Vance Dubberly

Failure. Not many people talk about it. People talk endlessly about the successes in their lives, they talk about how they acheived this or that, how great life is going in x or y space, but rarely do they ever discuss their failures. Perhaps that because people, including myself, like to say things to others that make ourselves seem more valuable or perhaps out of a sense of compassion we do not wish to drag others through the mire of misery which we experience when they take us into their suffering. Regardless, I am going to write about failure today.

You’ve not seen a post from me in some time. Photography has fallen by the way side in my life. I like to photograph. I like grabbing pure moments and then attempting to distill the emotion I felt as the shutter clicked into the somewhat less than perfect arrangement of pixels which my camera produces. It is a beautiful thing. Yet I have let photography fall by the wayside. I have been doing other things. Harder things, things which for years I have not been very good at.

You see, I am a geek, pure and simple, a geek. I like data, raw, nonsensical, and random, and I love to make sense of it. Give me two points in space which can’t be connected and I will find a way to connect them. Connection to me is like breathing, I am good at making sense out of non-sense, I am good and drawing lines which others simply can’t see. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of time spent with my ass planted in a chair. And since I am good at connecting dots on a somewhat randomly plotted graph, I can see the link between my fat ass being planted in a chair and a somewhat unpleasant series of golden years. And so my ass, and my camera hand have been swimming and running, and biking. I have been doing triathlons.

Truth is the “s” on the end of that is an exaggeration. I have done exactly 2 triathlons. Two sprint distant triathlons. Which is to say I have trained for 2 years to get my body in good enough shape to do half ass triathlons. By half ass I mean that the triathlons I’ve been doing are quite literally half the length of what a triathlete would call a triathlon. The first one I did was a .25 mile swim, a 12.4 mile bike ride and a 2 mile run. I did O.K. at this I suppose, I finished it and came in about the middle of my peers. Today however, I did a second.

Today’s was a .5 mile swim, a 15 mile bike ride and a 3 mile run. I fell apart. The problem wasn’t physical fitness. Well in a sense it was. The problem was maintaining my ability to draw lines between not so random points under stress. The swim went ok, I finished among the last people in my age group. The problem didn’t appear until the bike ride, and here things literally fell apart. I rode ok, I was averaging about 18 - 19 miles an hour until I noticed my bike was wobbling underneath me. I had a flat.

A flat meant I that the guy who was in my opinion in much better shape than I and who I had been pacing myself against would no longer be there to lead me through this segment of the race. It meant that I was on my own, that I had to stop, get off my bike, and deal with a problem. After a few moments of denial, and a few choice words I did. I let the disappoint ride over me, and my hopes get left behind. I would not finish in the upper half of my age group. I would not pass the person who I had assumed was my superior at the end of the bike ride. I would have to let those things die.

1 inner tube, a little muscle and alot of hot air later I was going again. Going slower, going with less hope, but going. And then half way around the loop, as I was riding I could feel my bike wobbling beneath me. “Fuck NO!! NOT AGAIN!!!” This time as I stepped off my bike I could feel the tears welling up and as my hand took the seat and my feet took to the ground my first reaction was to throw the bike in bushes which lined the road. I didn’t. The realization hit that I didn’t have a another tube, and that I was going to have to walk back to the transition area I calmed. I cried. I cried like baby. Perhaps I was mumbling to myself, “No, not now, not another. I have to finish. I have to. Fuck, I have to finish, how am I going to finish.” Perhaps I was not mumbling this to myself, perhaps I was mumbling it out loud because somebody yelled and threw me a tube.

It took me a second to realize they had done so and to yell, “Thank You! OH THANK YOU!” I pulled off my tire, ran my fingers over it looking for thorns that might have been stuck in the tire and was pumping away when another rider came alongside me with a flat, They had a tube but no pump. I finished my tire, left them my pump and went on my way.

At the end of the second lap, it came again. The instability of the back of my bike. The grinding sound of my rim on the pavement. This time I didn’t curse. I didn’t tear up. I moved my weight to the front of the bike until I heard the sound again. Then I stepped off, and walked the bike in through a crowd of people to the finish line. I listened to their condolences and “I’ve been there’s”, I listened and I must admit they made me feel better. But the end truth was that I reached the finish line 1 lap short. 10 miles instead of 15. 3 flats in 2 laps and I gave up the bike. 2 out of 3 laps. I didn’t finish. I disqualified myself, at least in my mind, and here in public record. I didn’t finish the bike and I resigned myself to failure, but there was still a 3 mile run ahead that didn’t require an inner tube, and so as a failure. I ran the rest of the rest of the race. I did my 3 miles. Whatever the race results show are wrong. I didn’t finish and to say I did would be cheating.

I did the swim which was hard, I did the run, which wasn’t so hard and in the segment which I excel I fell apart. I failed. 3 laps disintegrated into 2. And failing to be adequately prepared to finish what I had begun I had to learn a hard lesson instead. Going the mile, being prepared to bike 15 miles isn’t about being able to bike 15 miles. Finishing a goal isn’t simply about being able to do the named goal. It’s about being able to do the named goal under adverse conditions. I can ride 15 miles after doing a .5 swim and before doing a 3 mile run, I’ve no longer any doubt about that, I had the strength. But what I couldn’t do was face adversity during that bike ride. I couldn’t deal with a flat tire properly. The chances are pretty good that 2nd and 3rd flat were my fault, either because I didn’t adequately check the tire and the rim for debrease while changing or because I was careless in placing the inner tube in the tire and crimped it or over inflated it during the changing.

So today I failed. I failed miserably. Perhaps some would say that I didn’t fail because even after I couldn’t ride any longer I still ran. That view, while I appreciate the sentiment of the person who would convey it and it’s truth, will not carry me through such an adversity in the future.

Failure. Wow. I’ve not tasted it in any real sense in quite some time. I always see my failures before they happen. And to some degree this has made me arrogant, I know what the future holds for me because I can predict what adverse effects my action will lead to. Today I failed miserably to see my limitations, for the first time in many years I sought to lay blame on others for what were my faults. “It must have been the new tires I bought,” “It must have been excess debris on the road,” “It must have been my cheap ass bike,” it must have been anything but my inability to adequately face adveristy and deal with it in a clear and reasonable state of mind.

Today I cried like I have not cried in a long time. I felt worthless like I have not felt in a long time. I screamed and was angry. Today failed to do what I both set as a goal and what I thought I had prepared myself to do. Today I feel more alive than I have felt in a long time. I failed today, and it has given me hope for the future because I know that there is more in the world for me to discover.

Race photos are here:

Flickr

I posted them on flickr cause it’d be dumb to put them here.