The Freedom to Fail

Failure is frightening.

Mostly,the fear of failure seems to come from a fear of what other people ‘may’ think of us. Usually those thoughts are our own projections of stories that we’ve told ourselves over and over again throughout our lives.

The slow poke getting a PR in Boston… 3:14:47

In reality the other people don’t give a rats ass, and if they do well, that’s their issue. Take for example the kid who grows up laughed at when they go to kick the ball and flip backwards like Charlie Brown, or even score a goal on their own team. Small for their age, glasses, last to be picked for a game, called a klutz, slow poke, shrimp and whimp…to name a few, those stories may stick a bit.

With stories like that you start to fear failure, avoid challenging situations that may put you at risk of embarassment.

Save face.

Avoidance is the king and queen of defenses. A preordained behavior wired into our DNA built for our own safety.

We need to fit in to survive.

Hide any inkling that you might not fit in by avoiding the risk of appearing weak, the risk of failing. So you avoid difficult situations, even social situations.

What happens when we lean into that discomfort though, go for challenging things that may even be beyond our abilities?

I started to discover that late in high school when I fell in love with rock-climbing. Falling was part of the game. You simply weren’t going to get any better if you didn’t fall…and fail a few times, you’re not going to get up every rock face but there is so much power in trying and getting better. Mountaineering as well. The times I turned back from a summit have been numerous. It took four tries to summit Mt. Rainier.

Later in life I focused more on running. When I ran my first marathon over twenty years ago I didn’t even contemplate the Boston Marathon or anything of the sort, I was hours away from that. That first race took almost five hours.

I ran another marathon and had almost the same result.

Then I did it again, and again, and again, learning a bit more a long the way, some times slowing down, running into all sorts of obstacles along the way - 100 degree temperatures in Chicago, achilles tendonitis that lasted for several years, but most the time I was moving forward. Almost twelve years after I started running consistently, I qualified for Boston even after they moved the standards, and I did it again four more times.

Leadman has been the same.

2019 MTB Finish. 12hours and 16 minutes. With a finishers medal.

Leadman is a five or six race series in Leadville, Colorado, elevation10158 feet. The race series starts with the Leadville Marathon in late June, followed shortly by the 50-mile Silver Rush Run or Bike, or both depending on your likes. On to the 100-mile mountain bike race a month later then immediatly followed by a 10K run and a week later the100-mile run. You have to complete the each race under the cut-offs to become a ‘leadman’ or ‘leadwoman.’

If you’re not familiar with endurance training you’ll know racing these distances so close to one another is challenging even for the most experienced athlete. Go hard, climb to 12600’ and 13000’ on foot or bike and you’ll get a taste of pure suffering. Sucking air out of a straw while your legs are on fire.

Recover and repeat.

In five tries I have not been able to complete the entire series under the cut-offs. I’ve come close. In 2019 I was just sixteen minutes off the bike cut-off and have a nice finishers medal to show for it.

I’ve gone on to finish the 100-run several times well faster than the cut-offs in 2018 and 2019.

The last two tries in 2021 and 2023 I’ve gone backwards. Slowing to a crawl. Training errors mostly. Aging may be a part of it. Strength and coordination being possible limiters. When you can’t produce the power on the bike, you can’t produce the power. I’m also of an age where my vision just ain’t the best, seeing the trail well helps with speed, double vision on the bike slows you down a bit too.

What Keeps Me Going? How can you harness it too?

Finisher medals from the entire race series and a belt buckle from the 100 Run. Oh, and a few gold coins earned by being in the top ten of my age group in the Marathon and 50 in 2019, a faster year.

In spite of being a therapist, mental performance coach - and a ultrarunning coach for one of the most prominent endurance coaching programs in the world… there is nothing that gives me a super power that allows me to finish this race.

I just have to keep working hard, keep showing up day after day…and continue to not be afraid of the possibility that I may not make it. Dust myself off and go again.

To quote Michael Jordan “I’ve missed more than nine hundred shots in my career. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Here are four key things that can help you to enhance this mindset:

1) Cultivate a Growth Mindset - Open up to failure as a learning experience. There’s nothing fixed about our abilities, certainly we will have genetic predispositions for things - lower VO2max, less Type I or II muscle fiber, but we still can get better. We have bad days and we have good days, keep learning and keep growing.

2) Self-Compassion - Hold yourself kindly, be present and patient, and notice the common humanity of life. The ability to have self-compassion is a super power. What’s going to train the donkey better, the carrot or the stick? Self-flagulation is only going to get you so far. Create a life where you compassionately get back up, dust off and try again, remember you’re not the only one, we’re in this together.

3) Diffusion from the stories - You are not your past. Period. Notice when your past stories creep up, notice, name them. Yea, they come up because you heard it over and over again, it’s also normal to fear failure like I mentioned before, we want to fit in. Now refocus on being right here, right now.

4) Be open to assistance and build a team - Bring in supports. Coaches, physical therapists, chiropractors, all have touched my life. Then there is the amazing crew of people that have stood by my side at each race, friends and family, sometimes strangers, and of course my wife and daughter, who’s patience and love has been enduring.

While there may come a time when it’s apparent that I just can’t physically complete this race - that time isn’t now. If it comes, I’ll accept it and move on.

For now… I’ll see you in Leaville in 2024.

*I collaborated on similar blog for Carmichael Training Systems, which can be found here.