I used to train for athletic sprints in the past.

Sprint is quite simple. Well, it’s very technical of course, but the rules are straightforward. You have your track. You can see the finish line from the starting blocks. Everyone runs the same distance and starts when the starter's gun is fired.

The objective is clear: you must be the first to cross the finish line.

Startups are different. There’s no track. You can’t see the finish line. Perhaps, there’s none at all. Objectives are far from clear. Finding PMF can take a while. Maybe you’ll need to pivot a few times. And even if you do find PMF, burning yourself out is detrimental to business.

Running a company is clearly not a sprint.

So people will tell you that running a company is like a marathon. Maintain a steady pace, don’t burn out, don’t overreach, routinely show up, and work the same way every day. Time will make the difference.

Sorry, but... running a company is clearly not a marathon either.

Sometimes (and often) you might face an emergency — an incident that requires immediate fixing. If you don’t show up now, you’ll miss this very critical deadline, or the single one thing that will propel your company, or you won’t close that deal or save the company from blowing up.

And you must do so as fast as you can.

But for a time only. After reaching this milestone, you can slow down, recover, take a step back, clean the technical or human debts accumulated during that period, collect user feedback, etc.

Once recovered, you’re all set for another acceleration.

Frankly, it sounds like interval training in sports, which has many benefits:

• It conditions your body to manage and clear lactic acid more effectively.

• Running at high intensity improves your coordination and, therefore, makes you a more efficient runner because you now spend less energy running at the same speed.

• It increases your VO2 max, ie, how well your body uses its oxygen, which, in turn, allows you to run faster for longer.

• It's funnier and less repetitive: you don't do the same thing over and over again.

• It better prepares your brain for challenging trainings or races.

It’s easy to draw the parallel with running a startup:

• Replace "lactic acid" with "stress".

• Replace "running", "runner" and "run" with "operating", "operator" and "operate".

• Replace VO2 max with “capacity to make strategic decisions”.

• Replace "trainings" with "weeks" and "races" with "milestones". And if it weren't for pure performances and efficiency, it would be for the fun of it. The same one that emerges in the unexpected and vanishes in the routine.

Running a company is not a marathon nor a sprint — much less a sprint as long as a marathon, as some started saying a few years back; it’s interval training.

The ones who tell you the opposite haven’t run in their life, either with their company or on their feet.