity is hard to quantify because it’s not inherently quantifiable.

Luckily, athletics are extremely quantifiable.

I’m going to describe how you can perform at your creative peak like you’re prepping for a triathlon.

If you’re not an athlete, or you are and you aren’t a triathlete, don’t worry. I promise you these terms will all make sense.

When you’re done reading, you’ll hopefully be able to do what you already do more efficiently and with added context.

Let’s roll:

Learn how to keep pace:

If you’re running a marathon, it’s easier to run a 7:30 pace in mile 1 than mile 26. It’s the same pace, but you’re tired by mile 26.

Similarly, let’s say you commit to creative work for one hour every day for a month. The first day is significantly easier than the last because you have all the motivation. It’s possible, however, to pace yourself correctly.

How?

In racing, you strength train before you run, and fuel during. In creativity, your strength is your routine.

Actively blocking out that time and having a system for creativity gives you the space and time you need. That’s your strength.

Your fuel, then, is your ideas. A routine + ideas is the same as strength training + fuel. You maintain pace at the end by continually adding strength and fuel—structure and ideas.

The creativity will happen as a byproduct.

Learn to Run on Tired Legs

The unfortunate part of a triathlon is that the run always comes on tired legs, because it’s the final event in Swim—>Bike—>Run.

Therefore, when you train, you practice running immediately after biking so you can know what it feels like to run on tired legs.

We need to do the same thing creatively.

• Learn to do back to back shows in one night and make the second show better. This is the equivalent of “negative splitting” in a race. (Negative splits are when you run the second half of a race faster than the first).

• Maintain your creative practice even when you’re tired. I‘m as guilty as anyone of twisting my mind into knots trying to justify why I would be better served not working out today. Why not working on magic is actually better. We all know this isn’t true. Even when you’re tired or you don’t feel like it, you still need to get the job done. That simple practice—working when you don’t necessarily feel like it or want to—is what separates the amateurs from the pros.

Side note: That doesn’t mean over-doing it. An hour or two of work, paced over time, can be more than enough. For added context, check out this great quote from Steven Pressfield from his book Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be:

“One hour a day is seven hours a week, thirty hours a month, 365 hours a year. Three hundred and sixty hours is nine forty-hour weeks. Nine forty-hour weeks is a novel. It’s two screenplays, maybe three. In ten years, that’s ten novels or twenty movie scripts. You can be a full-time writer, one hour a day.”

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Invest in Super Shoes

You can purchase running shoes that will improve your time by about 2%. Runners consider that a worthwhile investment, and it’s obvious why. If you’re racing, a faster time is better.

Consider: What are your super shoes? Because you can save a lot more than 2% of your time by making specific investments.

Your super shoes might be hiring an assistant.

They might be investing in software to make your job easier.

Professionals understand that it’s worth it to pay for something that saves you time.

Understand Your Intensity Zones:

Why can a 30-minute run leave you more tired than a two hour run?

Because if the former was in Zone 4 or 5 and the latter was Zone 2, then you may have expended more effort during the 30-minute run.

Quick refresher: Your heart rate zones measure intensity during a workout based on your beats per minute—125 BPM (Zone 2) is far less intense than 180 (Zone 4-5).

Now, here’s the clincher:

• Growth comes from Zone 3+, because that’s when your body starts to switch to anaerobic effort.

• By definition, you can’t sustain Zones 4-5 for a lot of time, but they’re vital to getting faster and stronger. It’s where you stretch your body the most.

• Your best growth as a creative will come from deep work: medium-length bursts of intense time spent focusing. Essentially—it’ll come from Zone 3 work with the occasional zones 4-5 sprinkled in.

• You can cultivate Zone 3 work by sticking to a deep work routine—1-3 hours in the morning is more than enough.

Does Zone 2 have a place in creative work?

Of course it does. Zone 2 is:

• Reading, listening to podcasts, and in general consuming content intentionally.

• Responding to email and doing administrative tasks that are annoying but move the needle.

• In short—slow, methodical work that doesn’t take much energy.

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Get Specific About Your Session

Training isn’t: “Go for a run today.”

That’s pointless and won’t get you anywhere.

It’s the same thing as saying “I’m going to ‘be creative’ today. Because that doesn’t mean anything.

A good run session might look like:

• 10 minute warmup

• 3x8 minutes at Zone 3

• Zone 2 cooldown for the rest of the time with strides at the end

What does a good creative session look like, then? It has specific goals that let you know when you’ve done what you need to do. For example:

• Write 1000 words on my newsletter

• Schedule my newsletter

• Do two run-throughs of my show/routine

• Come up with ten new ideas for a routine

Getting specific about your creative practice tells you not only when to start, but even more important, when to stop.

Cross-Train

Triathlon is built on cross-training.

Swim, bike, run. They all compliment each other.

How do you cross-train creatively?

• Read ideas that seemingly have nothing to do with your area of interest.

• Attend live shows tangential to your area of interest. If you’re a magician, this might mean attending a comedy show, concert, or broadway musical.

• Talk to other people about what makes them excited. Few things are more compelling than hearing someone tell you about what they love.

Choose Your Course Correctly:

Some Ironman courses are famously “flat and fast.”

Some are aggressively hilly.

Some swims are in rivers with currents that do half the work for you.

Some swims are in the ocean where you must battle waves.

In theory, the most popular courses would be “flat and fast,” right?

Nope.

Some of the most popular courses, like Lake Placid and Kona, are the hardest because people crave challenge. And we all know that the point of the most challenge is the point of the most growth.

Creatively, you need to choose:

• Are you doing this to challenge yourself? Learn a new skill? Accomplish something hard? Great. That’s the hilly course. The shows with difficult or drunk audiences. The ones where you really have to win over the crowd.

• Or, are you doing this because it’s easy? These are the slam-dunk shows, the flat courses, the ones you can do in your sleep because you’ve done the work in the hard (hilly) shows. You earn the flat courses on the hilly courses.

Both are ok. Both have purpose. But be aware of what you’re choosing.

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Fuel Correctly

The 4th event in triathlon is fueling. Fail to fuel, and you’ll find yourself out of energy well before the finish line. Succeed, and you’ll be fighting strong until the end.

The myth that you need to be a starving artist to be successful is exactly that—a myth. Nobody does their best work when they’re hungry or tired or stressed. You do your best work when you’ve slept, exercise, eaten, and put yourself in a position to be successful.

You wouldn’t run a race on an empty stomach. You shouldn’t do creative work that way either.

Rest When You’re Done

Rest is an absolutely essential component of exercise.

Your body must have time to absorb the stimulus. You can go hard, but doing so again without adequate rest isn’t how you improve, it’s how you get injured.

Creative practices are exactly the same, and you already understand why.

If you have a bad show, you literally need time to figure out why. Then, you need to solve the problem.

If you’re constantly moving, you never have time for reflection, and therefore, you won’t improve.

In athletics, rest happens somewhat automatically. As long as you aren’t doing strenuous physical activity, recovery is merely a function of time (and of course food, sleep, etc. But you will recover over time).

But with creativity, your mind must be at rest, so you need to not only have time, but space carved out to actively think and reflect.

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Thanks for reading! I have a number of live shows coming up, and I would love to see you there. All tickets are here:

June 5th—Denver

June 20th—Denver (Ticket exclusively through The Nudge. Sign up here)

July 9th & 10th—Denver, Meow Wolf

July 26th—Hamptons

Fast forward to right now. I’m two months out of Ironman Lake Placid on July 20th. I definitely could finish it. I’ll be better with two months of training. But I could do it.

Which means: Between August and now, there was a day when my body went from “not being able to complete an Ironman” to “able to complete an Ironman.” In reality, it was probably more of a period of time. Such is the monotony of hard work, of stacking those metaphorical bricks. You can’t see the change from day to day, but you absolutely can in hindsight.

Just this week, I did a long bike ride in the mountains, and there were several times while I struggled uphill that I thought: “Why am I doing this? I’m in so much pain. I hate this.” Here’s why:

Muscles need to tear to grow. Which means that your absolute hardest moments in training are precisely where the gains are made. I literally had to focus on that thought, as I was slogging my way up the mountain, “this is the training. This exact moment, when I am in the most amount of pain, is also when my muscles are being stretched past my limit, and it’s making me stronger.”

In my world of constant training, it’s really nice to be able to pinpoint those moments in the moment. The point of the most struggle is the point of the most growth.

In fact, I had already grown. When I compared this week’s ride to the same one two years ago, I’d improved my time by a full 18 minutes.

Training is a wonderful reminder that success is a lagging indicator. It comes after the hard work. It comes after the struggle. Hopefully, we can ground ourselves during the struggle with the wisdom that we are improving.

Anything is Possible

Ironman’s slogan—“anything is possible”—sounds cheesy but it’s true. During training, I’ve of course watched my body transform. But that’s a given for doing so much physical activity. What’s more interesting is that I’ve watched my mind transform. Now I’m wondering: What if I trained as hard for anything else as I have for this race? Obviously, I’ve worked incredibly hard on magic, but never with the same quantifiable, daily rigor as training.

The entire point of an Ironman, in addition to completing the race, is to remind yourself how to persevere outside of it. For example, there’s no way that growing a magic business is harder than what I’m currently doing. It’s not easy by any means. But it’s not harder.

The lesson from training is quite simple: When you work hard and intentionally at anything, you will get better, even if it takes a long time to see those gains. Even if those gains are not linear.

It’s helpful to bridge the Ironman to other aspects of my life, because it clarifies my “why.” When I wake up early, beyond uninterested in getting in the pool, I need to remember: I’m doing this for my future self. Of course, I’m excited to actually run the race. But that day will come and go very quickly. What will last, even more than the physical improvements, are the mental ones.

If I can tolerate a 6 hour bike ride in the mountains, certainly I can tolerate a long grocery store line or an annoying client. And learning patience, learning to reflect, learning to persevere when you want to quit—those skills last forever.

I run the race in almost exactly two months. Onward.