Michigan's "First Gentleman" Dan Mulhern joined his erstwhile wife, Gov. Jennifer Granholm, in the first-ever Labor Day Mackinac Bridge Run, held in conjunction with the long-standing annual Bridge Walk, Sept. 6. Mulhern, training to run the Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Bank Marathon Oct. 24, comments on running's lessons in this "Reading for Leading" essay, available with others at A href="http://michigan.gov/ firstgentleman/">http://michigan.gov/firstgentleman/.

Three months ago, I had not run longer than eight miles - indeed, that distance in last summer's heat, released not just sweat but thoughts of doom and cardiac arrest! On the way to a goal of 26.2 miles in October, I ran 15 miles this morning. It produced neither doom nor many thoughts of it. On that, I offer four thoughts on running, life and leadership:

1. Many barriers that seem unpassable are purely mental. For instance, there is some number of miles you think you could not run (or roll or swim). Perhaps it is a quarter mile, or a mile, perhaps three, 10 or 20. You are not sure what would happen if you tried - although when I raise this topic in conversation people frequently say, "I would die" - but you just know you could not do it.

I did not believe that such barriers are made in the mind. But I was astonished with the contrast between my long-held mental limitations and my real-life experience, after I finished a half-marathon in Ann Arbor this summer. Afterward, it seemed the 13 miles was like the big paper with the "M" on it, that the Michigan football team crashes through to begin a game. Man, does it look REAL. Yet, in the end there was no substance to the barrier.

The analogy should be obvious: we all have barriers, e.g., raising a difficult issue with our spouse or boss, speaking in public, writing an article, or quitting a job we hate - that are really made out of the poster paper of our minds, nothing more. But the only way to know is to try running through them!

2. On a typical run of, let's say, eight miles, I think about the approaching marathon anywhere from five to 500 times. I imagine my weariness, multiply distances and times in my head, and keep coming back to the fraction, e.g., "this is just 1/8 of a marathon. Geeeeez." I wonder, "(how) will I do it?" In other words, I burn the energy of the present moment on anxiety about the future!

I can only run here, now, this step, now the next (this) step, and now the next (this) step - yet I worry for the future. My feet are engaged with the road of this present moment, while my mind is spinning on that air of some unknown future. Both are burning energy.

On a bad day, I am like a terribly-inefficient power plant that is allowing energy to escape all over. So, too, at work: you can only be on this call, writing this memo, talking to this staff person. And as your mind wanders off in anxiety about the future, you deplete your energy for the only thing you can work on: now.

3. I am struck by how much running distances is like the work of writing. The voice that whispers out on the trail, "you've done enough, pack it in for today," is the fraternal twin of the one that takes me out of my writing chair to the tea pot, telephone, email or just about anywhere else.

Literally, plodding is like sitting in a staff meeting, reading a boring deposition or making 20 more sales calls. And the antidote: you just put one foot after the other. The quiet discipline of simple work.

4. Two dimensions of running are so powerfully helpful in bringing energy and insight to lead that I want to recommend running (or a similar activity) for your consideration. First, after mastering a thousand things as a kid - crawling, pulling up, walking! making a word! the alphabet, adding, riding a bike, reading, dancing - what challenges do we get to blow through as adults? Yet what can compare to a great new challenge when it comes to regaining the humility learning requires and gaining the power that comes with crashing through seeming barriers?

As Kouzes and Posner say, "only challenge produces the opportunity for greatness." Too many of us quit seeking greatness ... with all its great lessons.

The second reason I recommend running or walking is that they offer a chance for sustained reflection. And in this zany email, beeper, blackberry world, we all need some sustained time to refresh, to think, to step back and step away.

I have no business in my busy life training for a marathon, but the time spent on the road helps me enormously to be more focused in the time spent away from it. Where might you find such a chance to reflect?

Consider this a challenge. And a challenge to reflect. MR