Accepting failure is never easy, which is why DNFs are hard to write about honestly. There’s what happened, what you think it means, and what you’d like other people to think it means.
When I originally pitched a six-week series to UltraSignup, I had a reasonable little narrative arc in mind: get ready for Run Rabbit Run 100, run Run Rabbit Run 100, reflect meaningfully on having run Run Rabbit Run 100.
I’d share a couple of weeks of my appropriately rocky buildup, sprinkling in just enough adversity, in the form of an injury, to be relatable without jeopardizing the ending. Then I’d write a heartfelt but hopefully not saccharine pre-race essay, partly to hype myself up. (Now accepting suggestions for pre-race routines other than writing 2,000 words about the significance of what I’m about to do.) I’d spend the remaining installments basking in the narrative glow of my accomplishments, dispensing wisdom I had oh so conveniently just earned.
Reader, that is not what happened.
I dropped out.
I would like to say I folded like a cheap tent, but that implies a recognizable structure and the possibility of fitting neatly back into a bag.
I folded like an origami swan in the hands of a drunk toddler. I discovered folds previously unknown to both endurance sports and the paper arts. It’s taken me a couple of weeks to pick myself up, dust myself off, and arrange myself into something resembling a swan, or at least a disheveled goose capable of operating a keyboard.
Failure is a Many Splendored Thing
Success is like a fine wine. You can turn it over, appreciate its complexity: tart notes of things left unachieved, a little warmth from renewed self-belief, a pronounced finish of pride. Even the imperfections can make it more interesting. You’re drinking something you ordered.
Failure is the boxed-wine of life. It’s full-bodied in the way a brick in your mouth is full-bodied, with an aftertaste of humiliation and a lingering note of just…bummer.
Maybe there’s more to it. I suspect there is. But I’d like to actually taste it before announcing that I’m getting hints of personal growth.
So this is my attempt to decant my most recent failure. Let it breathe. Sit with it long enough to notice something I missed on the first unpleasant mouthful, as someone who is becoming a bit of a failure sommelier.
One of the things that makes failure, and DNFs in particular, so hard to write about is how easily they tumble into cliché. Somewhere between the aid station and the Instagram caption, disappointment acquires a suspicious amount of wisdom. You went looking for your limits. You had the courage to start. The finish line was inside you all along. It can read like someone spilled a box of Inspirational Gym Quote magnetic poetry and decided to publish the arrangement.
I understand the impulse. My bruised ego would love an easy writing assignment right about now.
But I’m wary of rushing it into something useful just so I can feel better about having experienced it. I’d already tried writing the ending in advance, and that hadn’t gone especially well.
One challenge of writing about human experience, a lofty job description, but “ultra-blogger” looks less impressive on LinkedIn, is finding somewhere to stand outside your own. I keep waiting for an Archimedean point: a little patch of emotional high ground from which I can survey the whole thing and explain what happened. Somewhere the Zoë who DNF’d hands things over to the wiser, more self-actualized Zoë who can write about it coherently and run a quick spellcheck.
I wanted to do well at Run Rabbit, a race known as much for its solid race organization and volunteer support as it is for its enormous $100,000 prize purse. I’d had a solid year of training, nothing extraordinary, but enough to feel physically confident. I also had a lot invested in the idea that this race would reassure me about my running. My mental game was less “quiet confidence” and more “load-bearing identity check.”
One of the things I love about Run Rabbit is the depth of the women’s field. The prize money brings together competitors you don’t often get on the same start line at a hundred-miler. There’s the chance to race people I admire, win actual money, and run with several thousand people watching on the livestream. A compelling proposition compared with the typical “finish in the dark, receive finisher’s T-shirt.”
Then, just before the race, came the announcement of $100,000 first-place checks the race planned to hand out to the women’s and men’s winners of next year’s races.
I think this is excellent for the sport. Prize money helps consolidate talent and gives athletes financial opportunities beyond whatever a brand decides they’re worth. I can hold that belief firmly while also acknowledging that the part of my brain responsible for running 100 miles the following day heard the announcement and concluded: This is the last time you’ll be good enough to compete here.
A stronger field hadn’t even materialized yet, and I was already being dropped by it.
How the Wheels Fell Off at Failure Junction
I’ve written about the fear of losing my grip on this sport, and I’ll spare you another full excavation here. UltraSignup has been generous with this column; I shouldn’t make them bill my insurance. Suffice it to say that if you gave me a Rorschach test right now, I’d identify every inkblot as a DNF.
I started anyway, hoping my legs could make a more persuasive argument than my brain.
Around mile 17, the first storm rolled in. After a few minutes of vicious rain, the sky cleared, and I thought, Glad we got that over with.
Oh, Zoë. You sweet, underqualified meteorologist.
It went on to rain, hail, sleet, snow, and possibly invent several new forms of precipitation well into the night. Conditions ranged from “dramatic ending of The Notebook” to “I must have personally wronged Poseidon.”
I felt reasonably equipped for the weather. The trail was less prepared. It became peanut butter, then clay, then something approaching the legal limit of how much water a trail can contain before you need a boating permit. By mile 50, I’d repeatedly slipped and fallen. I looked like I’d lost a mud-wrestling match, which was a fair assessment of the proceedings.
The conditions were genuinely hard. They mattered. But somewhere in all of that, I also counted myself out.
I was barely hanging in the top ten. There was still plenty of race left, plenty of time for things to change, but I’d started treating my position as a verdict. I could no longer shake the voice saying, You’re not as good as you think. Why run another 40 miles just to find out?
That’s the part I’ve had the hardest time writing down. I wanted to know how I stacked up in a competitive field. As the day got harder, I became afraid of what the answer might be.
I eventually stopped, and I’m still trying to understand that decision without either excusing it or making it stand for everything I am.
Perfection is a Moving Finish Line
I’m a recovering perfectionist, which sounds like the sort of thing you say in a job interview when asked to identify a weakness. Perfectionism has excellent PR. People hear the word and picture Tracy Flick with a color-coded binder, accomplishing things at a mildly alarming rate.
My version of perfectionism seems to be significantly less adept at administrative work. It’s the part of me that would rather abandon something than keep doing it imperfectly, especially where other people can see. It takes a perfectly reasonable desire to get better at running and adds the requirement that I continually demonstrate that I am already good at it. This is inconvenient for anyone hoping to improve at anything. It is especially inconvenient halfway through a hundred-mile race.
It’s also basically the opposite of what I wrote about in my previous essay on Ira Glass’s “gap”: the uncomfortable distance between what you want to do and what you can currently pull off, and the necessity of working inside it.
What can I say? I contain multitudes, and apparently they do not read each other’s work.
Of course, I can write all of that sitting comfortably at a desk. The brain producing this essay has access to exactly the same horsepower as the brain that talked me out of continuing. It can assemble a persuasive argument from almost anything. Give it some mud and a disappointing split, and it will explain why I should stop, and try to make up four jokes about it between the aid station and the disappointing post-DNF shower.
That’s part of why DNFs are hard to write about honestly. There’s what happened, what you think it means, and what you’d like other people to think it means. I can feel myself adjusting the proportions as I write. A little more weather here. A little more accountability there. Enough self-awareness to assure everyone that I am handling this very maturely.
So here is where I actually am: disappointed.
I let myself be sad. I’m still sad about parts of it. I wanted a different day, and I wish I’d made some different decisions during the one I got. I haven’t found an interpretation that makes me glad I dropped out. Boxed wine is still boxed wine, no matter how fancy a glass you pour it in.
Then I started signing up for races in 2027.
I’ll have to practice staying curious when I don’t like the answer. I suspect that will take longer than writing about it.
For now, I have a disappointing race behind me, races I’m excited about ahead of me, and some work to do in between.
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