BEYOND THE SURFACE

 A Story About Frustration, Acceptance, and the Quiet Work of Resilience

Some lessons arrive through victory. Others arrive in a very different way — quietly, unexpectedly, and often when everything seemed to be going exactly according to plan. This story begins in Logroño on October 5th, 2025, the morning of the marathon.

My partner and I had planned to run it together. It wasn’t just another race on the calendar. It was her first marathon, a goal she had prepared for with remarkable discipline, consistency, and quiet ambition. Week after week she had followed the plan with an impressive level of commitment — long runs early in the morning, disciplined recovery, and the kind of steady determination that builds something much deeper than physical fitness. Watching her prepare had been inspiring. For months we had imagined crossing that finish line together.

And then, two days before the race, something strange started happening.

The First Signs

It was Friday afternoon, about forty-eight hours before the race, when I began to feel an unusual stiffness in my legs. At first it seemed harmless — the kind of tightness that often appears during taper week when the body is adjusting to reduced training. But this felt different.

My quadriceps and hamstrings were unusually rigid, almost as if they were holding tension that stretching could not release. I tried to walk it off through the streets of Logroño, convincing myself that it was probably just travel fatigue or the nerves that come with race weekend. Still, something inside me felt uneasy.

That night I lay in bed replaying the sensation in my legs, hoping that by the next morning everything would feel normal again.

But Saturday came, and the stiffness remained. By the afternoon it had become something I could no longer ignore. Inside, a quiet fear appeared. I didn’t know what was happening to my body. But every time my partner asked how I felt, I answered the same way. “Tomorrow, whatever happens, I’m running.” And at that moment I meant it.

Race Morning

Race morning arrived with the familiar marathon atmosphere. Runners everywhere, the quiet tension before the start, the energy that fills the streets when thousands of people gather to test themselves over 42 kilometers.

The race began at 9:00 a.m.. Standing at the start line, surrounded by runners adjusting shoelaces, checking watches, and exchanging nervous smiles, I tried to ignore the strange sensation in my legs. Sometimes the body just needs the first kilometers to wake up. At least that’s what I told myself.

The race began. The first steps felt awkward but manageable. The second kilometer changed everything. Suddenly my legs stopped responding. Not gradually. Instantly.

My quadriceps and hamstrings tightened so aggressively that running became impossible. It felt as if my muscles had turned into stone. I tried to jog, then to walk, but even walking felt difficult. After barely two kilometers, I had to stop.

The Longest Walk

Turning around and walking back toward the starting area was one of the longest walks I remember. Not because of distance. But because of what was happening inside my head. Around me, runners were just beginning their race. And in that moment the emotional weight hit all at once.

Sadness. Disappointment. Frustration.

But above all, a deep sense of anger. Not anger at the race. Not anger at the circumstances. Anger at the fact that I could not run beside my partner. This was her first marathon, a goal she had pursued with admirable discipline, determination, and ambition. For months she had committed herself to the preparation with a focus that deserved to be celebrated.

We had imagined sharing those kilometers together, encouraging each other when the race inevitably became difficult. And suddenly I was no longer part of that story. But one thing I knew with absolute certainty. She was going to finish.

Faith

My faith in her never wavered. I had seen the work. The discipline. The patience. The determination.

She was ready.

And she proved it. She crossed the finish line of the Logroño Marathon in under four hours, an incredible achievement for a first marathon and the result of months of focused preparation and determination.

Watching her approach the finish line was one of the most emotional moments I have experienced in sport. In that moment, the frustration disappeared. What I felt was something completely different.

Pride. Deep pride.

I felt incredibly happy for her, watching her accomplish something she had worked so hard to achieve. Seeing her cross that line with strength and confidence was unforgettable, and in that moment it didn’t matter that I hadn’t been able to run beside her. What mattered was that she had done it. She had earned it. And I felt immensely proud to witness it.

The frustration would come later. But that moment was pure happiness.

The Week After

The days after the marathon were harder than I expected. For about a week I felt completely lost, not just physically but emotionally. I kept replaying the race in my head, trying to understand what had happened.

Why had my body stopped like that? Why had my legs locked completely?

The uncertainty created a strange kind of internal crisis. Anyone who trains seriously knows this feeling — when the body suddenly refuses to cooperate, it shakes your sense of control. So we started investigating.

We spoke with coaches, physiotherapists, and sports nutrition specialists. We read forums, scientific articles, and tried to reconstruct everything that had happened in the days before the race. Eventually, a possible explanation appeared.

The Unexpected Cause

The most likely cause was surprisingly simple. Carbohydrate loading.

In the days leading up to the race I had increased my carbohydrate intake significantly, perhaps too much and possibly with sources that were not ideal. When glycogen is stored in muscles, water binds to it. In my case, the excess glycogen likely caused my quadriceps and hamstrings to retain too much water, creating extreme rigidity in the muscle tissue. My legs had effectively become overloaded. The body needed time to rebalance. It took about 72 hours for the excess accumulation to dissipate. After three or four days, I could move normally again.

Physically, the problem disappeared. Emotionally, it stayed much longer.

A Month Later

About a month later, another race appeared on the calendar. My first Ironman 70.3, my first middle-distance triathlon. This time I approached things differently. No aggressive carbohydrate loading. No experiments.

I simply stayed close to the nutrition that my body already knew. The race turned out to be extraordinary. I enjoyed every part of it — the swim, the bike, and the run — and I finished a little over five hours, far exceeding my expectations of around five and a half hours. And somewhere during that race, something inside me began to heal. The frustration from the marathon didn’t disappear completely. But it softened.

The Quiet Work of Resilience

Nothing will change the fact that I couldn’t run beside my partner that day. Nothing will erase the image of her crossing the marathon finish line without me next to her. But something did change inside me.

That experience forced a kind of internal reconstruction I had not expected. It forced me to face frustration directly, to accept disappointment instead of avoiding it. And that process was not easy. Sometimes resilience looks heroic. Other times it looks quiet.  It looks like accepting pain that may stay with you for weeks or months, and continuing anyway.

Somewhere inside that process, one simple thought appeared. Next year, we come back. Next year, we cross that finish line together.

The Lesson

Failure is not a detour in the journey. It is part of it. Mistakes appear in training, in competition, and in life. They must be accepted, processed, and sometimes endured for longer than we would like.

The pain can last days. Weeks. Months. But denying it only delays the learning. Facing it transforms it.

In my case, I was fortunate to have someone beside me who supported me through the entire emotional recovery process. My partner showed the same strength and generosity in those months that she had shown during her marathon preparation. She was patient when I felt frustrated. She understood the disappointment that stayed with me. And she helped me rebuild confidence when it would have been easy to stay stuck in the frustration.

Because resilience rarely grows in isolation. Often it grows quietly inside relationships, trust, and shared goals. And sometimes the victories that matter most are not the ones we achieve immediately. They are the ones we return to claim later.