Running Away (Literally) From Failure

7 hours into a 50km ultramarathon and my body is screaming. Each foot fall feels heavy and swollen, my hips want to lock in place and my legs protest every stride. Meanwhile the aches run up and down my spine searching for a way to break my posture. They find it beneath the straps of my camel pack where they settle in, straining my neck and shoulders until all I could do was sag.

I was in what athletes called the “pain cave,” used to describe both the physical discomfort during extensive strenuous activity and the athlete’s state of mind. As I fought against the temptation of giving up, a single question kept poking me in the back of my brain. It was the same question I asked myself every time the running got hard.

Why the f*@k am I doing this?

Three months later I am still wallowing in the post-race blahs. I gained back all the weight I lost, my runners lie forgotten in the closet and I’ve long since gotten over the high of actually finishing a difficult race. Usually my solution to break out of this rut would be to schedule myself for another marathon. But after all the running I did for the first six months of 2022 I could not bring myself to do so. Instead I kept running up against the same question I had during the ultramarathon.

Why?

Why running? And what for?

At first I thought it was because I wanted to have the medals. They were tangible things I could pull out as proof I run long distances and the bigger the better. I also liked the idea of being one of the few people in Canada to have run and finished an ultramarathon (in Canada approximately only 0.0228% of the population finished one). But those reasons are nothing but shallow ego boosts. My medals all lie hidden in a box like a shameful secret and I’m no different than my neighbour who may or may not have run a city block.

Which brings me back to my first question. Why?

After all the running I did in the past two years I’m afraid I have an answer.

At the start of 2020 I knew I was going to fail at direct marketing. For nearly seven years I was part of a group of young entrepreneurs trying hard to escape the rat race. I thought that with the products we were leveraging and with the right mindset we could become successful. And so I hustled. Such was the culture I found myself in, where young people should be building their own businesses and everyone who worked a 9-5 should be pitied. It was the message I got at every meeting and conference I attended and the camaraderie I had with thousands of people striving for the same thing made me feel as if I belonged.

But though I found some success with direct marketing it was not as much as I had hoped. As the years wore on I began to question my own identity as a “girl boss” or “entrepreneur” especially when I noticed how little I received in return. Granted, I knew it was because I was not following the system and road map laid out by the company I was leveraging, but by then I was starting to wonder if direct marketing was the right fit for me.

After a long bout of soul searching I decided to let it go. That meant letting go of the carefully crafted persona of a young and successful entrepreneur and becoming something my friends now laugh at.

A failure.

I was confused and embarrassed (and nearly broke).

So I ran.

To be honest I do not regret my time with direct marketing. Before I started I was very introverted and no one could make me approach a stranger, let alone pitch them. Now, I can walk boldly into a room and introduce myself without shrinking. I also find myself using the sales skills I learned to negotiate prices (often used to get rid of low-ballers whenever I sell things online). But best of all, I met my fiance through direct marketing. All things considered, I got out wealthy.

But did I get out successful?

According to the standards of the hustle culture the answer is a hard no. And though I no longer ascribe to that standard there is still a part of me that insists I should be reaching for something greater. But that “something greater” has changed. In my twenties I would have defined that goal as a multimillion dollar business that will allow me to travel the world. My goals in my thirties are a lot different now and I know they will change again in my forties.

My fear is that I won’t be able to achieve a single one before the change happens. In that case I will be a failure in each decade of my life.

So I kept running.

Since then I managed to run two official half marathons, three official marathons and one official ultramarathon. I usually scheduled the races towards the end of the year as a nice way to end the current year and welcome the new one. But I now know it to be the escape I needed, a way to run from all the goals I did not reach and all the inadequacies I felt, and still feel, about myself. Running a marathon was my way of saying, hey, at least I achieved something this year. I’m not a complete failure.

But I can’t run anymore. After stripping away the lies I told myself every time I laced up for a race I can’t run another one with that kind of fuel. It’s not healthy, it’s not productive and while it can get me running farther than anyone it will not get me closer to where I want to be. And there are so many things I want to be.

I want to be a mother.

I want to be a writer.

I want to be a good friend.

I want to be healthy.

I want to be financially stable.

But most of all, I want to be happy.

I find it fitting that it was the ultramarathon that stopped me long enough for me to reflect. Clarifying what success means to me will be another exercise, but I know it will help dispel all thoughts of failures, past or perceived from my mind. There is so much power in being able to define what success means to oneself. Knowing that my definition does not have to match what others think success should be is a relief. While my goals will change as I age, I can choose to accept that instead of fearing what I might leave unfinished. Instead of seeing change as the end of outstanding goals, it can mean the evolution of greater ones. That’s something better to look forward to, I think.

I guess after reading this far you, dear Reader, deserve a promise from me. The next time I lace up I will be in a better state of mind. I promise I will no longer use the training and the races as an excuse to keep running from myself. Instead I will be running towards something greater, towards a clearer goal.

I will be running towards a better self.

Thank you for reading.