Sabbatical Notes #1

A long-term inquiry into sustainable ambition, training, and time

Last summer I was notified that I was eligible to apply for a Sabbatical from my job as a Professor of Sport & Exercise Science during the 2026-27 school year. Around the same time, I was contemplating applying and what project I might work on during a Sabbatical I was reading The Running Ground by Nicholas Thompson.

In his book, Thompson writes about his often-difficult relationship with his father as well as his relationship to running. In his 40’s, Nike gave him an opportunity to have access to professional coaching, personalized scientific data collection, and cutting-edge technology to see what his true potential might be in the marathon.

As the editor of Wired magazine, he was asked to document the experience and write about it. That article was published April 20th, 2020. His book expands the story and gives the reader a more in-depth understanding of his life and this experience. The result was a personal best marathon of 2:29 at the age of 44.

Reading The Running Ground reminded me of another book I had read, Running the Dream by Matt Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald at the age of 48 asked if he could join the professional running team, HOKA Naz Elite, train as a professional and document the experience in pursuit of finding his own personal limit. His result was a 2:38 personal best at the age of 48.

I began thinking about what I could do if I had the time to dedicate myself to training and recovering at that level? When I graduated college, I assumed I would pursue the marathon at a high level and see what I could do; that never happened. I started coaching, got married, had kids and by my thirties was not running consistently.

Then just before my 40^th birthday I got the bug again and started running consistently. Between 41 years old and 45 years old I ran five marathons between 2:36 and 2:39 all while balancing work and raising three amazing boys. After my last marathon in December 2025 resulted in yet another 2:38, I decided to step back from racing for a while and figure out what was next.

I had also cofounded Tree City Track Club in 2024, which has surrounded me with so many amazing athletes of all ages working hard at balancing life’s obligations while in pursuit of their own goals. Training with everyone has really reignited a passion in me.

I was contemplating all this while thinking about my Sabbatical application. I decided why not me? What if I did have a semester off from work to dedicate myself to training properly? What would I change? What might such a project look like? Besides personal satisfaction, what would be the final product? Finally, was I willing to find out what my limits were?

Those questions stayed with me. Not as a challenge to prove something, but as an invitation to take the idea of sustainability seriously, personally, professionally and physically. If I was going to ask coaches and athletes to think more thoughtfully about long term development, this felt like an invitation to live inside that question myself. A sabbatical wouldn’t remove limits just rearrange them. With time, attention, and recovery suddenly less fragmented, I began to imagine a project that wasn’t just about performance, but about learning what it takes to pursue meaningful goals well, over time.

I knew this was the project I wanted to pursue, but I needed to define what it might look like in reality.

The Research Question Behind the Project

Much of the research on aging and physical activity focuses on decline, how to slow it, how to manage it, and how to maintain independence as long as possible. The emphasis is understandably on function: walking speed, balance, strength, and the habits that allow people to live well as they age. Physical activity, nutrition, sleep, and stress management all play important roles in preserving quality of life over time.

What we know far less about is how to optimize performance in athletes who are no longer young but still serious; those who continue to train, compete, and pursue meaningful goals well into midlife. There is little research that looks closely and deliberately at what sustainable, high-level training looks like for elite masters’ athletes in their 40s and 50s.

This project is my attempt to explore that space more carefully.

Rather than treating my training as something private and intuitive, I’m approaching it as a case study, one that combines structured training, systematic data collection, and ongoing reflection. The goal isn’t just to feel better or run well, but to understand why certain changes matter, how they unfold over time, and what breaks down as the body ages.

One of the most consistent findings in the endurance literature is that aerobic capacity, VO₂max, or the ability to deliver and utilize oxygen declines steadily with age. After about 40, that decline averages roughly one percent per year. High level training can slow down the rate of decline, but it can’t stop it entirely. Since VO₂max plays such a large role in endurance performance, this physiological reality explains much of why even well trained older athletes slow down over time.

But VO₂max isn’t the whole story.

One area that repeatedly shows promise for aging endurance athletes is running economy, essentially, how much energy it costs to run at a given speed. The more economical a runner is, the less oxygen and energy they need to maintain pace. Unlike VO₂max, which is strongly influenced by genetics and constrained by age, running economy is highly trainable and does not appear to decline simply because someone is getting older. Improvements in running economy often come through better neuromuscular coordination, greater force production per stride, and more effective use of elastic energy.

In practical terms, that means an athlete may not be able to raise their physiological ceiling indefinitely, but they can often reduce the cost of operating beneath it.

My project is built around that idea. Over a 12–16 week training cycle, I plan to make targeted changes to my typical training habits and track how those changes influence running economy, recovery, and overall performance. Based on existing research, a two percent improvement in running economy is a realistic goal. At marathon pace, that improvement alone could translate to roughly three minutes, without requiring a higher VO₂max.

To pursue that improvement, I’m focusing on two areas that consistently show strong relationships with running economy: diet driven changes in the gut microbiome and increased lean muscle mass through targeted strength training. Emerging work suggests that specific adaptations in gut health can improve energy metabolism, enhance fuel utilization, reduce systemic inflammation, and support recovery. Likewise, well designed strength training, particularly heavy resistance work and plyometrics, has repeatedly been shown to improve neuromuscular efficiency and reduce the energy cost of running.

Rather than adding more miles or intensity, the emphasis here is on precision: improving how force is produced, transferred, and supported over time.

Throughout the training cycle, I’ll be collecting data on performance markers, running economy, lactate response, strength and power changes, microbiome change, and recovery trends, alongside ongoing reflective notes about how the training feels day to day. The aim is not to reduce the experience to numbers, but to use data as a way of paying closer attention, to notice patterns that might otherwise be missed.

One reason this project matters to me professionally is that well designed case studies of elite masters’ athletes in their 40s are rare. Most research in this area focuses on athletes much later in life. By documenting this process carefully, I hope not only to understand my own training more clearly, but to generate pilot data that can inform future studies involving larger groups of masters’ runners.

Just as importantly, I’m interested in what this process reveals about recovery. As we age, the ability to adapt to training, and to recover between efforts, often becomes the central limiting factor. Improvements in strength and metabolic health may not only support performance, but also enhance the body’s ability to rebound, sustain volume, and repeat quality work over time.

This project is not an attempt to outrun aging. It’s an effort to understand, with honesty and intention, what sustainable ambition actually requires at this stage of life, and what it costs.

The Main Barriers

Although my sabbatical, beginning in January 2027, will give me more time to train, recover, and focus on the changes described above, it won’t remove every barrier. In some ways, it may even add a few.

At 48 years old, any meaningful change in training carries an increased risk of injury. That means being thoughtful not only about what I add, but when I add it, and whether something I’m currently doing needs to be removed to make space. With a limited window to implement and evaluate changes, there is little margin for overreach.

The structure of the sabbatical itself, one semester, also introduces a psychological challenge. There’s an implicit sense that this is a singular opportunity, which can quietly raise the stakes and shift attention toward outcomes. Being mindful of that pressure ahead of time feels essential, particularly if I want to approach this project as an inquiry rather than a referendum on success or failure.

Another constraint that won’t disappear during the sabbatical is being a dad and the busyness and unpredictability that comes with that role. That part of my life isn’t something I want to minimize or work around; it’s central to who I am and how I think about sustainability in the first place. Even with more flexibility in my schedule, the rythyms of family life will continue to shape how and when training happens.

That said, one intentional choice during the sabbatical will be to step back temporarily from volunteer roles and additional commitments. Not because they aren’t meaningful, but because attention is finite. Creating space for this project means being honest about what can be carried out well at the same time, and what needs to be set down, at least for a season.

There will undoubtedly be other barriers, some predictable, others not. But confronting constraints is part of the work. This project isn’t just about maximizing performance; it’s about learning how to pursue meaningful goals well in midlife, where limits are real and unavoidable. Throughout the process, I plan to journal and document the experience, creating space to reflect on both anticipated and unforeseen obstacles, and how they shape the pursuit itself.

What I Hope to Learn

At its core this project isn’t about specific outcomes, but a set of questions that feel both timely and unfinished. Questions relevant to others beyond me.

I want to better understand what sustainable ambition requires in midlife, not in theory but in daily practice. How much strain is productive at this stage of life? How much recovery is enough? What changes make the most difference? Where is the line between adaptation and erosion and how does that line shift as the margins narrow with age?

I’m interested in how performance when the goal is no longer to accumulate training at all costs, but to protect the ability to train again tomorrow, next year, and the year after that. What tradeoffs become necessary when time, recovery, and attention are finite resources? And how do those tradeoffs influence identity, not just as an athlete but as a parent, coach and teacher?

Part of what draws me to this work is the tension between knowing and doing. I teach principles of long-term development, sustainable training, and athlete-centered practices. This project asks whether I can live those principles honestly under conditions that matter to me. When the goals are real, the clock is ticking, and the stakes feel personal.

Over time, this experience will culminate in a race performance that carries significant meaning to me. That moment, and everything leading up to it, will be documented more fully elsewhere. But the race itself is not the point. It is simply one way of concentrating the lessons that emerge from months of preparation, constraint, doubt, adjustment, and recommitment.

What I hope most is that this process sharpens how I understand endurance: not just physiological endurance, but the endurance required to pursue difficult goals patiently, to respond well when outcomes are uncertain, and to remain open to learning even when effort is high. If I can emerge with clearer insight into what it takes to stay in the game physically, psychologically, and ethically, then this project will have done what it was meant to do.

How This Will Appear in The Long Run

I’ll continue to publish regularly here in The Long Run, primarily focused on coaching, psychology, and long-term development. Alongside that work, I’ll be writing a connected series of posts, labeled Sabbatical Notes, that track the preparation, constraints, and questions shaping this project.

For now, those reflections will appear about once a month. When the sabbatical begins in early 2027, they’ll become more frequent, shifting toward weekly field notes as the work moves from planning into lived experience.

The next post in that series will introduce the specific outcome this project is oriented toward, the race, the form that goal takes, and why it matters to me. For this first entry, it felt important to start with the conditions, the questions, and the commitment to approach the work with care.

If any of these questions resonate with you, I’d love to hear how you’re thinking about sustainability, whether in training, coaching, or life more broadly. If you’d like to follow along, please subscribe and pass this along to anyone who might be interested.