by Jonathan van Geuns, May 12, 2025
There’s a type of heartbreak in pulling the plug on a race you’ve built your year around. Not because of the DNS, but because of what it evokes: the dream, the missing out, the anticipation of seeing it through. The untold version of the story you thought you'd live. The vision you carried through cold and long training days. That race was Cocodona 250 and this year, I won’t be there.
The knee was the quiet revolting messenger. A persistent, inconvenient, unnerving low-grade throb muttering and whispering “maybe not this time.” Like any runner with a selective memory, I ignored those red flags. The physical reality was clear enough though: a knee that flared up unexpectedly, not letting me back into training, with the race getting closer (and a annoying shin pain a few months before). Injuries, no matter their size, aren’t just physical, they’re mental squatters, taking up space in your head, rearranging the furniture of your confidence. Only lately, I’ve been trying to sit with these feelings rather than push them away.
The decision was about what I’ve come to understand about expectations. Running this long is not a casual effort. It’s unpredictable. Last year, it gave me one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. Not because I finished, or cracked the top ten, but because of the present I was awarded. A chance run with intention and presence. I shared the experience with incredible people. I laughed, I suffered, I grew. Aside from the final miles, it was an overwhelmingly joyful journey.
This year, as the weeks passed, I realized I was dragging myself toward Cocodona with a mix of stubbornness, expectations and pressure. About what I thought I should be able to do and what I wanted out of it. I told myself I was chasing a goal, but in truth, I was clinging to an expectation. The ghost of last year. The pressure to not just return, but return better, stronger, smarter. One that eventually didn’t feel anchored in reality, a version of me I hadn’t become.
It’s tricky, this line between hope and expectation. There’s a big difference though. One opens you up. The other boxes you in, with performance reviews from your past self. There’s a kind of language we use with ourselves that sounds strong, assertive, ambitious. But it can become a cage. Some events, if not all, don’t bend to certainty. It asks for flexibility, humility, and presence. If you go in gripping tightly to a specific outcome, it will almost always slip through your fingers.
But here’s my truth: even with all the reframing imaginable, I knew deep down I wasn’t ready this year. Not physically. Not mentally. Not emotionally. I wasn’t stepping in from a place of contentment or grounded ambition. I was trying to muscle through uncertainty with grit. For a race that demands everything from you, that isn’t going to be enough.
Walking away from Cocodona this year sucks. It really does. There’s grief in letting go of something you truly love, especially when you’ve spent the better part of the year constructing elaborate spreadsheets. I also know this: the race will still be there (I hope). My body will heal. My mind will reset. I’ll return when I’m able to show up fully, with clarity, strength, and joy. I’m learning not to see this journey not as a failure. It’s a kind of respect for the race, for the experience I had last year, for my crew, and most of all, for myself.
Experiencing a race from the sideline is its own strange pilgrimage. You feel everything at once: pride, longing, gratitude, FOMO so sharp it cuts to the deepest parts of your soul. I try to see the wisdom in that threshold. To learn how to hold space for others’ joy without making it a measure of my own loss. I won’t smell the desert air at sunrise or have my revenge against Elden. But I’ll be back. On my terms. With intention and heart. Just like before.
About Waybound 