I recently read somewhere that “like success, failure is many things to many people. With a positive mental attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again.”
Last Sunday, I failed BIG TIME. I was looking forward to racing and was hoping to gain some confidence with about 10 weeks to go until my next marathon attempt. I thought I had a PR in me, and ironically ended up running the slowest half marathon I have run in over 8 years. From mile 2, I knew something was off. I thought about dropping out almost every mile and thanks to my boyfriend, who spur of the moment decided to run with me, I ended up gritting it out to the finish. I survived that race by telling myself that I was going to drop out once I got to mile 4…and then mile 5…and then 6…all the way to mile 13.1. I had to convince myself that I was simply out on a run because if I told myself to get back in race mode, I would immediately panic and start running even slower than before. When I finally rounded the track to see the clock, part of me didn’t even want to cross the line because I was so embarrassed by my lackluster performance. I averaged a pace that I tend to run many of my longer training runs in. What the hell happened?! To be honest, I’m still not sure. I can sit here and make excuses about how hot and humid it was, how everyone ran sub-par performances, how I hadn’t been feeling great the past couple weeks, but excuses will not change the outcome of that day.
Objectively, last Sunday I failed; but that failure does not define me. What defines me is how I use this failure to grow. The thing that I’m finally realizing (it only took me 30 years) is that failure and success are not separate entities. In theory, they may be on the opposite ends of the spectrum, but in reality, to succeed, you must learn to fail. It is not about how many times you get rejected or fall down; it is about how many times you get back up and keep on going. If you have a dream, fight for it. While I wish I could erase last Sunday’s performance from my memory, I have decided to use it as a lesson in learning how to fail and focusing instead on the fact that success is not final and failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue on that counts.
