My Current Pursuit: Why I Race

I read somewhere that as men, we should have three distinct pursuits in life: an intellectually stimulating one, a socially beneficial one, and—perhaps most importantly—a physical health and fitness pursuit.

I rank the physical pursuit as the most vital. Not because I’m hunting for aesthetics or a "pumped" look for social media, but because it is the engine that makes the other two possible. When your health and fitness are in the gutter, trust me, the other two will only ever get half-baked efforts.

My current pursuit is HYROX. Let me tell you how a sedentary middle aged guy ended up in the arena.

The Wake-up Call

It started back in 2023. At the time, HYROX was just a cool video on my social media feed. In reality, I was recovering from a life-threatening health scare in June 2023 that landed me in the hospital for a month. Being bedridden caused my leg muscles to atrophy so badly that I had to go through physical therapy just to learn how to walk again.

I started with the basics: walking, light bodyweight movements, and keeping HYROX on my radar as a distant "maybe."

By early 2025, I was feeling cocky. I’d packed on some muscle, I was running 5km weekly, and I could squat decent weight. I thought I was in the upper echelon of fitness for a 50-year-old. But let’s be honest: my social circle at the time was mostly sedentary beer-guzzlers. It’s easy to look like an Alpha when you’re standing next to a group of “dormant uncles”.

The Reality Check

I signed up for the June 2025 Men’s Open in Singapore. In April which was 2 months prior, I attended a simulation class, and boy... what a shock I was in for.

The HYROX community is made up of people who are hungry for peak performance. My first simulation was, in a word, embarrassing. I couldn't even push the sled. While my coaches and teammates were patient, I was dying. I stood there thinking, "What the hell did I sign up for?"

I had two choices: quit, or grit my teeth. I chose the latter. I showed up for that simulation every single week until race day.

The Arena

When June arrived, my only goal was to finish. I started in a wave with 30 other guys in the 50-54 age band. There is something powerful about racing with your peers. For those two-plus hours (I finished in 2:10), we shed our coats as dads, husbands, workers, and CEOs. We wore a coat that was truly ours: 50-year-old men defying social norms.

At every station, we exchanged silent glances and nods. In that silence, we were saying, "Let's crush this, brother." That camaraderie is hard to put into words. When I crossed that finish line and high-fived the men I’d just suffered with, only one thought entered my brain:

"When is the next race?"

The Road Ahead

As I write this on 3 Jan 2026, I have completed four races: Singapore, Beijing, and Shenzhen. I’ve managed to bring my time down from 2:10 to 1:51.

The Hyrox arena is a special place. It’s filled with "regular" people with mundane lives who come together for a weekend to prove to nobody but themselves what they are capable of. My goal for 2026 is to hit Sub-90 minutes by the June (Indonesia) race. It’s a mountain of work, but the work is the point.

If this post reaches someone out there who is stuck in the same predicament I was, or someone who is hesitating to take that first step into a physical pursuit—just start moving. If my journey helps even one person reclaim their edge, I’d consider that a massive win.

Let’s fight on, S.O.50s!