The Road to HYROX

Join Me on My Journey from Couch to Fitness Race | 👟 no. 011

It’s official: My ticket for HYROX Chicago in November 2024 is purchased and activated.🔥

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I. Manifesting

I’m determined to make my late thirties and forties some of the best years of my life. This is non-negotiable. I spoke my conviction into the universe—and it laughed at my hubris—but all I can do in my smallness is keep trying to manifest beautiful things in my life while navigating the bumps and stumbles with as much grace as a knucklehead like me can muster.

II. From Daydream to Reality

Most of my time alone is spent daydreaming. Some folks tell me I’m easily distracted. I like to think of myself as being easily inspired.

Sometimes these dreams need time to incubate—usually years, sometimes a decade—while I build up enough personal power, enough courage and discipline, to give them material presence in the world. And one of the most rewarding and life-changing feelings is turning a daydream into reality.

Earlier today, I registered for my first fitness race: HYROX Chicago. Training for and participating in HYROX is a public declaration of my renewed commitment to taking better care of myself and creating a lifestyle that allows my best self to flourish. It’s about transforming my body and health; it’s about making time to recognize and express gratitude for the privilege of having a healthy body; and it’s about changing my relationship to food and alcohol. It is an essential step in fulfilling my vision for this season of my life: I want to race—not against others—but against myself.

So, who is joining me in Chicago? 😅

III. Sick and Tired

Nothing quite makes me feel as rigid and out of shape as trying to escape my toddlers’ rooms after getting them to sleep. I contort my resistant limbs and “engage my core” trying so hard not to wake them and to ensure no floorboards or mattresses or doors so much as make the slightest squeak, yet it’s the creaking of my bones, the way my body sounds like a bowl of Rice Krispies freshly drenched in milk—Snap! Crackle! Pop!—and my muffled cursing at a sudden charley horse that eventually sabotages all my careful work of getting them to sleep. There’s something about trying to be stealthy that turns me into the Tin Man or, perhaps more accurately, reveals how desperately I’m in need of the proverbial oil can: It’s time for a tune up.

On a recent trip to California, Leah and I found ourselves climbing up a long staircase at a local beach. After we reached the top, I walked around with my hands on my sides trying to hide how winded and embarrassed I was.

It just so happened I had read an article about Mount Everest earlier that morning—apparently April and May are peak climbing season—and, as I struggled to catch my breath and fight off an oncoming side stitch, I couldn’t help but think about the folks trying to summit the highest mountain in the world while I was being bested by a flight of stairs. Everything is Everest when you’re out of shape.

These moments are telling but not surprising.

January 2020, eight months before my first child was born, is the last time I ran more than five miles or lifted weights.¹ Then I taught through the pandemic, became a dad, finished and defended a dissertation, became a dad to yet another beautiful baby, and then moved across the country to find stable work and a place where we could afford to live.

I’ve spent the majority of these last four years using every opportunity to disappear into the things that give me comfort and dull the edges of my anxiety. DoorDashing pizza and Slim Chickens (cheesecake in a mason jar?!), having a daily beer or glass of wine (or four), eating a pint of Cherry Garcia, and then playing Call of Duty during the short intervals when the little ones mercifully decide to sleep. Feeling so overwhelmed by and unprepared for the new challenges in my life, I’ve felt entitled to indulge. I was afraid I’d crack up if I didn’t: Isn’t dad staying sane the best gift I can give my children? No TV and no beer make Homer something, something . . .

But those moments cramping up outside my kids’ rooms or struggling up a flight of stairs have reminded me how—like most instances of instant gratification—the indulgence is a lie, long-term pain masquerading as relief.

The alcohol is a depressant. The crashes from the sugar and the junk food leave me feeling terrible. The video games steal rare and precious leisure time and hinder my creative work. The lack of physical activity deprives me of all the positive chemicals released by exercise including the pride of making it through a tough workout. I haven’t been practicing self-care: I’ve been sad, anxious, and making myself feel worse.

Well, I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. It changes today.

And it starts with HYROX.

IV. Discovering HYROX

Launched in Germany in 2017, HYROX describes itself as “fitness racing,” half running and half functional training where participants run 1 km followed by one functional workout station, repeated eight times.

With four different categories, from open to pro, singles to doubles, HYROX prides itself on being “the sport for every body,” and, according to a recent article in Forbes, it has become “the fastest-growing fitness sport in the world” and is projected to have “81 races and over 300,000 participants” by 2024-2025.

A visual explanation of how Hyrox works.

Given how HYROX is designed for both beginners and pros, a hybrid of running and functional fitness, I can’t think of a better way to challenge myself or an event that better embodies the spirit of the new lifestyle I actively want to cultivate.²

The race closest to me is in Chicago on November 16th, 2024. It also happens to be the first race of the HYROX 2024-2025 season: Perfect.

V. Parenting as Endurance Event

I think parents are athletes—even if we don’t always think of it that way or train accordingly.

And, at the risk of further hyperbole, parenting two toddlers, including one on the autism spectrum, often feels like an endurance event.

No matter how tired or sad I am, how hopeless I may feel about my own life, dad needs to show up for his family. My precious little babies are blissfully unaware of the ways everyday life can erode the spirit—thank goodness—and so they run and climb and yell and throw and tickle and cuddle and cry and laugh.

It’s time I started training not just for HYROX but for being a more active, engaged, and resilient father.

The best gift I can give my wife and my children is taking care of myself—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—to ensure I’m around for a long time and present as the loving, patient, and joyful man I know I am deep inside. Sometimes that part of myself just gets lost in all the darkness.

I hope taking better care of myself will turn some lights on.

1. To be fair, I did impulsively buy a Peloton in September of 2022 and fell in love with its perfectly calibrated mix of gamification and inspiring life/fitness coaches. I rode it nearly every day until we moved, and now it’s collecting dust in the basement—but not for much longer.

2. From the HYROX website: “Over 98% of our athletes complete their HYROX race. With no finishing time restriction, and no qualification required to enter, HYROX welcomes every participant with open arms.”