Failure...

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. - Herman Melville

I am not looking to be great but I am looking to learn from failure. It is only through failure that we learn the lessons to be better - a better person, a better worker, a better runner, a better whatever. The fall running season has not been great. It has been a Jekyll and Hyde kind of year having a great, fulfilling winter/spring and a disappointing, awful summer/fall. I recorded my first even DNFs in the Turkey Swamp 50K and JFK 50 mile. I ran some of the worst marathon times that I have recoded in the 31 that I have run. Through it all, I hung in there finished my 31st marathon in 20 states. Like life itself, one full of peaks and valleys, perseverance and endurance pays off as painful as it sometimes can be.

It is now time to reset. Push the reset button and readjust life as well as running. I don't make new year's resolutions but I did start the year today by running the Resolution Run 5K. I run few shorter distance races but I always enjoy the local flavor of them. The Resolution Run asked runners at registration if they had a resolution to share. I didn't share one but enjoyed reading the many that were entered - some funny, some deep, some with meaning, some with self-realization. Although I don't make resolutions, I do make goals that stretch me beyond the person that I am, not necessarily in running, but as me as a person. No doubt my running will play a role in that development as it always has. It will be with faith in God that I get out of the boat.

So this blog started as a quest for completing a 100 mile run in April. Although I have not written as much as I would have liked and my quest was somewhat derailed with the painful running experiences in the fall, I do believe that I am still committed at attempting and completing the run. My recent training sessions have gone well putting more distance into my daily runs. I have also committed to the Rocky Raccoon 50 mile in Huntsville, TX in February. I have 3 months until the hundred and have a solid base of 50 mile weeks which I will increase to 60-70 miles with long runs of 25-50 miles. The Rocky Raccoon will give me a peak into the hundred mile scene since the main event is the Rocky Raccoon 100. I guess you could say that I am running the "fun run" at 50 miles. It will give me a flavor of a 100 mile event in general. I still hope to complete marathons in 5 states this year bringing me to the half-way point in states run.

Maybe you could call my running obsessive, compulsive, an addiction but it is how I define me at the moment and how I hope to grow me and be a better person in life. Many things shape our lives, some negatively and some positively but if we work hard enough, have different attitudes and views, continue to have faith and hope, the negative things that shape our lives can be turned into positives with God's plan for our lives. I pray this to be the case for everyone.

Happy New Year to everyone! I pray for peace and love in your life through hope and faith in 2008. I hope to see you on the roads and trails!