A Short Story About Failure

September 23, 2010 at 11:52 am · Filed under Uncategorized

I deal very poorly with failure.  I avoid it like crazy, and I like to tell myself it’s not in my nature to ever do so.  I work hard.  I’m a winner.  I failed today.

Today was a big day, pretty normal in many regards, but it was a personal make or break.  On this first day of my 28^th year, I broke.  You see, I’ve been planning on running the Chicago Marathon (on 10.10.10 no less).  I had a great training season, ran a really strong half marathon in August, and have been training well ahead of last season.  Then it hit.  I knew it was coming, but I acted like it wouldn’t matter – these two huge trips on my calendar that I’d been ignoring.

First, vacation.  And oh let me tell you, it was fantastic.  But its funny you see how the maintenance runs I was going to do quickly gave way to 4 hour dinners that went to 12 or 1 AM and mornings spent at the café sipping espresso – while my running shoes stayed in the suitcase.  A small set-back, surely I can bounce back right? And I did.  I spent the next 2 weeks getting back in the rhythm, doing my runs, feeling good.

Then the other shoe dropped.  A trip to Africa for business.  It was awesome, I am so privileged to work with this client and the world-changing stuff they do every day.  It was also 12 days.  A few short runs happened, but the fat lady was starting to sing.  The bus driver was warming up the bus in the parking lot. Read the rest of this entry »

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