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.
A heartbreaking update about my marathon journey
It is with great sadness that I must share that I won’t be running the NYC Marathon on Sunday. While on a short, easy pace run this morning, I took a slight misstep as I felt an enormous pain go through my hamstring. I knew right away this was not good.
As I waited today to see my doctor at 4 PM, I held a slight hope that maybe I was misinterpreting what my body was saying and that the doctor would simply say that the swelling would go down in the next 24-48 hours. But in reality, I knew better. I cried often today as I already knew inside that the dream of running this year is over. My doctor confirmed that this afternoon.
My final thoughts before the NYC Marathon . . .
So, whether I was born to be a marathon runner or not, I made myself one!
As I sit here just days before the race with my training complete, I truly appreciate what it means to have made myself a marathon runner. It means following a plan for the past 19+ weeks that took me far out of my comfort zone. It means giving up some of my favorite summer activities like climbing and skydiving to prioritize training. It means going to bed early whenever possible. It means leaving parties early – and sober. It means taking care of my body – both when healthy and injured. It means not letting my injury become an excuse but having the patience to give it the time it needed to heal. It means having this race consume my every thought at times. It means having this ambition dictate what I eat, when I sleep, how I work out, and what I am willing to do outside of that and work.
It means, I’m ready to run Sunday’s marathon!
The power of visualization
. . . . It sounds so simple. If you believe it, you can make it come true. Yet visualization has so many more layers than simply wishing something into existence. It is a path that, with preparation and dedication, can evolve from a blurry vision to a moment of pristine clarity that becomes an out of body experience. Look no further than my marathon journey to see how this plays out . . .
The plot twist in my marathon journey
Before my career as a lawyer, I was an aspiring screenwriter. The rest of that story is for another day, except to say that, if I was scripting a story of someone running a marathon, it would probably go something like this. The protagonist of the story is someone who overcame significant obstacles to be able to try to achieve a long-held dream of running a marathon. Upon seemingly overcoming every hurdle in his way, he trained hard for race day and continued to improve day after day as the race approached. It appeared that not only would his dream of running a marathon happen, but he would run it faster than he ever imagined. But, naturally, a plot-twist occurs, and the protagonist faces a big setback – one that puts the marathon in jeopardy. Then, the ending can go several different ways . . .
I do me! (an update on marathon training)
In the end, these two weeks can be summed up in three words . . . I do me! I’ve reached a point where I’ve learned how to get more out of a marathon training program by making it my marathon training program. At times, that means taking the days I need to stay fresh. Other times it means learning how to push through it when I’m not. It means working in areas of life that define who I am while understanding that this goal of 26.2 is just one of those areas. For each one of us, the calculus is different. Only you know what it is for you. And only I can know what it is for me.
The most important lesson I’ve learned on this journey
“It is being here now that is important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now.” - George Harrison
Sharing lessons from my journey over the course of Legally Fit has allowed me to reflect in ways I might not otherwise have done. I’ve reached a deeper level of soul searching. That’s not to say that it takes writing a blog to discover what’s within one’s own self, but for me, it’s been the vehicle. Still, there are times when I find that I never even asked myself the obvious. That happened recently when I was asked a question that I had never been asked before – and somewhat surprisingly not asked myself. . . “What’s the most important thing you’ve learned on this journey?” For a minute, I froze. I was so accustomed to far more specific questions such as “What’s your workout routine?” or “What’s your diet?” So, I was dumbfounded at this simple question. After a brief pause, I knew the answer, but before I share it, I’ll go deeper into where it comes from.