Marathon Training and a Full-Time Job? Step Right Up, Overachiever

Mike Grollman is a marathoner. “I’ve done them all. It’s a sickness,” says the 45-year-old president of Bell-Lap Communications, an entertainment marketing company in Torrance, Calif. Grollman has competed in the Chicago Marathon at least 15 times; he’s also run in London, New York, Boston, and Washington. When gearing up for a race, Grollman estimates he averages “65 to 70 miles per week.” He fits them in while working 80 hours, including weekends. Plus he has a wife and two sons who expect to see him occasionally. How does he fit it all in? “I don’t,” he says. “I end up apologizing a lot.”

There are 850 of the 26.22-mile races in the U.S., up from 300 in 2000. About 2 million people sign up for one each year in the U.S., and 487,000 of those runners crossed the finish line in 2012. (And yes, they’re all posting about it on your Facebook wall.) The list of chief executive officers who compete is long—Stephen Burke of NBCUniversal, Klaus Kleinfeld of Alcoa, and Larry Zimpleman of Principal Financial Group, among others—and their numbers are growing.