The short answer
Three lessons from the trail translate directly to leading a mortgage team: pacing (start slower than you want), repair (fix problems while they're small), and decision quality under fatigue (the calls you make at mile 80 define the race).
Pacing: start slower than you want
Every ultrarunner has gone out too hot once. Once. After that, you learn that the runner who looks pedestrian for the first 20 miles is the one who passes you at mile 70.
Mortgage leaders make this mistake constantly — coming into a new role, a new quarter, a new market shift, and burning every ounce of intensity in the first six weeks. The team sees it, mirrors it, and breaks together. Set a pace your team can hold for 12 months, not 12 weeks.
Repair on the move
On a 100-mile race, small problems become race-enders if you ignore them. A hot spot on your foot becomes a blister, then an open wound, then the medic tent. The runners who finish are the ones who stop for two minutes at mile 30 to deal with a hot spot.
Leadership equivalent: the small interpersonal friction, the underperformer who's started to disengage, the process that's almost broken. Address it now, in two minutes, before it becomes the thing that pulls you out of the race.
Decisions get worse when you're tired
At mile 80, your brain is making 30%-quality decisions. This is well-documented in endurance science. The successful runners have pre-decided everything they can — what they'll eat, when they'll walk, what they'll do if it rains.
In leadership, the equivalent is: don't make big calls during the hardest week of the quarter. Pre-decide your responses to common situations. Have rules for hiring, exits, and reorgs that you set when you're rested.
Walk the hills
Top ultrarunners walk the steep hills. It's faster overall. They look weak; they finish first.
Leadership translation: sometimes the move is to slow down, hand off, or take a quiet week. The leaders who refuse to ever slow down are the ones who blow up by Q3.
The aid station mentality
Every 5–10 miles, ultrarunners stop at an aid station: refuel, check the body, get warm or cool, reset. They don't view it as weakness — it's the structure that lets them keep going.
Build aid stations into your year: real PTO, real coaching, real time off the grid. Without them, the wheels come off in month 9.
FAQ
What's the single biggest leadership lesson from ultrarunning?
You can't win the race in the first hour, but you can lose it. Pace.
How do you handle the "low" moments?
You know they're coming. You eat, you walk, you keep moving. You don't make decisions in the dark moment.
Do you actually use this with your team?
Constantly. The vocabulary — pacing, repair, aid stations — is part of how my team talks now.
David Colgan is a mortgage industry leader, ultrarunner, and speaker. See his endurance leadership keynote →