The days blurred together like frost spreading across the bus windows - slow at first, then all at once.
Thiago had learned the rhythm of winter training now. Wake up to the sound of his alarm cutting through the dark. Ice cracking under his boots on the way to breakfast. The endless cycle of training ground, recovery sessions, matches, hotel rooms. His body had become a map of aches - the tightness in his left hamstring when he slept wrong, the dull throb in his right knee when the temperature dropped.
His fingers had gone past numb into something more permanent. The cold didn't shock him anymore. He barely noticed the way his breath fogged in the air, or how the snow squeaked underfoot during morning runs. It had all become background noise.
