On Failure

Saturday, I attempted to run 100 miles as part of the Aravaipa Strong Virtual Race. My friend and I planned to run around a 1.4 mile loop as many times as it would take. This might sound awful, but the loop allowed us to use our cars as aid stations and stop whenever we needed. There was a park on the loop with a public bathroom, and the company of a good friend made the prospect less daunting.

Just over 50K in, I made the difficult decision to stop. My right knee was really bothering me, blisters lined my feet, and the temperatures were rising above 90 degrees. I didn’t want to stop, because stopping felt like failure. But after I got home and took inventory of my wounds, I realized my knee was in worse shape than I thought. I was massively dehydrated and continuing the run would have inevitably led to more protracted pain. But failure still stings, so I jotted down some semi-insightful thoughts. Enjoy ❤️

1. Failure is subjective.

As I mentally worked around what I would learn from falling short of my goal, I realized that the biggest failure would have been to not start in the first place. Perhaps this sounds obvious, but if we never try, we never fail. There is a strange social stigma to falling short of our stated goals, but audacious goals should not be easily reached. Audacious goals also do not come to fruition quickly. It took Thomas Edison years…