Failure is Your Friend

I failed my last 100-miler. It’s been one of the best things to happen to me. 

This last DnF and Linz’s success made me question my goals as a runner. I’d been able to finsh other ultras at my current weight, level of training and gumption. But watching Linz made me realize something: If I wanted to finish 100, I’d need to get better. 

That realization made me wonder if I truly wanted to go for 100 miles. I’d had a good career and could still be satisfied, even affirmed, by finishing in 50Ks and 50-milers. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to go for the big goal. 

So since then I’ve lost weight, I’ve stepped up my speed training and even pushed myself, a little, on long runs. Since then I think I’ve become a better runner, and my 34-minute run in the Santa Barbara 4-miler on Thanksgiving Day proves it. I’ve also increased what I call my comfy speed, which is something I’m going to work on with all of you. Many of us here need to increase our comfy speed, or the speed that you can run for as long as you need to go in an ultra. That now looks like 11-minute miles for me. That speed will go down over time, but when it does, I’ll still be at a speed that will get me to 100 miles by the cutoff, instead of a speed that bought me a DnF, as it has in the past. 

The real point here, and I’ve said this many times, is that DnFs aren’t the end of your running. They’re the beginning. Learn from them, figure out what you need to improve, and work on it. There’s some real beauty in that, and it’s a great motivator. Let’s find it together.