No One Claps at Mile 17: Why the Middle Miles Matter Most
I didn’t grow up watching cricket.
In fact, before writing this newsletter, I probably couldn’t have diagrammed a wicket with a Wikipedia article and a ten-minute head start. I’m still not sure I can. If I had I’d probably have titled this edition something more like “No One Claps for your 47th Run.”
But when I started searching for a historical figure who embodied the power of quiet, sustained greatness — someone who carried the weight of purpose through the dark of night and into the morning without fanfare, noise, or shortcuts — every path led to the same name:
Sachin Tendulkar.
He didn’t dominate with power — he endured with poise. He didn’t chase noise — he built momentum. And what he became, over time, wasn’t just a great player but a generational symbol of perseverance once described as “Pele and Maradona put together.”
Quick sidebar if you didn’t grow up with cricket:
Cricket looks a little like baseball… in that there’s a ball, and a bat, and you hit the ball with the bat to try to score runs. From there everything else is more or less radically different. A few key terms:
- Run: a point scored by hitting the ball and running between two wickets (like bases).
- Over: a set of six consecutive pitches (“balls”) bowled by the same player.
- Test match: can last up to five days and rewards stamina and strategy.
- Crease: the line the batter must defend — their protected zone.
- Century: scoring 100 runs in a single innings (and yes, innings is both singular and plural in cricket) — a major milestone.
- Bouncer: a short-pitched delivery aimed to rise at the batter’s chest or head.
Tendulkar made his international debut for India at the record-setting age of 16 years and 205 days, facing the legendary Pakistani fast-bowling attack. In the fourth and final test of the series, a bowler named Waqar Younis fired a bouncer that smashed into Tendulkar’s teenage face. Bloodied and dazed, he wiped the crimson streak from his nose, picked up his bat, and scored 57 runs. That moment set the tone for everything that followed.
Over the next 24 years, he faced the world’s fastest bowlers, carried the hopes of over a billion fans, and became the most beloved batsman in history. He played a record 200 Test matches, scored more than 34,000 international runs (no one else has even 29,000), and tallied 100 centuries (the next closest batsman has 71).
But his long list of records don’t tell the whole story.
Between 2011 and 2012, Tendulkar went nearly two years without scoring a century. For a man nicknamed Little Master whose shoulders bore the weight of an entire nation’s dreams, it was a glaring drought. Commentators speculated. Fans worried. Critics pounced.
Still, he laced up. Took guard. Faced the next ball. He once said:
People throw stones at you. You convert them into milestones.
When he finally reached his 100th century — against Bangladesh in 2012 — he raised his bat, offered a short salute, and quietly returned to the crease. That same day the Indian Prime Minister called his career “a triumph of class, character and courage.”
He retired the following year not as a myth, but as a man who had walked through every season of greatness: promise, pressure, drought, redemption, and finally… legend.
His story is one every marathoner knows.
You train for months. Your adrenaline is high. The crowd’s energy carries you through the early miles. Momentum gets you to mile 10. But then the field thins. The cheers fade. And by mile 17, the solitude sets in.
It’s just you, your preparation, your purpose — and the next stretch of road.
But if you stay in, I’ve learned something magical happens around mile 24: the viscerally magnetic pull of the finish line starts reeling you in.
I’ve seen that same discipline before — at Mission Health. A different arena, but the same quiet force.
From 2014 to 2019, we faced what we called the Mission math problem — an annual financial gap of $40–$50 million between what we earned and what it actually cost to care for our region. Closing that gap wasn’t that different from running a marathon.
We served nearly a million people across 18 counties — many older, sicker, and more likely to be uninsured than national averages. And we had to close the gap every single year. Together.
We built a process called mitigation — a word that still triggers flashbacks for anyone who lived it.
Here’s how it worked:
Once we understood the gap, every executive team member had to bring real plans — not ideas — with committed targets. Some plans cut costs. Others grew revenue. All required cross-team coordination. Then we came back to the table to share updates and make tough tradeoffs. If a gap remained we repeated the cycle. No drama, no blame, just work.
No one clapped when the plans were written.
No one clapped when the milestones were hit.
No one clapped when we erased the misses and wrote down new opportunities.
But we did clap at the finish line — because we crossed it. Together. Year after year.
Here’s what I know now:
No one claps at mile 17. No one celebrates mitigation meetings. No one livestreams a random Tuesday at 3:39pm when your team does the hard thing — again.
But those are the moments that matter most: The middle miles. The quiet execution. The patient progress. That’s where greatness gets built.
That’s where purpose compounds.
Call to Action
Share this and name your own Mile 17 moment.
Tag someone who helped carry you through.
Or send it to someone you know who’s in it right now who needs the reminder.
Because no one claps at mile 17 — but mile 17 is where it all starts to count.
References
ESPN Cricinfo: Sachin Tendulkar
The New Yorker: India’s Lavish Farewell to Sachin Tendulkar
The Perseverance Playbook™ is a weekly newsletter about the middle miles, where purpose is forged and leadership is born. Written from airports, sidelines, and the spaces in between by Dr. Chris DeRienzo.
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