Thoughts About the “F-Word”: Failure

Failure: it’s a harsh word. As runners, we often attach it onto a poor performance. As a mom, I often give it a hashtag and try to make a joke of things.

Failing at something mostly sucks, that’s for sure. No one likes to see it happen, right?

A friend’s recent experience and her thoughts on the matter gave me pause to think. ?Is failure always a bad thing? Should we embrace the fail?

This past weekend, my friend failed in her first marathon attempt. But the cool thing about it: she wasn’t afraid to fail.

Okay, so she was a little scared to, but she TRIED ANYWAY.

That big, scary F-Word did not keep her from her dream before she even started.

A confession that should come as a shock to no one: it would have stopped me in my tracks.

I tend to start things that I know I can be successful at; putting myself out there to fail is not something I often do. The closest I can come to was my marathon in January.

There was a significant risk of failure on that day for me. I minimized it as best I could, but there was a good chance I’d fail in my marathon attempt. I may have been smiling at the end, but if you had seen the look on my face in the corrals or around mile 8 when I panicked, yeah, you’d know.

Fear of failure had me. It was like that asshole running “partner” who jogs in place, maybe circles around you, runs backwards, and taunts you as you struggle.

I only pulled through that mental block with the help of some dedicated friends.

And I know I should give myself some credit, because, hey, it was ME that finished all 26.2 miles of that race. But I struggle with the giving myself credit part when I think back on that day. Even though I finished, I still have some failure that I’m lugging around with me.

My mental struggles almost had me that day.

So my heart broke a little on Sunday?when I saw that Mere pulled herself from her first marathon. I wanted this so badly for her. I know she wanted it too.

I had faith in her, but I also have to admit that I was worried. My first thought that morning as I downloaded the tracking app and set it up to follow her was along the lines of, “Why would she risk failing with this very challenging course and tight time limit race as her first? I’d NEVER do that!”

See? I’m too scared to fail to take a big risk.

But Mere was not.

Mere was brave.

Mere trained, she planned, she had all her reasons for choosing THIS course- and she looked failure in the face and said, “test me.”

That day was just not her day. The crazy high winds and an injury (things out of her control!) forced her to make the hard decision to stop.

After the race, she processed her thoughts on her blog. You can?read it here.

And while I’d be over the moon excited for her if she had completed the race, I’m even more proud of what she wrote, and the example she’s given to me.

I can’t promise I’ll be as brave as Mere, but?she’s inspired me to break out of my comfort zone. And even better, she’s reminded me that it’s okay if things don’t work out as planned.

Mere, I have NO doubt you will be back in 2017.