I get asked the question a lot - why did you name your company 20Mile Technologies? Why not 26Mile? Why not 2Mile? What's so important about 20 miles?
If you've ever trained for a marathon, you know exactly how important 20 miles is.
During the summer of 2007 I was training for my second marathon. I wasn't happy with my full-time job at the time. I was traveling, spending weeks away from my family, and the work wasn't particularly interesting or rewarding. I needed a change, but was afraid to give up the stability of a regular paycheck and benefits. Thankfully, long weekend runs with friends (and occasionally alone) helped to provide the clarity that I was searching for.
Ultimately, my mind was made up after a mid-September 20-mile run. It was a classic long training run - a friend joined me for 4 miles in the middle, but for most of it I was alone - no iPod, no distractions, only me with my nagging doubts.
At mile 14, I wanted to give up. I could take a left instead of a right and be home in 5 minutes, but somehow I convinced my legs to keep moving - kept putting one foot in front of the other. 60 minutes later I had finished the run and made a major life decision. If I could overcome the self doubt and finish that run, I could take the leap of faith and start my own company. Those 20 miles taught me that I could do anything.
Ironically, the challenges of starting a company have drastically reduced my running opportunities. Over the past two years I've started training for and ultimately backed out of two more marathons. However, now that the company is stable, and I have four people to help with the workload, I've started to run more regularly. I'm even trying to convince @20MileSue and @Webrgp to join me for some early evening runs from the office. My goal is to have them join me for a 20 mile run in the Fall. I'll let you know how the plan works out ... I'm confident it will.
Dave Fravel
December 2010
