Pushing to Mach 10

December 2025

I was on a run today and I had a revelation. These are the best runs, when you’re out in nature and something of an epiphany comes to you.

It’s the scene in Top Gun Maverick where Tom Cruise tries to achieve Mach 10 speed ahead of schedule to prevent their Air Force program from being shut down. He’s in his aircraft against all directives pushing to Mach 10. He achieves Mach 9 and then it’s a slow climb to 10. Once at 10, he stubbornly pushes just a bit further to see what the aircraft can handle…10.1, 10.2, 10.3 and then BOOM, the aircraft explodes, he ejects, and the scene is over.

I would like this scene to be the theme of my 2026.

What I mean by this is that I would like my next year to embrace more challenges of pushing just a little bit more to see what is over the hump—what is beyond the limit. This might seem a little morbid considering that in the Top Gun example his plane explodes, but had he not shown his flex of courage and skill the rest of the movie wouldn’t have played out. I’m inspired by the persistence to go the distance, the push towards something unknown.

I’m a runner. In the last few years, I’ve really slowed down on my running. I used to lack the time, but recently I’ve lacked energy to keep the high intensity workouts going consistently. I have felt burnt out. I’ve still been running, but only 1-2 miles and then walking the remaining portion (whatever that may be for the day). I’ve seen the online posts and influencers praising the weighted vests and more fat burn by only walking. I embraced this during my slump and used that as a validation to go easy on myself while still making gains. I’m now not sure I agree with this approach for myself. I don’t want to discount any of that information, but I’m not sure it’s for me. If I’m being honest with myself, I feel best when I’m physically spent. I feel best when I’ve pushed myself hard (either in speed, distance, exertion). I sleep better, I feel better, and I’m WAY more motivated to do other things throughout the day. Those are my best days. My very best days are if I’ve had a long full day of exertion, like hiking, skiing, or running followed by other activities.

As we neared Thanksgiving my husband and I decided to do our own Turkey Trot, 3.1miles/5k vs an organized race. Leading up to this I started pushing my runs beyond the typical 2 miles to get closer to the 3.1 mile mark. By Thanksgiving I increased to 3 miles. I have now done many runs at that mileage. I just needed some motivation to get there and get out of that rut of the typical 2 miles. Now that I’m there I won’t do anything less!  I feel much better only having built up to just a little bit more. It wasn’t that hard, but why hadn’t I done it before? Why did it take like a full 1-2  years to break free from where I was at?

 This experience revealed to me how critical it is just to get over that initial hump. As a runner, I’ve been down this road many times to build back to longer distance running, but I’m seeing the “hump” and moving out of the “slump” through a new lens. I began to wonder how this translates in all aspects of life. That initial hump…

That hump is everywhere. It’s the thing you are putting off or that scary thing of starting something new. It’s cleaning out old things, starting a resolution, letting go of a habit, making doctor appointments, going down your bucket list, dealing with something overwhelming, painful, etc. It occurred to me that once you get started on whatever it is, you must persist/start for a bit, then push HARD (like with some real GRIT) to get over the hump to see those initial rewards. The “push hard to get over the hump” is the tricky part because it’s unclear exactly where that is. For 2 years now I’ve sat at the 1-2 mile mark running and then walking the rest. I felt fine, but not great. Recently pushing to 3.1 showed me that I’m fully capable, but I’ve just been sitting in the comfort zone for way too long. In my running example pushing over the hump required discomfort. It required being “over” my current state, mentally and physically pushing myself for a few weeks, and being consistent. The epiphany for me is “hey, why don’t apply this same tactic elsewhere in my life”? I have a feeling it translates.