What an awesome story! You'll probably never have a race that bad again :-D Of course you cried, having to give up is the hardest thing to do, it kicks your butt the way no amount of effort does.

Funny thing, just yesterday I was reading in "How to think like a Freak" (book 3 of the Freakonomics series) about exactly that, how most people - and firms are really "bad at failing" - ie. giving up in time, instead of carrying on with something that's getting worse and worse. Learning when to call it a day is a really good thing to do.