Don't Like It? Get Better.

Week 54: Failing at Things That Matter to Us & Where to Go From Here

These are generally pretty easy to write when things are going well.

After all, it’s fun to write about victory and success.

This past Saturday was the 100-kilometer mountain ultramarathon I’ve been preparing for over the last 8 months.

And I got served up some humble pie.

The facts: I was timed out of the race 40 miles (~65k) into the race, missing cutoff by 4 minutes.

Going up the second mountain it started storming ferociously, and it made going up slippery and slow, while I couldn’t make up time on the way down the mountain or else risk falling badly.

When I arrived at the next aid station completely exhausted and depleted, they informed me they’d run out of water.

Then then said the next aid station had water, but it was 8 miles away on the other side of mountain number 3.

With no other choice, I set off up the trail.

Progress was slow. I was so dehydrated at that point that I opened my mouth to hopefully catch some rain drops as the storm rolled on and on.

When I finally got into the next aid station, a race official let me know my race was over and collected my bib as I stood there in the driving rain, questioning everything I’d ever known.

Luckily, my graceful and supportive wife and kids were there to pick me up and drive us out of there.

I got in the car without saying a word as my emotions boiled to the surface.

I was cramping so bad from dehydration I couldn’t sit in the car without twisting and having to stand up and straighten my legs out.

Upon arrival back at the rental house, I laid on the shower floor and considered many things. And that sad return trip home was extra sad and ponderous on Sunday.

The time to think was good however, because by the time we got back to Ohio, things were becoming clear.

I had some hard truths to face. Among them:

I didn’t respect the distance, believe it or not. I trained enough to cover the course, but I didn’t prepare for what happens after you’ve been running for over 10 hours. I guess if you’ve never done this before, it’s hard to prepare for.

I didn’t have a plan for what happened when I ran into problems and still had 25 miles or more to run. I guess I honestly thought things would just go right and that I would “simply” have to gut out the last few hours.

I didn’t respect the mountain. I thought running hills in Ohio and doing a few steep treadmill sessions would do the job. This is false, bordering on arrogance.

I didn’t train specifically enough. I went on long, flattish runs where I’d be on level ground for miles. Only the first few miles out of the park and into the woods were on any surface that wasn’t going up or down. Training for mountain races requires different methods, and I didn’t mirror very many of them leading up to the event.

I didn’t train with poles enough. Trekking poles turned out to be major asset on this effort. Without them, my legs would have been destroyed. My arms were almost as sore as my legs afterward. Being stronger and more efficient with these right off the bat would have helped conserve energy and climb quicker.

I didn’t do enough weight training. I did one session per week, which in retrospect is probably less than half of what I’d need for that race. Going uphill was one thing but running downhill on steep and rocky terrain for an hour or more was brutal.

I still need to get faster. Fighting cutoffs makes us make bad decisions because we’re in a rush and thus prone to making mistakes.

I need to increase sleep, stretching, active recovery, hill sessions on the bike, and cross training like yoga for real. Honestly, I feel that the answer could be about the same or even less overall running volume but being better rounded in other areas.

I used the heavy schedule of ultrarunning to eat as much dessert as I wanted, figuring I needed the extra calories. What if I skipped the cake most days of the week and went in the race a few pounds lighter? It wouldn’t make much difference over the first few hours, but the reduced pressure on my knees and spine would pay dividends late in such a race.

Perhaps lastly, I didn’t do what I could to reduce stress in the weeks leading up to the event. I even worked a half day on Friday, mere hours before the start of the race. While I told myself this was “low-stress work” it’s for an underperforming project at work, which makes me marvel at the lies we tell ourselves sometimes.

Any one of these factors probably doesn’t make the crucial difference, but add them together and they probably do. Little by little, a little becomes a lot.

At least my first DNF (Did Not Finish) in ultrarunning was a spectacular one.

What about the positives?

I spent a weekend with my family. That cannot be understated. Every day with my wife and children is a blessing beyond a blessing.

Everyone got home safe. This is the first ultramarathon I’ve done yet, despite the rough trails, where I have not taken a nasty spill at some point. I didn’t get such severe dehydration that I had to go to the hospital. My bones and joints and ligaments are fine. I’m not even that sore besides wounded pride.

Live to run another day.

About 10 miles into the run, some runners were stopped on the trail and yelled out, “Big snake!” Being from Alabama, I jogged up, took one look at the 4 ft long specimen, declared it a rat snake, picked it up with my trekking poles and threw it off the trail. The people behind me started cheering as we ran onward.

I still ran 40 miles and up three mountains in tough conditions. I’m not going to make excuses. I could think of a million things I could have done or not done in the preparation for such an event.

Ultimately, what it provides me with is a different kind of chance.

This provides me with a chance to show my kids what we do when we don’t get what we want. When we fail at something that MATTERS to us despite trying. When we are found wanting despite an honest effort on our part.

It’s easy to be magnanimous in victory, but difficult to maintain our dignity in defeat.

I get to show them how to lose. How to hold their head up when disappointment beats us down.

And perhaps most importantly, how to get back up and try again.

At the end of the day, I failed a run. A stupid, crazy, long, hard run. In the grand scheme of things, most of human history would love to trade their problems with mine.

On Saturday night, I was a broken person.

By Sunday night, one thing had become clear.

This was now personal.

Those mountains cannot grow any bigger.

But I can.

This is FAR from over.