How I learnt to embrace failure
From failing to finish races to not hitting a goal time, I've failed a lot at running. And I'm ok with it.
When I work with women who are training towards a marathon, their number one fear is not finishing. It looms large in their mind and haunts them through the months of training. The reality is that most people who start a marathon will finish it. The proportion of people who DNF (did not finish) is very small - for London Marathon it’s around 1%. Of the hundreds of women I’ve coached to marathons, I only have one or two women who have ended up stepping off the course and not finishing.
When we look at completion rates of longer distance events, women are generally more successful than men. There may be fewer women signing up for ultra marathons, but they are much more likely to finish them than men.
However, my role as a coach isn’t just to train women so that they’re ready to take on these races and therefore less likely to DNF, it’s to show them that, actually, if you don’t finish, it’s not the end of the world. I want runners to know that if you do end up with a DNF next to your name, it’s really not that bad. I’ve done it many time, and have lived through it.
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