JOURNEY TO HYROX: Diary Entry One

Exactly 7 months from today I’ll be at the start line of my first HYROX.

I’ve been under a barbell since I was 18, 5-6 x a week, consistently for well over a decade now. But this will be an entirely different challenge.

Years ago I trained for a bodybuilding competition I never stepped on stage for. I injured myself in the lead up, and somewhere in that process I developed a really unhealthy relationship with food.

I made the call to walk away from it, because there was no version of continuing that journey that was going to be good for my mental health. That was the right decision. It was also the beginning of a much deeper healing journey that I didn’t even realise I was on…

The obsession with being lean, looking skinny, getting ‘rid of my thighs’ as the voice that used to live rent free in my head used to say, had been something that consumed me since I was 13. I thought bodybuilding was the answer, I thought calorie counting was the answer, I thought obsessively clean eating was the answer, but none of them bought me trust, connection or true happiness in my body.

After my second knee surgery I was scared to lift heavy, I avoided legs (which only made that little voice louder and much worse). I put on muscle, I got strong, but my nervous system panicked the moment I got under the bar.

Not to mention the fact it was FRIED from the years of chronic burnout + binge/diet cycling I’d put it through. No wonder my body wouldn’t change (my poor hormones)

I told myself for years I couldn’t do ‘athletic stuff’ - aka jumping lunges or run - because of my knee. But really it was my mind.

Healing my relationship with food helped, but healing my nervous system completely shifted my relationship with my body… and one day my friend invited me to a HIIT group fitness class.

I’d always loved strength training (and HATED CARDIO),

And I’ve always been strong (in many cases I could easily outlift someone’s son) but this class was different. It was REAL weights. It was REAL training (and it was a LOT of cardio). The high after class was REAL too. And that’s when I started to realise what my body was capable of, what I’d been holding myself back from this entire time. I was HOOKED.

I added that class in twice a week on top of my strength training, kept up my steps and suddenly I was in love with the gym again.

My body started changing, and I not only felt stronger, but more POWERFUL.

I realised this is what it meant to feel ALTHETIC.

And so over the last 3 years, I’ve been building back a body that I not only LOVE, but is one that can handle the training load (regardless of my knee injury).

That has had me in the fittest and best shape of my life… even though I’m in my 30’s!

And has completely changed my relationship with how I view training. Has had me excited and made me want to see what my body is truly capable of, from a performance standpoint!

So… in October last year, I sent @robertscottfitness a message (bless him for putting up ‘challenging body’ and craziness) to tell him we needed to take things up a level when I got home in March.

I wanted to train for HYROX.

I’ve given myself a year. We’ve been putting in the work, and now, 7 months out, we up the anti, and things are about to get far more serious…

Every week from here until race weekend, I’ll share what I’m learning. The training, the fuelling, the labs, the things that surprise me.

Come with me. LFG!