What is the true meaning of failure?

For those who have been following my recent updates, you know that I an not running the NYC Marathon today.  I was so close to my dream this time that I felt I could reach out and touch it.  But with five days to go before race day, I tore my hamstring on a short, easy pace run, and my dream of running this year is over. 

First, congratulations to everyone who crosses the finish line today! I’ll be out there cheering you on.  I now know what it takes to train for this amazing accomplishment, and you should be so proud of your success!

As for my journey, I can’t help but see this as another failure in my attempts to run this race – but one that is so much different.  I’ve never been this close before.  All other failures were so early in the process that heartbreak was not even part of my emotions.  I could accept the failure of something that seemed impossible and move on.  But this year, running 26.2 was anything but impossible.  I was so confident and ready for it that I had no doubt that I’d be crossing the finish line.  I put my all into this, and the benefits were real and tangible.  Sunday was simply going to be about putting the cherry on top.  In some ways, I saw it as a validation of everything I did.  But in reality, I needed no validation of what I accomplished.  To the extent this was a failure, it was the best failure of my life.