That dreaded moment of crossing the finish line and knowing you didn’t reach your goal. You might have been way off, or so close you could almost touch it. Either way, you’re as deflated as a big popped party balloon.
What do you do?
First things first, it’s time to get in a bath with all your sorrow, disappointment, frustration, confusion. Maybe you literally get in a bath. Know that it is okay, and even healthy and natural to give yourself this grieving period. This wallowing. And also, know that this period doesn’t have to last forever. You can sit in it until you don’t want to anymore. You can say to yourself, “I’ll be sad for 1 week, or 1 day,” whatever it may be.
When you’re ready to move on, what comes next?
You’re probably going to want to look back. You might go through your training log and calendar from the last few months - assessing what was going well and what was challenging in both training and life. Perhaps you could have done more of certain things. Gotten more sleep, done more strength training, more yoga, more hydrating. Or maybe you could have done less - less drinking, less unnecessary work, or even less mileage or fewer workouts. (Over-training is just as much of a possibility as under-training!)
You might have benefited from doing things differently. OR your training could’ve been perfect, and you might just need more time. You might have just had an off day. You will never know, and you can let this haunt you, or set you free. You’ll never know, so there’s no pressure to try to figure it out.
Maybe you can make some changes to your training, or maybe you just keep doing what you’ve been doing and link arms with your good friends patience and trust.
If you genuinely ask yourself, you’ll know if you need to make a change or stay the course.
Big goals take time, and far fewer people reach them on their first try than you’d think.
Life is a series of peaks and valleys, including all the hard-won scrambles, glorious meadow views, plateaus, and switch backs in between.
You will never know exactly why you didn’t have a good race. And when you do reach that goal, you’ll never know exactly why you had a good race either.
That’s okay. You can embrace that uncertainty as freedom. As trust. Trusting the process, and yourself.