Summary: Eric Allen and George Wu are two runners that have taken their professional academic pursuits and put them to work in analyzing runners and their performances in the marathon. Eric holds a PhD in Business Administration and is an assistant professor of accounting at USC Marshall School of Business. George Wu holds a PhD in Decision Sciences and is a Harvard educated professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where he studies the psychology of individual, managerial, and organizational decision making; decision analysis; and cognitive biases in bargaining and negotiation. Eric and George recently teamed up on research along with Patricia Dechow and Devin Pope that examined finishing times from an amazing database of over 9.5 million marathon finishes, taken from marathons around the world dating back to 1970 including the 50 largest US marathons, plus virtually all North American marathons since 2000, and other major races from every continent. They published their findings in July 2014 in a paper entitled Reference-Dependent Preferences: Evidence from Marathon Runners. The result of their research is a fascinating look into how runners finish the marathon and bunch up ahead of round number finishing times and how runners set their racing goals. George also has conducted additional research with others focusing on goals as reference points in marathon running and harnessing optimism – how eliciting goals improves performance providing new insights into how you might approach your own goal setting. This episode will dive into this fascinating research including: A look at the distribution of millions of marathon finishing times - what it tells us and means for you The psychology behind round number goals and the power of loss aversion Why two runners finishing within seconds of each other can feel completely different about a race outcome Data that shows how setting too easy of a race goal can limit performance Why you should not wait to set your marathon goal until the day before the race - and when to do so instead Why your optimism declines as the race gets closer If setting a goal too ambitious and falling short has any negative consequences How to harness the power of setting goals for your marathon that are likely to elicit your best performance Coaching Minute How to set a year long plan to make this your best year of running yet. Success Quote "That's what our training is for, we practice not panicking, we practice breathing, we practice looking directly at the thing that scares us until we stop flinching, we practice overriding our can't." -Kristin Armstrong Links Mentioned in the Show Reference-Dependent Preferences: Evidence from Marathon Runners - Full text of their joint study ericjallen.net - Eric's website George Wu - Faculty Profile
