I wanted to succeed. I really did. When Automattic announced that they would have a Worldwide WordPress 5K (WWWP5K) I was without excuse. While I have never pretended at athletic ability, all year I’ve had a disciplined marathoner colleague sitting at my lunch table eating “Marathon training food” (not even going to tell you what that means) to compete in the Boston Marathon. For the WWWP5K event all I would have to do was run speed walk 5K!  Not only that, I’m not great at building blogging community and this was one way and day I could stretch beyond my comfort zone. Also with people participating world-wide through WordPress it fit with my love for the world….I was so in.

And what better place to do this than the famous Freedom Trail in Boston? The red-brick trail that takes people through history by showing various sites significant to the founding of the United States. In this way I could show readers history and springtime in Boston all while getting exercise by participating in the WWWP5K. I would create a fancy sign that I could hold up at the end and have someone photograph me as a “Finisher”. I had it all planned. I even set the date for Saturday the 28th, the day before the official 5K.

But.

I failed.

Miserably.

I’d like to blame it on hurting my ribs or on my cheap Payless sneakers or on my crazy schedule but I won’t do that. I will admit defeat. Admit that it seemed doable but I couldn’t complete the goal in the time I had. And it’s freeing to admit failure. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. Sometimes you can’t work full-time, parent, blog, spend time with the man behind the blog, and take part in a 5K.

So I failed to complete the speed walk. But I did succeed in capturing some pictures that will introduce those that have never been here to the Freedom Trail. I call it the “Failed 5K on the Freedom Trail Collectors Album” and hope it will convince you to book a trip to Boston this summer.

At what have you failed lately? Go on – tell us! You know you want to.