The Miles Before the Finish Line: Why the Journey Shapes Us More Than the Destination

In two weeks, my family and I will be in Miami with Chai Lifeline, and I will, iy”H, be running the Miami Half Marathon. For us it’s not just a race or a trip. Being with Chai Lifeline is deeply personal and the staff and the families have been part of our lives.

As I train for this race, I’m constantly reminded that marathon training has a way of teaching life lessons whether you ask for them or not. Some of them are obvious. Small, consistent steps really do turn into miles and belief matters more than we think.  If you believe you can do it, you’re already further along than you realize.

But the lesson that keeps returning, run after run, is something deeper: learning to value the journey itself, not just the destination.

When I focus only on race day—the finish line, the clock, the medal—the process can feel overwhelming and intimidating. The miles feel too long, the schedule too demanding, the expectations too heavy. But when I shift my focus to the run I’m on right now, everything changes. Then, I focus only on one step, one mile, and one day.

Running teaches you, very quickly, that your body will often ask you to stop long before you’re actually done. And if you listen carefully, you discover something humbling and empowering at the same time: your mind is stronger than your body. Even when you feel spent, there is more in you and you can always push past limits that you once assumed were fixed.

This idea, that the journey matters, is an important Torah idea. Strikingly, the Torah never explicitly names Yerushalayim in the entire Chumash. Instead, it repeatedly refers to it simply as “haMakom,” the place. One explanation given is profound: the Torah is teaching us not to become fixated solely on the destination. Even the holiest destination in the world should not eclipse the meaning of the journey that leads there.

The Torah makes this point even more explicit in Sefer Bamidbar, where it carefully lists every stop the Jewish people made in the wilderness. Why record every encampment? Rav Aharon Lichtenstein explains that while it is important for a person to plan for the future, it becomes spiritually dangerous when we begin to experience the present as nothing more than a stepping stone to what comes next. Each moment has intrinsic significance and each stage of the journey matters in its own right.

Running makes this impossible to ignore. Training is full of highs and lows. Some runs feel strong and smooth; others feel heavy and discouraging. We feel progress one week and regression the next. And race day itself carries no guarantees. To run is to accept risk.  It’s the risk that you might fall short, that your body won’t cooperate, that your goal won’t materialize the way you imagined.

But that risk is not a flaw; it’s the point. Meaningful goals demand vulnerability. If there is no possibility of failure, the goal was never big enough to change you. Runners experience this not just on race day, but every week in training, as we ride the constant ebb and flow of strength and weakness.

In 2020,  Chris Nikic entered the cold waters of Panama City, Florida, to begin an Ironman triathlon. Sixteen hours and forty-six minutes later, long after darkness had fallen, he crossed the finish line. An Ironman features a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a full 26.2-mile marathon run, totaling 140.6 miles, completed sequentially in one day. 

On its own, that is an extraordinary accomplishment.  But Chris is no ordinary athlete. He has Down syndrome, and that night he became the first person with Down syndrome ever to complete an Ironman, a feat that earned him a place in the Guinness World Records.

I recently watched a short documentary produced about Chris.  When the interviewer asked him how he did it, he didn’t talk about the finish line, the medals, or even the race itself.  He spoke about one simple idea that guided him throughout his training: get 1% better every day.

He didn’t worry about whether he could sustain the training forever. He didn’t dwell on the exhaustion or the setbacks that would inevitably come. He focused on today: today’s workout, today’s effort, or today’s small step forward.  On longer runs, when my legs feel heavy and the miles stretch out in front of me, I now think about Chris and about the power of focusing on nothing more than appreciating each step that I’m taking right now.

This mindset reshapes how we think about everyday life and even how we learn Torah. As we begin a new masechta, Menachos, learning Daf Yomi is not about finishing or reaching a siyum. It’s about committing to show up every single day, one daf at a time. The power of Daf Yomi is not in how it ends, but in the quiet discipline of consistency, in building a relationship with Torah through daily effort.

With our children, it means pushing back against a culture that tells them their worth is defined by grades and scores, and helping them appreciate the process of learning itself, the effort, the struggle, and the discovery that happens every day in the classroom.  At work, it means refusing to live only for the paycheck or the next promotion, and choosing instead to find meaning, pride, and purpose in the work we do each day. And in life, it means accepting the truth that we rarely know where the road will lead. If that’s the case, then the only real choice we have is to live the journey fully. 

I am honored to be running with Chai Lifeline. It is a cause that means a great deal to me and to my family.  I am grateful to our dear friends, Debra and Sruli Ehrenberg for organizing Team Esti and to my good friend, Moshe Turk, who runs Team Lifeline.  Of course, I am excited and hopeful to finish.  But I know that the real transformation is happening long before I ever see the finish line.

That transformation is found in the quiet miles, in the discipline of showing up day after day, and in learning to embrace the struggle, the setbacks, and the growth that unfolds step by step. Those miles shape me far more than race day ever could.

Life works the same way. We don’t grow only through outcomes, titles, or moments of arrival. We grow through daily effort, through the patience to stay present, and through the courage to keep moving forward even when the end feels far away. Every journey has significance. Every stage matters. And if we learn to honor the process, we won’t just reach destinations, we’ll become different people along the way.

To join Team Esti in helping raise vital funds for Chai Lifeline's critical services, visit: https://www.teamlifeline.org/Miami26/Team/View/216317/Team-Esti