To complete an Ironman triathlon, you must swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles, and then run 26.2 miles — all in under 17 hours.
To earn your Master of Business Administration online from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, you must complete 33 graduate hours, including classes in management, economics, marketing, accounting, international business, and quantitative methods. Thankfully, you have more than 17 hours to do it.
In the autumn of 2021, Jake Benoit decided he want to do both. And so in 2022, he did both.
A Kid’s Dream, a Man’s Motivation
Benoit had known since he was a teen that he wanted to attend graduate school and earn his MBA to pursue leadership roles and better understand teamwork dynamics, he says.
And after his uncle introduced him to the idea of triathlons, he knew that he wanted to do that, too. 
“He was showing us videos of like people who were having to crawl across the finish line, and in my kid brain, I was like, ‘That’s so dumb. Why would people do that?’ and then, ‘I’m gonna do one.’”
After earning his bachelor’s degree from UL Lafayette, Benoit knew the MBA degree program online through his alma mater would provide the academic challenge he wanted with the flexibility to maintain a grueling training schedule while working full-time.
“The flexibility of the online classes was especially beneficial when looking at my plan for each week,” he says.
The tradeoff was Benoit had to become more organized and proactive to meet the demands of online graduate coursework.
“What worked for me was I bought a planner …” he says. “I found I prioritized work, grad school, then my training, in that order, since work and grad school had more set times and training was more flexible.”
Using his planner, Benoit was able to break his days and weeks into small blocks of time to make the absolute most out of the flexibility of online classes, says Benoit.
“I could look ahead and see ‘I need an extra hour today since I won’t have much time tomorrow,’” he says.
“If I saw I had a two-hour bike ride on Wednesday, but only had a one-hour run or a 30-minute swim the days before, I would put the extra time into my MBA work on Monday and Tuesday so I could complete the assignment and submit it on Thursday or Friday.”
The autonomy of online classes also prompted Benoit to become more aware of when he was pushing his limits and to develop ways to take care of himself to ward off burnout.
“One positive of 8-week classes I found was I could change subjects and classes pretty quickly compared to undergrad and that rejuvenated me in the middle of some semesters,” he says.
“When feeling burnt out, I also found that changing my routine for a day would help.”
Shook Up — in a Good Way
The reward for rising to meet a challenge is growth, and that’s what Benoit found as his MBA courses helped him refine his leadership skills and change how he approached problems.
The class MGMT 525 – Organizational Behavior and Leadership was one of his favorites for this reason.
“I’m a pretty headstrong person,” says Benoit, but the discussions, debates, and weekly case study assignments required him to be more thoughtful and consider how his classmates saw the same problems.
“Although we were looking at the same issue to debate and I had already made my decision on which side to support, the points the other side brought up really made think and consider my side, and how there might be mediation between the two.”
Raising the bar
With two immense accomplishments in hand, Benoit doesn’t see himself slowing down soon, merely enjoying a break from student life.
“I’ve had some sort of schoolwork due for 20 years now!” he says.
Career-wise, Benoit says the scope of his MBA courses opened his eyes to opportunities he had not considered before.
“I didn’t think I would be interested in managing a manufacturing company who ships products, but learning the guidelines for international shipping and how each product has a different set of rules was surprisingly interesting,” he says.
And as an endurance athlete, Benoit has set his sights on a new level of personal goals.
“I’ve fallen in love with the training each day,” he says. “I’ve seen many benefits — eating healthier, getting fitter, and more mental clarity. I’m sure it’ll be something I do for the rest of my life.
“My goals for training and racing would be running a marathon in under 3 hours and finishing an Ironman in under 10.”