Sometimes good is not enough

About a year ago, after a few months working at the company I work for, I changed seats in an office reorganisation and sat next to a guy I didn’t know very well. One Monday I asked the usual Monday office questions:

“How was your weekend – what did you get up to?
“I ran the London Marathon” he said un-enthusiastically
“Wow great! Did you finish?”
“Yeah I finished” he said despondently
“Well… well done! Did you raise some money for charity” I said trying to think of some London marathon type things to say
“No – I didn’t do that this time”
“Right, right so err... what time did you do?” I said thinking that is the kind of thing you say to marathon runners.
“2:24”

My brain starts spinning – I know that the winning time is normally about 2:09 or something and 2:24 doesn’t sound too far off it.

“Hmm – well... err... I don’t really know, like, a lot about marathons but isn’t that really really fucking fast?”
“It is not bad – it the time I got last time and the time before. The time 2:24 has become my nemesis”
“So where did that place you - it must be pretty high up?”
“Top 50”
“Top 50 what?”
“Runners”
“Wow!”
“Paula Radcliffe beat me” he said miserably
“Well Paula… she is a bit special plus she lost some weight crapping herself half way through – so that doesn’t really count” I said helpfully
“It wouldn’t have been so bad but 2 other women beat me too”
“Sign of the times my friend – but still, top 50 – if you were a football player you would be a millionaire by now.”

This didn’t seem to cheer him up. In fact it just added to his disillusionment.

“I guess I am just not good enough – even with full-time training I could only scrap another 5 minutes off and you need be under 2:15 regularly to make career out of it.”

“Lucky you got this place then…”

Since then his marathon running has taken a back seat but it turns out he is a highly skilled financial mathematician too.

“Hi, I am in a meeting talking about how we risk inflation swaps – can I conference you in?” I asked him once
“I’ll come over”
“Wait - we are on the other side of the building...” but before I finished the sentence he was knocking on the door.

I guess all skills are transferable.

There is a down side - there is a regular inter investment bank 6 mile “fun” run in the City which he wins every time and all the unopened boxes of engraved crystals are starting clog up our shared post in-box.