This chapter explores the lived experiences of time, aiming to understand how academic researchers construct, perceive, and feel time in their fast-paced daily lives. The reader is invited to examine various perspectives on this question. Using the metaphors of a marathon and a race, the chapter begins by pondering how researchers perceive their actual engagements. It then delves into the tension between planning and management and the inherent unpredictability of research. Additionally, the increasing connection between value creation and the time invested in tasks raises the notion of what I refer to as the zero-time-waste imaginary. Before concluding with a reflection on pleasure and morality when researchers meet temporal expectations, this chapter also addresses the issue of work–life balance in academia.