The Long Run: What Marathon Training Can Teach Us About Building Wealth

On Sunday, November 22, 2026, 20,000 runners will line up for the Philadelphia Marathon. Getting to the starting line will require months of training and a positive outlook: set a long-term goal, make steady progress, adjust for setbacks, and keep going. That same approach is central to the work of marathon sponsor TIAA, a leading financial services organization that provides retirement and wealth management services to people working in academic, medical, research, government, and nonprofit fields.

Long-term planning has been embedded in TIAA’s mission since Andrew Carnegie established the organization in 1918 with a $1 million grant to provide pensions and greater financial security for college and university educators. More than a century later, TIAA retains deep roots in higher education and health care. “We’re in the business of serving those who serve others,” David Nason, CEO of TIAA Wealth Management & Advice Solutions, said.

That history made partnering with the Philadelphia Marathon a natural fit, particularly in a city filled with universities, hospitals, researchers, educators, and health care workers. TIAA’s title sponsorship allowed organizers to add 3,000 entries to a race that had already sold out unusually early, bringing the total field to 20,000 runners.

Nason believes Americans should approach their financial futures much the same way athletes train for their goals.

“Planning for your financial future requires a series of small, sometimes boring decisions that prepare you for what’s ahead,” Nason said. “It’s the small, incremental decisions that you make for your financial future that prepare you for where you need to be. There are no shortcuts.”

The process rarely goes exactly according to plan. Katie Rabinowitz, who ran in last year’s marathon and is currently training for the New York City Marathon, was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer shortly after running her first marathon in 2023, at age 35. Now she schedules her training around cancer treatments and makes sure to listen to her body and rest. “You can’t always look at that big marathon distance,” Rabinowitz said. “Sometimes just a small, short run or stretching, or even a walk can be a benefit.”

It is a lesson that applies to financial planning as well: The future you want may feel impossibly distant, but you can still do something small today to start working toward it.

The Power of Getting Rich Slowly

The mythology of success tends to emphasize breakthroughs like a winning investment, a brilliant business idea, or a spectacular race performance. The reality is often more mundane. Most marathoners build toward 26.2 miles over months, accumulating ordinary weekday runs and weekend long runs that slowly grow longer and longer.

Wealth tends to accumulate in much the same way. “There are no quick fixes in life,” Nason, himself a runner, said. “There are no get-rich-quick schemes that work. The concept of marathon training is that slow and steady progress prepares you for adding the distances you need to do a marathon. The same is true with investing.”

“Slow and steady wins the race. Consistency is important. Discipline is huge.”

Small amounts saved and invested repeatedly can grow into something much larger. Beyond consistency, Nason said, the most important advantage is time.

“Time is the most powerful investment tool,” he said. “If you can start early, your investment compounds over time, and that compounding adds up to more than the initial investment.”

For example, $25 invested weekly from age 22 to 65 would grow to approximately $333,000, assuming an average annual return of 7%. Consistently saving a modest amount can be more impactful than waiting until a large sum becomes available.

“Slow and steady wins the race,” Nason said. “Consistency is important. Discipline is huge.”

Runners and the Long View

There may be more than a metaphor connecting running and long-term financial planning, though the evidence is preliminary. In an exploratory study of 40 half-marathon, marathon, and ultramarathon runners, those who placed a higher monetary value on running also tended to favor larger delayed monetary rewards over smaller immediate ones. The study did not establish that running caused this future-oriented outlook or examine actual saving behavior, but the findings suggest an association between how some runners value their sport and how they evaluate future financial rewards.

Running may also help us understand how to achieve future goals aside from simply valuing them. Research by NYU psychologists found an association between marathon completion and an implementation-focused mindset. Concentrating on how to achieve a goal was as important as understanding why it matters. “It’s just getting the runs in, you know, following the training plan,” Liz Coda, a coach who trains runners for the marathon, said. “Sometimes it’s tedious. And sometimes it’s just like something you have to check off your to-do list.”

That structured approach translates easily to financial planning, which can be broken down into unglamorous but important incremental actions: automating savings, determining monthly retirement contributions, and breaking a distant financial goal into manageable actions. In both pursuits, the payoff comes from learning to value what happens repeatedly over what happens only occasionally.

Pay Your Future Self First

Financial planners encourage clients to capture an employer’s retirement-plan match, save automatically, increase contributions when possible, and start early. Or, as Nason puts it, “Pay your future self first.”

Rather than focusing solely on a magic retirement number, Nason urges clients to envision the life they want. “What are you saving for? What life do you want to live?” he asks. A financial plan can then be built backward from that vision. “Make sure you think about your future self and your future self’s needs first,” he said.

A marathon plan works similarly, Coda said. First comes the imagined finish line. Then the runner works backward: What has to happen this month? This week? Today? A first marathon can appear “completely out of the realm of possibility,” she said. But after six months of small, incremental improvements, the seemingly impossible can suddenly seem doable.

“What are the small things that you need to do?” Coda said. “What are the little things that, again, over time, will add up?” Her philosophy applies just as well to financial planning: “Focus on the short term and let the long term take care of itself.”

A 78-Year Training Plan

Don Younkin, a 78-year-old pediatric neurologist, Philadelphia-area resident, and TIAA Wealth Management client, has been running since high school. This year, he plans to run two marathons: the Marine Corps Marathon and the Honolulu Marathon.

“One of the things I like about training for a marathon is that you have to set a goal months in advance and work toward that goal,” Younkin said. “The same thing applies to [a] career ... or to long-term savings.”

His financial goal is independence. Longevity runs in his family; his father lived past 100. “You want longevity to be a reward, not a risk,” Younkin said. Living longer creates its own financial challenges. “It’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “On the one hand, you want to have many decades of health and well-being. On the other hand, you have to be able to support that.”

Nason calls this “longevity literacy.” A runner would never deliberately prepare for only 15 miles of a 26.2-mile race, he said, yet people do the financial equivalent when they underestimate how long retirement may last. “You can’t save for a 30-year retirement with a 15-year plan,” Nason said.

For Younkin, decades of running and saving have become less like acts of discipline than parts of his identity. “At this point, I don’t even need discipline,” he said of running. “It doesn’t take a lot for me to put my running shoes on. It’s kind of the joy of my day.”

Financial habits can become similarly automatic. “For me, there’s a similar sense of consistency when it comes to financial planning,” Younkin said. “You can’t control everything, but you can create a certain pattern that will create a certain outcome.”

His advice for either pursuit: “Start slowly, and build up. That’s the way you do it.”

When the Plan Gets Interrupted

Marathons and financial markets do not always move according to plan. There are bad races and bear markets, as well as layoffs and illnesses.

Rabinowitz was first diagnosed with breast cancer at 32 and underwent a mastectomy and reconstruction. Shortly after turning 35 and completing her first marathon, she learned that the cancer had returned and metastasized. “This whole cancer diagnosis situation has really put a crimp in my life plans,” she said.

Running gave her structure while living with a long-term illness. She schedules long runs for Saturdays and builds other commitments around those runs, but taking on an experimental cancer treatment has meant her training has to be more flexible. On difficult days, she may stretch, walk, do Pilates or yoga, or simply rest.

“I try to be consistent,” she said. “That can mean light movement, stretching, walking or an easy run.”

Consistency does not require perfection. Missing a workout doesn’t erase months of training, just as a temporary market decline doesn’t necessarily invalidate a long-term financial plan. Sometimes the path changes while the goal remains. The challenge is to keep a long-term perspective when the immediate scoreboard is discouraging.

The Value of a Coach

There is another parallel between running and financial planning: Most people benefit from not trying to do it alone. “By having a coach, it keeps you accountable,” Coda said.

A coach doesn’t run the miles for an athlete, just as a financial adviser doesn’t make a client’s daily spending decisions. Both can build a plan, measure progress, adjust when circumstances change, and provide perspective when life becomes overwhelming. “A good financial adviser is really a life coach for your finances,” Nason said. “They keep you focused on the goal, help you make the steady decisions that add up over time, and keep you going when the plan gets hard. The value isn’t in picking the right investment. It’s in helping you stay on course for the life you want.”

Rabinowitz found another source of accountability by raising money for the American Association for Cancer Research as she trains for the Philadelphia Marathon. She set a goal of $10,000 but ultimately raised nearly $40,000, much of it through donations of $100 or less.

“I needed to do this not only for myself but for all these other people who have supported me,” she said. The experience reinforced two lessons: Every little bit adds up, and a long-term goal can gain meaning when other people become part of it.

Built for the Long Run

The strange thing about preparing for the future is that the beneficiary is someone you don’t entirely know: your future self. That person may be 45 or 85, working or retired, traveling, spending time with grandchildren, running marathons, or cheering from the sidelines. Saving money requires caring about that person before you become them. So does taking care of your health.

Younkin has spent decades considering both saving and running. “For me there’s a similar discipline and a sense of consistency,” he said.

At 78, Younkin’s future still holds ambitious plans. When he turns 80, he hopes to run a marathon with his five grandchildren, with them covering the distance as a relay and everyone meeting at the finish line. “That’s the goal,” he said. It is also part of why he has spent decades saving: to remain independent, enjoy his family, and have the resources to live the life he has prepared for. The return on that investment won’t simply be a number on a bank statement. It will be the ability to arrive at the finish line with those he loves, arms stretched high.

Lucy Danziger is a journalist, an author, and the former editor-in-chief of Self Magazine, Women’s Sports & Fitness, and The Beet.