The Cost of Failure

Running a marathon barefoot was, I decided, a less cool achievement if I was carrying shoes just in case. Why was I like this? It's perfectionism again. Apparently it wasn't enough to run a marathon. I had to do it in a fancy way - and part of that was that I know I'm not a super fast runner, and so I had to find another way to one-up everyone else. That's a very uncomfortable thing to realise about myself, and it's uncomfortable to share it here. But still, realising it's a quality I have makes it something I can engage with and address. Would I be thinking about this if the marathon had gone as