"On Sunday 15 March 2026, I swam in running shoes and ran in a wetsuit." On a hot summer morning, I completed a 6km swim–run race at Gordon's Bay. But the real challenge wasn't the distance. The most uncomfortable part was the mental shift of doing everything "wrong."
Swimming in running shoes. Running in a wetsuit. With water-logged shoes sloshing with every step. What events like this remind me is that endurance is rarely about fitness alone. It's about how quickly your mind adapts when conditions are uncomfortable, unfamiliar or inefficient.
Those moments are what I call your Kilometre 70 moment — the point where your mind starts negotiating with the discomfort. In sport. In business. In life. The people who succeed are rarely the most comfortable. They're the ones who train their mind to keep moving forward anyway.
If you're a leader, you've had that moment. When AI is an unknown quantity that needs to be learnt, or when a company merger changes everything. That's your Kilometer 70. Use the three-part method:
- Diagnose: Name the breaking point without drama.
- Identify Stability: Realize this is a different race. Calculate the cost of the weighted shoes (heavy) vs the wetsuit (hot). Stability over bravado.
- Reframe: How can I adapt and learn a new skill to cope with this curve ball?
There is always another plan, and it often expands our thinking out of the comfort zone and inadvertently sharpens our axe and life experience!
Lara Kaplan
Kilometer 70 Blog™
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