One awesome thing about math is it is self organizing. Many topics are composed of many smaller topics. As an anecdote, we used to say people “actually learned” (high school) algebra in calculus 1 and trigonometry in calc 2/3. In those cases it was more that to solve those problems required using algebra and trig coherently.
So to learn those 1000 pages is to, to some extent, learn a core set of techniques across many different contexts. It compresses the required mental load. For the exceptions to that rule, well, you can skim over them and know enough about them to recognize their applications later.
Sure it does. If you really wanted to read and understand this book and dedicated time each day to understanding 3 pages worth of content, you could read the book in a year. Remembering 3 pages of content per day (especially in math where concepts build on each other) is really not hard.
> Remembering 3 pages of content per day (especially in math where concepts build on each other) is really not hard.
I disagree. Or rather, I think that's unsustainable. Any given three consecutive pages from Spivak's Calculus are probably doable on a daily basis. But is would be legitimately hard for most people to go through three pages of Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis each day and consistently retain that information. Axler's Linear Algebra Done Right is very readable, but Halmos' Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces will start getting just as dense as Rudin. These are difficult textbooks even when students are well-prepared for them with prerequisite courses. Terence Tao wrote two books to cover (with better exposition) what Rudin did in one. I think it would be pretty hard to read consistently three pages of Tao's Analysis I each day, before he even gets to limits.
I think you're underestimating the intellectual effort here. In my opinion, even if you're reading a math book targeted to your level, committing to reading and understanding three days of material each day would become exhausting. A typical semester is 15-16 weeks, with lectures 1 - 3 times a week, and most undergraduate courses do not actually work through the entirety of a 300 page textbook. Even at that slower pace it's not typical for most people to ace the course. If you read three pages a day and had a solid understanding of it, you'd be absolutely breezing through math courses.
In my experience students need to really step away from the material and let it percolate for a bit every so often in order to solidify their understanding. I really don't think you can partition the material into equal, bite-sized amounts each day. The learning progression doesn't tend to be that consistent or predictable.
If you assume that "run 200 miles" doesn't refer to a single run but rather to the capability of running 200 miles, the analogy works much better. If you stop training the ability to run 200 miles vanishes even more quickly than an equivalent feat of learning.