2024 rolled around and I was feeling restless. I'd fallen into a lull, and had lost my flow and mojo. I'd been coasting, and suddenly realised that there wasn't much of what I loved doing in my life, other than the stories I'd been writing for others.
I'd done a life wheel a few months before and the results weren't great. They were uninspiring and not that surprising.
I'd been riding high on months of discovery, connection and coming into my own in my mid forties and it felt great. Until the novelty began to wear off.
I'd been writing and painting, painting and writing and loving both. Yet something was missing, or so it felt. I couldn't put my finger on it for a while. Until I did, in November. I was missing a physical challenge. I'd been doing Les Mills Body Pump and Body Combat along with some spinning, thrown in for good measure for almost 15 years and I was over it.
It didn't give me the buzz I used to enjoy and I couldn't even be bothered to maintain the routine for the sake of maintaining some level of fitness, which if you know me, was quite odd.
I'd done the 75 hard challenge over the summer and had a glimpse of how exercise and something challenging made me feel. If you don't know what it is, it's 75 days of growth through movement, diet, self development and healthy living, The main element of the programme is movement. You have to exercise/move twice a day, with each session being a minimum of 45 minutes, one of which has to take place outside.
There are also some other elements that you have to do every day, such as drinking a certain amount of water every day, reading a non fiction book for 15 minutes, as well as choosing a diet/approach to food.
The daily movement element for me, was walking and running, again, for the the first time after a 10 year break from running due to injury. It was a real challenge and one that after the initial resistance, especially when it rained, I found enjoyable and satisfying. Mainly because I wasn't sure that I would be able to maintain everything for 75 days, especially getting out when the weather wasn't good.
I actually didn't know what to do with myself when it ended. It actually felt like a bit of a hole in my life, although I was relieved to not have to be thinking about when I'd fit in morning sessions and checking the weather forecast for timings.
After 75 Hard, going back to Les Mills didn't feel the same. I started to think about taking up a new physical challenge, sport or activity. I played with the idea of climbing, which was something I'd done before and even returning to running, perhaps with a running club, but neither really felt right. Plus, I'd recently learned that due to my age and impending changes, I probably shouldn't be running for long periods regularly.
There it was, the age thing, creeping into the things I wanted to do and had to consider. We're constantly surrounded by the subtle messaging that women of a certain age should prepare themselves to start slowing down to allow for the upcoming or already underway, changes of our bodies. We're encouraged to accept that our bodies won't look, feel or work the same, due to no fault of our own. I was seeing some of the signs myself, and had resigned myself to this being my reality.
It took some time to actually question the narrative, I and millions of other women are facing at any time and I was trying to fight it. I realised, that in accepting the narrative, the age old story, I was compromising my standards and expectations thanks to what was coming at me from books, conversations, other people's experiences and societal expectations.
I decided I wasn't having it. Looking back at everything that's taken place over the last 20 months, the experiences I've had, the decisions I've made, I look back and realise that a lot of them were me unconsciously protesting and resisting the norm, or at least my normal.
I wasn't going to follow the straight and narrow, mostly because when I look back at my life, there's been very little about it that can be described as normal, in a good way.
Fast forward to the last week of February this year and I came across an article talking about the new fitness trend - Hyrox, a combination of endurance and fitness racing. I was intrigued. It consists of 8,1km runs, that are broken up by functional activities such as a sled push, a sled pull, rowing, weighted lunges and broad jump burpees to name a few
I found my closest class and signed up. I went to the first class. I struggled, I was weak, it was brutal. I wasn't able to push the sled and the Coaches had to remove pretty much all of the weights so that I could move it just a few meters. I finished the class shaking, yet buzzing. I'd found my challenge. There was something I couldn't do, that I knew that if I trained, I would improve.
I returned the following week, and the week after that. Every two weeks I made big improvements. I was able to move the sled with most of the weights within a month. Within two I was able to run laps of the circuit after completing numerous stations/activities. Every week I left pretty much broken, shaken and exhausted but excited, optimistic and most of all focused, because there was progress.
I decided to enter my first race 4 weeks before the competition, after umming and ahhing for over a month. I wasn't sure if I would be ready, I had images of not finishing the race because it was too much and I wasn't fit enough, bearing in mind I had only been training for 8 weeks at that point.
I was scared. The most scared I've been for years. It surprised me, as I'm not someone who is usually fearful. It didn't feel good. I booked the race but didn't actually book the flights and accommodation until about two weeks before the race.
I spent the next two weeks training, training hard and I have to admit more from fear than for confidence, but the improvements were still coming which was comforting. I was lifting weights that I'd never been able to lift, even when I was at my fittest, 10 years ago. I was running further than I'd ever run. I had a moment when I caught myself. I was pushing every limit that I thought I had and going beyond it, almost on a weekly basis. The things I wasn't sure that I could do, I did eventually.
Fast forward to the race. That was something else. If you've never seen a Hyrox race, it's....interesting. You start in a pen and then run onto the course, merging with other runners already into their races. Standing there with the other women all ranging in age from early twenties and over, it was overwhelming.
I was tearful. Why? I have no idea. It could have been the combination and release of all the anxiety, training and overthinking of the previous 4 weeks, plus the relief of having made it to the starting line. Who knows. Looking up and watching the video of a man finishing his race, battling through the wall balls, which looked gruelling and painful whilst he was surround by people cheering him on,it was inspiring. Cliched and cheesy, I know, but it helped me.
I ran, I pushed, I pulled, I jumped, I rowed, I lunged, I carried and I threw. It was hard, but I did it and it felt and still does feel amazing, even as I remember the race months later.
I overcame my doubts, the pain and most of all, my inner vice, wondering if I would actually complete it. Wondering if I had got above myself in the hope of finishing the race with what felt like not enough training. In a way there was no doubt because there was no way that I wasn't going to finish, but it was always a possibility that my body would protest.
After the race, I realised that I had found my water, the thing that I craved and was thirsty for. The thing that sustained me, brought and kept me alive. The thing I had only just discovered, but felt like the missing piece of the puzzle in my life. a bit dramatic, I know but it's how I felt and how I feel now.
This has been a long post as I look back on my own story that has been rewritten and reimagined within the year. It has been interesting to write this and be on the other side of the story. Not so much writing it, but sharing it. You never know where you'll go if you follow your interest and the cues.
Have you found your water? If so, I'd love to know what it is and how you found it.