When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink

Author:Daniel H. Pink [Pink, Daniel H.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

ENERGIZE: WHY WE KICK HARDER NEAR (SOME) FINISH LINES

Chronological decades have little material significance. To a biologist or physician, the physiological differences between, say, thirty-nine-year-old Fred and forty-year-old Fred aren’t vast—probably not much different from those between Fred at thirty-eight and Fred at thirty-nine. Nor do our circumstances diverge wildly in years that end in nine compared with those that end in zero. Our life narratives often progress from segment to segment, akin to the chapters of a book. But the actual story doesn’t abide by round numbers any more than novels do. After all, you wouldn’t assess a book by its page numbers: “The one-hundred-sixties were super exciting, but the one-hundred-seventies were a little dull.” Yet, when people near the end of the arbitrary marker of a decade, something awakens in their minds that alters their behavior.

For example, to run a marathon, participants must register with race organizers and include their age. Alter and Hershfield found that 9-enders are overrepresented among first-time marathoners by a whopping 48 percent. Across the entire life span, the age at which people were most likely to run their first marathon was twenty-nine. Twenty-nine-year-olds were about twice as likely to run a marathon as twenty-eight-year-olds or thirty-year-olds.

Meanwhile, first-time marathon participation declines in the early forties but spikes dramatically at age forty-nine. Someone who’s forty-nine is about three times more likely to run a marathon than someone who’s just a year older.

What’s more, nearing the end of a decade seems to quicken a runner’s pace. People who had run multiple marathons posted better times at age twenty-nine and thirty-nine than during the two years before or after those ages.2

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