We love stories of redemption. They reassure us. They make us feel that life, even when chaotic, follows a kind of moral logic. There’s a mistake, a fall, a painful moment of reckoning. Then comes the hard work, the transformation, and finally, the comeback. The second chance that erases the first failure. The win that makes the loss worth it.
Sometimes, life even seems to confirm this pattern. Think of Jannik Sinner. At Roland Garros, he had three match points and lost against Alcaraz. A few weeks later, against the same player, he won Wimbledon. It’s a textbook example: same season, same players, a different ending. The arc completes. The world feels fair again.
I’ve seen similar narratives in soccer. I still remember watching the 2007 Champions League Final (my beloved Milan vs Liverpool). We were leading 3–0 at halftime, and it felt like the trophy was already in our hands. Friends were calling me to congratulate. Then came the second half, and later the penalties. Suddenly, everything was gone. However, two years later, in Athens, we faced Liverpool again. This time, we won. Closure was delivered. The wound, somehow, healed.
We like when stories work this way. We crave symmetry. We believe that effort, eventually, gets rewarded.
But what happens when it doesn’t?
Gary Robbins’ story offers a very different answer. If you’re familiar with the Barkley Marathons, you know it’s more legend than race. A race so hard that if you’re accepted, you receive a condolences letter. It spans over 100 miles to be finished in 60 hours, with no GPS, no aid stations, and barely any signage. The elevation gain is equivalent to climbing Mount Everest twice. Since the race began in 1986, only twenty people have ever finished.
When he tried in 2016, he hallucinated from sleep deprivation. But the race everyone remembers is the 2017 one, when he came agonizingly close. After 60 hours of running, climbing, and getting lost, he reached the final gate just six seconds too late1. Not six minutes. Not half an hour. Six. Damn. Seconds. He collapsed on the ground, not in glory, but in complete physical and emotional exhaustion. He had missed the cutoff.
What struck me the most about his story wasn’t the drama of the missed time. It was what came next. Or rather, what didn’t. There was no fairy-tale conclusion. No moment where the universe made it up to him.
In 2018, he was first, but the horrible weather (quite frequent at the Barkley Marathons, by the way) made finishing impossible.
In 2019, he suffered a serious injury (sacral strass fracture).
Then, the pandemic.
Long story short, he never had the opportunity to finish that race again.
Sometimes, you can give everything and still fall short. Sometimes, there is no second chance. Or the next opportunity hurts more than the first. There’s something deeply uncomfortable in that idea. It goes against the stories we tell ourselves, against the belief that persistence always leads to victory.
This isn’t a call to give up. It’s not cynicism. It’s simply a more honest reflection of how life often works. Trying hard doesn’t always mean you’ll win. Even doing your absolute best doesn’t guarantee the result you want. And sometimes, there is no satisfying ending, just silence.
In a culture that celebrates only winners, we often forget how much dignity there is in simply continuing. Not because you expect a reward. But because it matters to keep going.
Not all valuable stories end in redemption. Some never resolve. Some end with six seconds too many. And some continue, quietly, stubbornly, with no guarantee of anything at all.
Except the decision to try again.
- It is worth mentioning that Gary Robbins had taken a wrong turn on one of the final laps. Therefore, even if he had finished a few seconds earlier, he likely would have been disqualified ↩︎
