Part 3: The biggest lesson I took away from the weekend.
The biggest lesson I walked away with had nothing to do with the event itself.
It had everything to do with where I am in life right now.
For most of my life, getting to the gym was easy. It was my outlet. I’d been an engineer, I’d been a teacher. Jobs that were mentally challenging, sure, but they didn’t drain me the way running a small business does. Back then, fitness was stress relief. Movement filled my tank, and I always had enough left in the day to talk myself into a workout.
But owning a gym? Being responsible for bills, your family, your team, the livelihood of others?
That’s a different level of personal stressful than I have endured. Over the last year I realized something important:
I was mentally exhausted in a way I had never been before. And no amount of “mental toughness” was going to drag me into the gym on my own.
That’s when Sadar told me he wanted to do Hyrox. And then I texted my buddy Mark because I knew if I had people counting on me, I’d show up. If it had been just me training on my own? There’s a 0% chance I would’ve made it past week two. Large group class? Too easy to skip and not be noticed. Solo workouts with no accountability? Absolutely not.
Those first few weeks were hard. The kind of mornings where the alarm goes off and your brain immediately starts negotiating:
You don’t HAVE to go… You’re tired… You’ll go tomorrow…
I don’t think I’m alone in that. I have a few close friends who can wake up at 4 AM and hit a garage workout like it’s nothing. I admire them. Truly. But that’s not me.
Eventually, though, the routine built on itself. After a month, the wake-ups felt slightly less violent. Not easy, let’s not get carried away, but manageable. And even then, that instinct to skip never fully disappeared. It was always there whispering, especially before the blankets came off.
But here’s the part that finally clicked for me:
**The biggest lesson wasn’t from race day.
It was realizing this whole season of life is too heavy to carry alone.**
I needed help.
Not wanted, needed.
I needed Mark to be there so I’d actually show up.
I needed Sadar’s message to spark the idea.
I needed structure, accountability, people, support.
I’m at a point in life where I can’t just “motivate myself” into discomfort. My brain is too fried from everything else I’m responsible for.
My friend Scott said something last week that hit me right:
“You never regret a workout. But when you skip, you spend the whole morning thinking about the one you didn’t do and that’s when you feel regret.”
He’s right. That regret hits harder than any conditioning piece ever could.
Fast-forward to race day. At the starting line, the Hyrox emcee pulls our wave together. Everyone buzzing with nerves. She tells us to close our eyes, take a deep breath, and “let go of everything you brought in from home for the next hour, nothing else matters.”
And for someone who lives at a 98% stress level every waking moment…
those words landed.
I realized that entire morning: the warm-up, talking with Mark, walking into the venue, I felt lighter. I felt free. I felt like myself in a way I hadn’t in months. On that start line, my brain wasn’t spinning on bills or membership numbers or family worries. I was completely present.
When I came back home after the weekend, all those stressors were still there but I could handle them a little bit better. Because I wasn’t trying to do everything alone anymore.
So here’s the real lesson from Hyrox Chicago:
**You don’t have to do it alone.
And maybe… you can’t.**
Life is heavy.
Work is stressful.
Family is demanding.
Your time is not your own.
But there are people who want to help, people who want to train with you, support you, be part of your journey. You just have to let them in.
Let them make the wake-up calls easier.
Let them pull you through the hard weeks.
Let them remind you that you’re stronger than your stress.
We can all be better for it.
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