Harry Styles is rumoured to be planning his tour dates around his marathons. Image credit: © ANSA via ZUMA Press

Not content with being a multiple grammy award winner, actor and global pop star, rumour has it that Harry Styles is planning his sold-out ‘Together, Together’ tour around the world marathons. 

He famously ran the 2025 Berlin Marathon in an impressive sub-three-hour time (2:59:13) under the alias “Sted Sarandos,” and now seems like he might be opting for a World Marathon Majors medal with suspicious gaps in his tour schedule that appear to align with several of the world’s largest marathons – including Berlin’s again. 

If the rumours are true, this means Styles will be training while touring. It draws to mind Taylor Swift, who would sing the entire near three-hour setlist of her Eras Tour while running on the treadmill.  

Harry Styles is clearly very goals orientated, whether that’s beating his marathon record or putting on the best show possible.  

What makes his approach interesting is that his life is temporarily organised around a fixed, non-negotiable goal.  

From beginner to marathon runner 

For the average person, 16 weeks is long enough to go from someone who can comfortably run a 5km to a marathon runner. Following a rigorous training plan, it’s enough time to completely turn your fitness around. 

During this intense training period, runners often have a one-set mindset, based around long runs, intervals, tempo, easy runs, pacing, nutrition, and recovery. There’s one goal, and everything is factored in – sleep, eating, movement.

The result of this regimen is a complete transformation in their capabilities – both physically and mentally, enabling them to succeed in accomplishing a steep ambition. 

What if we applied this approach to goal setting in our professional development? If 16 weeks is enough to go from 5km to 42km, it’s enough to achieve your one big goal for the year.  

Step 1: Set your big goal  

The first step is to decide your “marathon”. The big goal you want to achieve. It could be a product launch, a rebrand, hitting a sales target or completing your dissertation. Perhaps it’s something you’ve been putting off. Whatever it is, make sure you set a date in your calendar that’s 16 weeks away.  

You should also aim high. Research from University of Maryland professor, Edwin Locke and University of Toronto professor, Gary Tatham, found that there is a linear relationship between goal difficulty and performance. In other words, the higher the goal, the higher the performance, provided the individual has the ability and commitment.  

Goals like this, the researchers find, work best when they’re specific, and broken down into smaller, manageable and incremental steps to keep you motivated and prevent you from becoming overwhelmed.  

Step 2: Assign periods of Deep Work – aka your Long Run

To that end, devise yourself a training plan.  

When marathon training, if you’re following a plan, you will have a certain number of miles or kilometres you have to run each week. This will increase over time.  

The first week, for example, you may start out with 20km total – broken down into a 5km interval, a 6k ‘easy’ run and a 9km long run. By week five, then, you may be running 38km -split across a 9km tempo, 9km easy run, and a 20km long run. By breaking in down into steps, improvement happens quickly and is more noticeable.

When goal setting, Graham Ross, Continuous Improvement Manager at The University of Strathclyde, recommends assigning yourself periods of ‘Deep Work’.  

Deep Work is the idea of dedicating your time and energy to one task at a time, allowing you to make progress and stay focused on the task at hand. This Deep Work can be scheduled in your calendar – the equivalent of a Saturday morning Long Run.

Before setting out on a long run, you may plan out your gels, your electrolytes and your water stops, to make sure you’re properly fuelled. Prepare for your deep work periods in the same way – setting your workplace up in advance with everything you need.

“Eliminate any distractions that can prevent you from staying focused on the task. This can include turning off notifications, closing out of web browsers, and finding a quiet place to work,” advises Ross. 

If Harry Styles is training during a world tour, his marathon preparation likely depends on the same principle as Deep Work. He needs to carve out that protected time to train with minimal distractions, and that will be prioritised above everything else.  

3. Remember, short chunks of work are just as important 

A runner’s favourite run of the week might be the long run, but shorter interval, tempo and easy runs are just as important. These sessions build speed, efficiency and consistency. Don’t forget about the smaller, everyday actions that will help you reach your goal.  

According to the University of Chicago’s goal gradient theory (an update on psychologist Clark Hull’s findings in 1932), people tend to work harder as they get closer to a goal. The researchers tested this with reward programmes ‘buy 10 coffees, get one free’. They found that customers bought coffee more often and stayed engaged with the programme the closer they were to earning the free coffee.  

However, they also found that even the illusion of being closer to a goal makes people work faster – for example, customers given a stamp card with a couple of “bonus” stamps completed it faster than those given a regular card with no stamps. 

In context of achieving a big goal then, setting regular, smaller tasks provides regular evidence of progress, which keeps motivation high across the 16-week period. For Harry Styles, this will mean showing up for unglamourous, sometimes rainy runs, in between shows. 

4. Build in recovery  

When you’re training for a marathon, rest days are compulsory. After all – if you don’t choose your rest day, the rest day will choose you.

When you’re working hard to achieve your professional goal, burnout is inevitable if you don’t rest. In practice this might look like prioritising sleep, scheduling lighter weeks every four to five weeks. Similarly, while following a training plan, runners too, will have ‘deload weeks’ which reduce the mileage, allowing their bodies to rest.  

If you’re wondering what the most productive way to rest and replenish is, new research from the University of California, San Francisco proposed a truly restorative state, called ‘deep rest’ – a distinct physiological and psychological state that goes beyond ordinary relaxation and supports cellular recovery and long-term health. Deep rest is a state in which the body and mind are not just relaxed, but genuinely safe, calm, and restorative on a cellular level.

“Deep rest is something our bodies need and deserve,” says one of the study’s researchers, Elissa Epel, a professor of psychiatry and vice chair of psychology. “With it, we improve our chances for healthy longevity.”

While meditation and yoga are common methods of achieving deep rest, many activities can signal safety and calm, including sensory focus, knitting, painting and other mindful hobbies. Or, perhaps you can try out Harry Styles’ Calm sleep series. 

These activities all encourage the body to enter the deep rest state by calming the nervous system and reducing stress anticipation.

5. Track your progress  

Marathon runners monitor pace, mileage, heart rate and perceived effort throughout training.  

Research by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer at Harvard Business School found that the single biggest motivator at work is a sense of progress – even small wins significantly boost motivation and engagement. Focusing only on the final outcome can obscure this progress and increase the likelihood of disengagement. 

Keeping track of the number of hours of focused work you complete, the key tasks associated with your goal and monitoring consistency, will all help you to achieve your big goal.  

Persistence is better than perfection. 

The end goal 

Sixteen weeks from now, the finish line might be a marathon medal, a product launch, or a dissertation submission. You can sit back and admire all of your hard work. For Harry Styles, it may be another world-class performance, whether this is on stage or on the road.  

Either way, real transformation comes from treating ambition like a marathon, not a sprint. 

By, Chloë Lane

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