Till lunges do us part
By Valentine’s Day standards, this is not a story about roses, candlelight, or surprise jewelry. This is a story about sweat. About cramps. About sandbag lunges that arrive when you’re already 75% exhausted and wondering why you said yes in the first place.
Which, coincidentally, is also a decent description of marriage.
Last November in Singapore, Dr. Mike Malabanan, a radiation oncologist, crossed the Hyrox Mixed Doubles finish line hand-in-hand with his chef wife Ivyn. Married for almost 17 years, parents to three daughters aged 14, 13 and 7, they had just completed one of the most punishing endurance races designed for “normal people.” No podium obsession. No heroics. Just the shared, stubborn goal of finishing together — uninjured, intact, still married.
If you’re looking for a metaphor for love that lasts, Hyrox offers one. It’s not romantic in the Instagram sense. It’s romantic in the way real marriages are: repetitive, exhausting, deeply unglamorous—and profoundly bonding if you do it right.
It started, as many marital adventures do, with one spouse having an idea and the other quietly regretting it.
“Ivyn was the one who suggested,” Mike admits. He had just come off winning bodybuilding competitions in 2024–25, with Ivyn firmly in her familiar role: sidelines, meal prep, motivation. But something shifted. “I think she was bitten by that competitive spirit. She said she wanted to compete also. She wanted to do something for herself.”
For Ivyn, the appeal wasn’t bravado. It was vulnerability. “When my coach made me try the Hyrox challenges, I thought, I don’t think I can do it on my own,” she says. Like Mike, she didn’t run. She incline-walked. Hyrox, with its kilometers of running and brutal stations, felt intimidating. “When I asked Mike, in the beginning he didn’t want. He was more into weights. Hyrox is more stamina and endurance.”
This, too, feels familiar. Marriage is full of moments where one person says, “I can’t do this alone.” And the other has to decide whether to adjust, adapt, and show up.
Mike, ever the doctor, didn’t romanticize it. He medicalized it. “If we’re joining this, we really have to train. We’re not getting any younger. I’m 49,” he says. Stress tests. ECGs. Executive checkups. Not because he’s paranoid—but because they have young kids and no appetite for hero narratives that end badly. Love, at this stage, looks like caution.
Their life together has always had motion. Gym dates since they started dating in 2006. Cooking businesses during the pandemic—Ivyn selling cochinillo, Mike helping after hospital shifts. Mountain biking. A seven-day motorcycle ride through southern Spain for their 15th anniversary, Ivyn riding pillion, food as much the destination as the road. “Once in our lives, as a couple, we were able to do this,” Mike says.
Hyrox was simply the next expression of that shared momentum.
What a Hyrox race revealed about marriage, patience, endurance, and love under pressure.
Before the race, Mike’s most confident thought wasn’t about winning. It was about finishing. “Hyrox—anybody can do it because you’re simply competing with yourself,” he explains. “What’s important is we finish it and with no injuries.” Ivyn was nervous. Mike wasn’t dismissive. He was steady.
The station that tested their marriage most? Sandbag lunges. Of course.
“By the time you do the lunges, you’ve finished 75 percent of the course,” Mike says. “Magka-cramps ka na talaga.” His glutes locked. He warned Ivyn: one more step and he was done. So she carried the load. Until she decided he could take it again. No drama. No speeches. Just reading each other accurately.
This is where Hyrox becomes painfully honest. You cannot start a station without your partner. You cannot finish ahead of them. Even running, if one is slow, the other must slow down too. “Sabay dapat kayo,” Ivyn says. Together. Always together.
Mike noticed another couple racing fast, the husband surging ahead while the wife faded, his voice rising, impatience audible. “I thought, this is really a reflection of a marriage,” he says. “How patient can you go if you want to do something fast but your partner is slow?”
The unspoken rule—of Hyrox and of love—is respect for limitations. Not tolerating them. Respecting them.
Did they lose patience with each other? Of course not. They were enjoying themselves. And fear, when shared, can be strangely unifying. “Natakot kami ma-injure,” Ivyn says. Fear can soften people. It can make you kinder.
What Hyrox revealed is something Mike articulates with clinical clarity: Exercise makes them better people to live with. Dopamine over cortisol. Movement over stagnation. “Pag kulang kami ng exercise, we get cranky.” Romance is lovely. Neurochemistry is practical.
Under pressure, Ivyn discovered Mike’s stubborn grace. “He will do his best maski mahirap. Kakayanin niya.” Mike, in turn, saw something new in his reserved wife: ambition for herself. “She wanted something to be proud of,” he says. She could have done it alone. She chose not to.
Crossing the finish line, Ivyn felt pride—not because she beat anyone, but because she proved something to herself. “If you put your mind into it, kaya pala.” They were already planning the next race. Taiwan, in March. Because some couples collect souvenirs. Others collect finish lines.
Hyrox didn’t fix their marriage. That’s not how real metaphors work. But it sharpened something essential: how they decide, how they pace each other, how they choose not to make small things big—especially while raising teenagers and riding hormonal waves together.
At the end of it all, Mike sums himself up with a grin: “In short, I’m an obedient husband.”
Which might be the most romantic line of all.
Because love, like Hyrox, isn’t about who’s strongest at the start. It’s about who stays. Who adjusts. Who breathes. Who waits. And who finishes—together.
