It all comes down to the consequences of failure.<p>If failure means homelessness, avoid failure.<p>If failure means you lose your one chance in your life of completing a marathon, be conservative.<p>If the difference between failing and succeeding is minimal in your life, burn the bridges! This was not his first marathon, and even if he bonked, he'd likely still be able to finish it, albeit slowly.
I think people are using the word "fail" a little too much. Not getting your marathon time may hurt your ego a little but ultimately it's not a big deal. I would use the word "fail" for things that have real consequences.
> My pre-race fueling strategy of not increasing the total intake, but trying to eliminate everything but carbs seemed to pay off. I felt like I had plenty of energy, and my stomach felt good the entire race, which is extremely rare for me<p>But maybe eating just carbs led to low minerals, hence the cramping? You could try to bank by eating oysters and a potassium supplement two days before?
What would be a spectacular way to fail a marathon, though? Because you can aim to win, but pretty much all versions of "not winning" are just... not winning? That's not particularly spectacular.<p>Maybe accidentally forgetting you're in a marathon and bootstrapping a billion dollar startup sometime between starting and forgetting to finish?
Ha, "burn the ships", I love it.
Congrats, great blog and amazing running!<p>I'm facing a huge moment soon where I will see whether I have made a big mistake that will result in the biggest fail of my life. But I'm still optimistic that it will be the biggest win of my life. My ships are burned!
My best advice is to not listen to anyone, you know damn well what you should do.<p>But since you've gone there... Marathoning... okay... stop looking at the ground in front of you and look at the horizon. This marathon is unimportant, the goal is much further away, think of the next race and the one after that. Where do you plan to go with this?
Run to fail, run for success, run to waste time, run for fun. I don't care.<p>You can live every experience while running, that's the beauty of it.
> As I sit just under two weeks out from the race, I can’t help but think I haven’t done enough. I didn’t make enough sacrifices, I wasn’t disciplined enough in my training plan, I — the list goes on.<p>Why do you have to sacrifice anything? The greats are great because they enjoy the activity and would probably be doing it if no one was around or cared that they were. Do it for the fun, not the glory
Great blog post. Congrats on the PR! While it's true that no one cares more about your marathon time than you, it still feels like a tremendous victory when a new one is achieved, and likewise, oppositely when an attempt is failed. There are not many serious consequences when failing except maybe a temporarily bruised ego and trying even harder on the next build.
Not sure I understand the "qualifying time" aspect. Does hitting 2:55 guarantee you entry into the Boston Marathon, whereas achieving the "cutoff time" gets you into the lottery for one of the remaining spots?
That may be the wrong question, though that might help avoid the sunk cost fallacy ("It's better to burn out, than fade away!"). On the other hand, sticking with things has its benefits, with an eye towards a pivot. The right question may have more to do with speed than scale. Best to try and find partners in your endeavor. Then you can succeed or fail twice as fast, and try more things. And have more fun along the way.
sometimes failure is not an option
my horse needed hay,so I went to a buddy place,kinda coolsl spot(I think) not home
went where he might be and told him and his wife
that there dogs say hi,went back a few days to get hay and chatted about things snd the dogs,and only
later thought about,who do can I talk to that would be able to enjoy the idea of walking up a long drive way knee deep in snarling pitbulls
stopping to talk to them and pat them on the head
which of course messes with there minds,no one home ,and walk back out with the same escort
my favorite wasn't there,as he was still healing
up from trying to eat a porqipine whole,lovely bruser,half piti and half coyote
its not a marathon,except in the sense that life itself is a relay race
different batons is all
I’ve noticed that I take much bigger “risks” on really meaningless projects, and get more interesting outcomes as a result. That’s my gut take here as well, I guess he did a slightly riskier marathon strategy, but in the end nobody cares about his time other than himself, and even there, there isn’t any downside to missing it other than that he might feel slightly bad about his performance.<p>But, I also can’t help but wonder if the world would be a better place if we did all our projects like hobby side projects, rolled the dice, and failed spectacularly where it matters. But, what to do about self driving cars?
I believe the article misses the point of the saying. It's not really about failing but rather about committing yourself to the objective. If you know in your heart you gave something everything you had, and you still fail, well that's spectacular or glorious failure.
At a company I once worked for failure was anything but a barrier to getting offered newer, bigger opportunities. Those who did well often get stuck in the same place without further advancement.
Yes, it's better to fail spectacularly, like in the case of Lane-merging on the highway, parenting your children, or when cooking for an allergic friend.<p>/s