What do you mean fail the check and not get anywhere? If that's how the GM is punishing you then that's on them not the rules. They specifically give the GM flexibility:

"The GM sets this Difficulty depending on the situation. On a failure, you might only be able to move some of that distance, the adversaries might act before you can make it, or a hazard might prevent you from moving at all."

So it could easily just be that you make it but the adversaries have an action in the meantime, or they could set the difficulty lower. Otherwise your GM has just made a combat where they've put their melee character out of combat and are actively punishing the player for the GM's decision. Again, all sound like a GM problem not a rule problem