The Climb

Let's talk about failure.

In my culture, a toxic trait that's passed down to us from our parents is the fear of failure.  Apologies for the bluntness of that statement but there is no nice way of dressing it up.

In school, anything less than a B was a fail in their eyes.  Failure was tied to no future, no success.  You won't get into a good University, you'll not find a good job.

It's black and white, right?

Except it's not really.

I realized I mentioned that this toxic trait is probably more common than I made it out to be in the opening statement.  I'm sure some of you reading this could relate.  And for some it could bring back very fresh feelings or emotions, while others may have been able to break through the stigma.

Now, how does this relate to running JP?

When you train for a race, let's use an example of a half or full marathon.  There is a substantial amount of time that goes into preparation, 12-16 weeks on average, maybe even up to 20.  That's a lot of mornings, evenings, weekends, and lunchtimes dedicated to running, and sometimes this comes at the cost of other things in your life like social gatherings, other hobbies, and free time.

So when you put all this time and effort into preparing your body to run many miles at an uncomfortable pace without shitting yourself and remember that you paid to do it. You can't help but feel that all the stars NEED to align on race morning.  You've earned it, you did not put in the work for nothing.   Except the race did not go well. You did not hit your PR, you did not hit your BQ.

You cross the finish line, and what should feel like a sense of accomplishment, gratitude and joy is frustration anger and embarrassment.  The weeks of preparation, the workouts where you nailed pacing, the long runs where you dialed in the fueling. What happened? Where did it go wrong?

One day, weeks from now.  You'll look back at that day, and those feelings, and memories you had on that day? Long gone.  Replaced by new memories of decisions, actions, and performances that were in some way fueled by the outcome of that race day that wasn't meant to be.

You see, one of the gifts that sports gives us is the ability to fail with little to no consequence.  What I mean by that is, when we do not hit our goals, it's going to feel pretty shitty because of the work and time we invest in training for a race. But while we didn't achieve our intended goal on that day, running provided us with lessons about ourselves that will help us later on.  We let the moment process, and we move on, or as the kids say "ball up top".

A quote from Giannis Antetokounmpo resonates with me, mostly because it's not often you hear a Pro Athlete say things like this:  "There's no failure in sports. It's not a failure, it's steps to success. There are good days, and bad days. Some days you can be successful, some days you are not...and that's what sports is about. You don't always win."

Setbacks make for great comebacks.  The lessons we learn coming up short can be greater than those we learn with success.  Failure isn't the end of the road, it's merely a pit stop to reset, reflect and try again.

Workout Of The Week:

400m x 6 @ 10k effort, 200m x 4 at 5k effort or slightly faster.

We got about 3K of work with this workout, we'll start with some good old 400m repeats or roughly 1min and 35 seconds to 2mins if you do not have a track. This is a great workout to focus on holding a tough effort over a period of time, and we'll wrap up with 4 200m repreats or 45 seconds to a minute if you don't have a track at a slightly faster or tougher effort to work on top end speed on tired legs. It is a great overall workout to improve lactate threshold and mental toughness.

Jay P.