Burnout Isn’t a Capacity Problem, It’s a Design Problem

What Marathon Training Taught Me About Sustainable Leadership

At the end of last year, I made a simple but significant decision.

2026 would be a zone 2 year. 

It started with running. I’m training for the New York Marathon again, but this time with one clear rule: my heart rate stays under 70 percent of my max. Zone 2 only. I am going EP geek to test out the impact of doing this from the bottom up. No pushing into red zones. No chasing pace. No proving anything.

Last year, my nervous system was cooked. Years of cumulative load, running multiple businesses, leading teams, parenting young kids, navigating perimenopause, and then layering intense marathon training on top. The signs were there: anxiety, fluctuating weight, feeling wired but tired. Clear indicators of elevated cortisol.

Zone 2, physiologically, is where the body predominantly uses fat as fuel. It’s sustainable, yep we have unlimited supplies of fat. There’s plenty of energy available. Because of this, you don’t need to constantly refuel or recover from depletion. When you go into higher intensities, you start to burn carbohydrates, which our body only stores in small quantities. Meaning that when we work in this zone we need to replenish, we need to rest and recover a lot more, on top of a compromised immune and nervous system. Ok in small quantities but not all the time.

Early in my career, I worked in weight management and used blood lactate testing to ensure people were truly exercising in this zone. I loved it! So I am fully geeking out again now, using my 44yr old self as a guinea pig, getting baseline scans, bloods, and even using a blood lactate monitor to see how efficient my body can become at a lower heart rate. It is going to test my mindset and ego more than my body!

However, what has really surprised me was how clearly this principle applied to the rest of my life.

When you’re running, it’s obvious when you’re out of zone. Your breathing changes. Your heart rate spikes. You know you can’t sustain it.

 In work and leadership, it’s much harder to identify.

So instead of focusing on individual days or busy weeks, I zoomed out. I mapped out my goals over the entire year and broke it into quarters and asked myself one simple question:

Is this designed to keep me in zone 2 overall?

I then stress-tested the plan with ChatGPT, not for productivity, but for energy. I have used Chat GPT a lot over the last 12 months. My whole life is in there, so I leaned into all that information and put my year plan in and got it to give me some feedback.l We looked at where the pressure points were, what would quietly push me into zone 3 or 4, and what was still relying on me when it didn’t need to.

What became clear very quickly was that a lot of my energetic load wasn’t coming from the amount of work I was doing. It was coming from ambiguity, decision making and unaligned success pillars.

Unclear roles. Too many projects touching me. Too many decisions defaulting to me because I hadn’t clearly stepped out of them.

So I got very honest. I defined exactly what I own this year, what I delegate, and what I deliberately remove myself from.

Not because I don’t care, but because caring without clarity was costing me my nervous system.

Once my role became clear, delegation became easier. Projects had owners. Decisions had homes. My calendar finally matched my responsibilities AND my values.

This is something I see constantly in educators, allied health professionals, and small business owners, especially those transitioning from working in the business to leading it, simply burning out or moving into leadership positions. 

Zone 2 leadership doesn’t mean you never work hard. It means intensity has a place, and recovery is built in, not bolted on after burnout.

Children need intensity to build and develop. As adults and leaders, our job is different. We’re protecting our energy, our health, and our capacity to lead well.

This year, I’m not just training in zone 2. 

I’m living there.

Reflection:

If you mapped your year in quarters and looked at it through an energy lens, where are you unintentionally living outside your zone 2? Are you setting yourself up for success or burnout.