Every Father’s Day, children are encouraged to give something to their fathers. This year I find myself thinking about the opposite question. What do I hope to leave my daughters?
For the past several years, they have watched me train for ultramarathons. They have seen the early mornings, the long hours on the trails, and the weekends spent preparing for races that most people would consider irrational. In 2023, I completed the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, a 170-kilometre race around Mont Blanc through France, Italy, and Switzerland that took me more than 44 hours to finish.
Like many people, my daughters eventually asked why.
The truth is that for a long time I thought I knew the answer.
I told myself it was about challenge. Adventure. The mountains. Proving something to myself.
Those answers were all true. But they weren’t the whole truth.
Looking back, I realise the most important lessons had very little to do with running. They were lessons about life. Lessons I hope my daughters carry long after they forget the details of any race.
Comfort Is Not the Goal
One of the great temptations in life is to organize our lives around comfort. We naturally avoid uncertainty, difficulty, and failure.
Yet when I look back at the moments that shaped me most, they rarely came from comfort. They came from situations that challenged me. Situations that forced me to grow.
The easiest path and the most rewarding one are rarely the same.
I hope my daughters learn that fear is not always a signal to retreat. Sometimes it is a signal that something important lies ahead.
Pain and Suffering Are Not the Same Thing
The race involved plenty of pain. Blisters. Exhaustion. Sleep deprivation. Doubt. But I never experienced it as suffering.
Over time I have come to believe that pain and suffering are not the same thing. Pain in pursuit of something meaningful can strengthen us. It can reveal character and create growth. Suffering is pain without direction.
Life will inevitably contain both. Learning the difference may be one of the most valuable skills we can develop.
You Don’t Need All the Answers Before You Begin
One of the central ideas in my book is that we often expect to understand everything before taking the first step. But many of life’s most meaningful journeys do not work that way.
When I signed up for UTMB, I could explain my reasons, but I did not fully understand what the journey would eventually mean to me. Some things can only be understood through experience.
I hope my daughters never wait for complete certainty before pursuing something that genuinely calls to them.
Character Is Built Through Commitment
Motivation comes and goes. Commitment remains.
There were countless moments during training and during the race when motivation disappeared entirely. What remained was the decision to continue.
The same is true of relationships, careers, families, and dreams. The people we become are shaped less by our feelings in a given moment than by the commitments we choose to honor when those feelings fade.
Meaning Is Forged Along the Journey
The greatest surprise of my life has been realizing that many of the things we seek cannot be found directly. Purpose is one of them.
I did not experience meaning by sitting at home thinking about it. I found it through movement. Through commitment. Through difficulty. Through voluntarily stepping into situations that demanded more from me than I thought I could give — all guided by a purpose I could not fully articulate but felt deeply.
The deeper meaning of many journeys only becomes visible once we are already walking the path.
The Real Gift
The finish line of UTMB was never the real prize. The real prize was who the journey forced me to become.
As a father, that is the gift I hope to leave my daughters. Not the race itself. Not the medals. Not the accomplishments. But the understanding that a meaningful life is built by moving toward difficult things, embracing responsibility, and remaining open to the possibility that the most important lessons will reveal themselves only after the journey has begun.
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About the Author
Rafael Hidalgo is the author of The Pain Cave: Start With Where, Not Why, an ultrarunner, and the founder of TalorAI. A former racing driver and tornado chaser, he is a lifelong seeker of challenge whose path has taken him from international finance to the mountains.
After two decades in global banking, he was pulled toward a different kind of pursuit—one that culminated in the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, a 100-mile race across France, Italy, and Switzerland. That experience, and the transformation it demanded, gave rise to his book.
Born in Switzerland and raised in France, Rafael now lives with his family, continuing to build, explore, and pursue the next mountain—wherever it may lead.
