How to Decide When You Fear Failure

For the past four years, I’ve run No Business 100 in mid-October and Javelina 100 at the end of the month.

So I didn’t think twice about registering for both.

Until the moment three short weeks before No Business I realized this year, they’re on back-to-back weekends.

Panic.

“What am I going to do?? I can’t do them both. I haven’t done that in years and I’m too old for that now.”

Which one do I run? How do I decide between them?

No Business is so close I can sleep in my own bed the night before. It’s home turf. I’ve run it the past four years and love the course, the directors and the old school vibe. I know runners who’ll be there. I would feel massive FOMO missing it.

Javelina is at my parent’s house (almost literally). I’ve run it for 15 years. It’s a great excuse to go see them and I planned on it for months. It would feel awful to go there the same week and not run the race. What about the party, new runners to meet, and friends I only see there once a year? I’d feel massive FOMO missing this too.

Back and forth, I couldn’t decide. Which one should I give up?

Both answers felt disappointing. Either way, I lost.

Then I saw the problem - I let fear of failure limit my options.

I used to do back-to-back 100s all the time…when I was running faster.

This year, I DNF’d Zumbro 100, ran close to cutoff at Massanutten 100, and barely finished Superior 100. I haven’t worked out the issues behind that yet, so I jumped to the not entirely logical and definitely not based on fact conclusion ‘I’m too old to finish back-to-backs now.’

But now that I saw the real problem, I knew what to do.

With fear of failure, I do the opposite.

So I decided then and there to run both races, regardless of the consequences.

Letting fear of failure make my decision would be giving into a bully.

I might DNF, but going for both races created a powerful confidence that doing the ‘safe’ thing didn’t.

So I sat down, sketched out a plan for doing the races and saw it could work.

And that’s what I’m getting ready to do - run both. I bought my plane ticket to Javelina and I’m packing drop bags for No Business as soon as I finish writing this.

When you don’t give in to fear of failure, you don’t have to wonder ‘what if.’

You prioritize long term desires over short term fears.

And you get to look back knowing you went for it instead of backing down.

You didn’t get into ultrarunning to play it safe - you got in it to see what you could do.

If you’re going to be afraid of anything, be afraid not to try.