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0Alexi Pappas | TED • Nov 2025
I was one month out from my Olympic race in Rio, the 10,000 meters, when I couldn't hit my splits in a very important workout.
And I thought, what am I going to do? Am I good enough? I cried in lane one. Was I even worth it? If I couldn't do this in front of my five teammates, could I do it in front of thousands of people on the world stage?
I begged my watch to change its mind when my coach, who was also an Olympian, turned to me and said something calmly and confidently, "Take your watch off, " he said. "What?" "Take your watch off."
He never said this to me before, so I thought maybe I wasn't good enough. And he said, "No, Lex, it's the 'rule of thirds.'" "What's the 'rule of thirds'?" I asked. And then he told me the best advice I've ever gotten in my entire life.
The rule of thirds is that when you're chasing a dream or doing anything hard, you're supposed to feel good a third of the time, OK a third of the time and crappy a third of the time. If you felt too good all the time, it might be a sign that the ratio's off, and you're not pushing yourself enough to go beyond the boundaries of your potential and to the great unknown. You might need to dial things up.
But if you feel too bad all the time, that might mean that you are fatiguing or doing something unsustainable, and you might need to actually dial things back. If you're within this ratio, then the bad days aren't bad. They just mean you're chasing a dream.
That day, my coach had me take my watch off because it wasn't about pace, it was about effort. And I love my bad days now. So this rule has really changed my perspective that day and for the rest of my life. That day, I got back on the track, and I finished the workout giving 100 percent effort even when I didn't feel 100 percent fast.
And then I went to the Olympics, and I broke a national record, and I ran a personal best. And it was awesome. It was awesome. The Olympics is awesome. My coach was right, OK? He was right.
And this rule has not only helped me in my running, but it's how I live the rest of my life. It's how I wrote my book "Bravey," it's how I've directed three movies and it's even how I look at myself day to day, how I feel, how I think about my mood and my emotions.
OK, a few years after the Olympics -- I guess I wasn't done running. I went and entered this big ultramarathon. And that means it's over a marathon. And it was not just any race. It was the hardest race in the country, the Leadville 100-mile race in the Rocky Mountains. And it's 16 times the distance of my Olympic race, over 15,000 feet of elevation. And only half the people who start finish this race, statistically. You go all night, it's wild.
And so it's the opposite of the Olympics, right? It's not about pace or time or place. It's about being present and just continuing to move. And there was no coach out there to monitor my thirds. And during this race, I felt every feeling under the sun and under the moon. And you know, it was like I was a brave, capable voyager in one moment, and then I was barely hanging on in others.
A past me would have felt really down about the really hard moments. And there were some really hard moments in the woods. But now I understood this was a part of a bigger picture of success. Now in the same race, there was a point at which I felt like I couldn't run anymore. Like, I felt like I had metal rods in my legs, and I had to walk. And I actually walked the last 40 miles of that race through the night, all night. But I didn't give up.
And it really taught me to let go of control and just believe in the process and be really, really present. If we step back, the rule of thirds can help us see the picture of a bigger dream-chasing journey and evaluate and assess. And in a moment of pain, it can help us stay on our own team, even when there's no coach or anyone else there to tell you that it was meant to be this way.
Instead of asking yourself to be the best, ask yourself to try your best and don't give up. OK? It's a bad day. It's not a bad life. I think that that day that my coach taught me the rule of thirds must have been his good third, because that day he taught me how to understand and coach myself. Thank you.
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