I hope you and your family had a great Christmas!

I cooked this year for my family and the extended crew. While working in the kitchen, my mind went back to an early chapter in my career, when I worked at Bain & Company.

One of the most unexpected things Bain became known for wasn’t a corporate turnaround or a private equity deal. It was Thanksgiving dinner.

Each year, the firm published a detailed, time-optimized plan for cooking a Thanksgiving meal. The idea was simple: treat dinner like a management problem. Work backward from the serving time. Identify the critical path. Buy ingredients efficiently. Sequence every task.

It caught on in a big way. The article ran in the Wall Street Journal, and people loved it. It was practical, a little obsessive, and oddly comforting. Proof that even something as chaotic as a holiday meal could be planned and executed well.

Runners know something about time management too.

Actually, runners are some of the best time managers I know. Not because we have more time than anyone else, but because we don’t.

The day is already full. Work. Family. Commitments. Then you carve out an hour to run. But an hour of running is really more than that. There’s prep beforehand. Recovery afterward. Strength work. Mobility. Sleep. Nutrition. None of it happens by accident.

To be a runner—any kind of runner—you have to become intentional with your time. Running forces you to respect the clock. It sharpens your ability to make small windows count. Running doesn’t give you more hours in the day. It helps you use the ones you already have better.

Time is the one thing none of us get more of. Every hour saved is an hour you can spend with family, with friends, or doing the things you care about.

Of course, you already know this.

You’re a runner.

Happy holidays, and best wishes for your running in the year ahead.