Rethinking Failure: Quitting a Marathon

Coach Yourself, Part 2 - running masochism, drill sergeants, & learning to love fitness

This is Part II of a 4-Part series,  Coach Yourself – reflections on living life with an Athlete's Mindset.

Today I will open up about my unhealthy narratives with fitness. I'll do a vulnerable dive into what some may say is a shallow topic. 

You can also read Part I here: Rethinking Success. I'll share Parts III and IV throughout January. 

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I finally broke up with running. 

When I was 14, a swim coach urges me to take up running as a form of cross-training.

The suggestion feels like an implicit way of telling me the grueling swim practices weren't sufficient to improve my speed in the water. I need to lose weight. I need to push my body even more on LAND.

Sitting in class one day, I stare at the back of a cross-country runner's t-shirt. A slogan reads:

My sport is your sport's punishment

Let the punishment begin. I start with short runs. Ten minutes in, my lungs are on fire, and my legs fill with lead. 

Call me a masochist – I fell in love with the pain and endorphins.

Like sticking with a bad boyfriend, I held on to my love-hate fling with running. 2022 was the year I finally found the courage to fail and end my unhealthy relationship. 

I abandoned long-distance running for long-term thinking. 

New Year's Resolution: Run a Marathon

My coach was right. I lose weight. In the years to come, I pick up my running routine whenever I gain weight. 

In college, I wake up at 6 AM for a fasted run. I skipped dinner the night before and didn't eat anything for breakfast. I lose 30 pounds in six months. 

Running is my body's punishment, yet it reaps the reward I desired most: get thinner. I also loved proving to myself and my imagined critics that I could defy doubt and run away from my insecurities. 

I triumphantly ran my first half marathon in 2018. I get hooked on setting personal records and beating myself. 

By the start of 2022, I'd run seven half marathons. After another year of the pandemic and losing my grandma, I finally decided to run a full marathon. 

Life is short. We're all gonna die eventually. Why not do things that feel impossible?

After all, I used to think a half marathon was impossible. 

Smiling the pain away

Mental Drill Sergeant 

Through running, I develop a Drill Sergeant in my brain. Let's call her Rhonda. 

Rhonda pushes me to keep running, but she also loves to tell me how much I suck. 

"Do your legs hurt? Well, put your brain in a box. Less thinking, more running." 

"Did you skip your run today? How pathetic, you lazy girl."

When I look at photos of fit women, Rhonda says, "You'd run faster if you looked like her." 

As my marathon training progresses and the weekly mile goal increases, I listen to Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind & Defy the Odds by David Goggins, a Navy SEAL turned ultra-marathoner and ultra-masochist.  

"You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft that you will die without ever realizing your true potential."

As Goggins says, I need to STAY HARD. But the marathon training is the only thing staying hard. 

Five months in, I run a personal best of 16 miles. But then, a pain bites at my knee. After taking a few weeks off and following recovery protocols, I go for a 17-mile run.

I'm running along the San Francisco Bay Trail. I take in the views of the city skyline, smile at the dogs and their owners frolicking along the shore, and breath in the fresh air of eucalyptus and salt water.

Then the knee pain kicks in. Frustration billows into anger, and I take deep breaths to try and calm myself down. Stay hard, stay hard. But it's pointless. 

I can't do this. I'm done. I quit. 

My marathon dream crumbles as I break down into a limping walk. Once I reach a small beach, I sit down on a rock, staring out into the Pacific Ocean, and cry. 

I failed. I failed my grandma, Mental Drill Sergeant Rhonda, and David Goggins. 

I failed myself. 

Mr. Goggins reminding me to log those miles

Rethink Failure

As I ice my knee later that night, I ask myself, What's next?

After years of trying many different workouts to get thin, what would I do without running, my punishment/antidote? 

I decide to take an indefinite hiatus from running to avoid the risk of severely injuring my knee. 

Then it dawns on me – after years of using running as a physical punishment, my body is finally saying I cannot keep training like this. 

It's time to break away from the damaging narratives: the desire to be thin, to look like someone else, and to use long-distance running to validate myself. If I can handle the pain, then I'm healthy. I am worthy. 

What is something I've always wanted to do but put off to succumb to my running narratives?

Weight lifting. 

Now I know you might think, "Doesn't weightlifting involve the desire to look like someone else? Isn't it a means of validating your health & worth?"

But weightlifting is different. I no longer feel the desire to be thin. Instead, I want to keep building a strong body. Another person's body is not my measure of success—I'm motivated to feel and look my best. 

Weightlifting isn't a punishment, it’s all love. It's a celebration of what my body can do. It's why I stuck with it for the rest of 2022. 

With pride, I can open extremely tight jars of tiny pickles and pick up overloaded boxes of books I'll never read (looking at you, Catch-22). In 2022, failing a marathon led to my discovering a long-term love for training. 

That's what fitness should be for us. Instead of breaking us down, it should build us up. It's about establishing sustainable routines that enable us to enjoy a long, healthful life.

Perhaps one day, I'll return to running. Rhonda and David Goggins won't be yelling at me. I'll just hear my own voice. 

You've got this.

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Special thanks to my editor-friends

Silvio Castelletti

and

Oscar Obregon

for their uplifting feedback.

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That’s a wrap for my 2022 review of fitness. I’m sharing this series to solidify my New Year intentions.

I hope your year is off to a running start.

Onward,

Rach