Yesterday was my first Hyrox.
I am not sure I had any business being there.
For the last two months, I was not training. I was barely keeping up with my own life. The gym became something I used to do. The runs became something I would start again on Monday, every Monday. In December I had done half a circuit in practice, twice. That was the last time my body knew what it was being asked to do. Three or four sessions in three months. That is what I brought to the start tunnel.
The day before the race, I prayed for one thing. Just to finish. Nothing about time, nothing about how I looked, nothing about what came after. Everything else in my life could wait one more day. I would fight all of it tomorrow. Today I just needed this.
My friend Anchal called me the day before. I was telling her about all the things sitting on me, and she said something I carried into the tunnel with me the next morning. That I had been waiting for tomorrow for so long. That I should just enjoy it, because it would not come again. That I should not think about anything else in the moment.
I stood in the registration queue with Hanuman Chalisa and Sankatmochan Ashtak in my ears. One line kept playing in my head.
सब सुख लहै तुम्हारी सरना, तुम रक्षक काहू को डरना
I entered the start tunnel at 10:53. My race began at 11:00. For seven minutes I stood there pulling every bit of energy I had left to the surface. Anchal's voice in my head. This is my day. This is my moment. I am going to finish, and I am going to finish as strong as I can.
11:00 hit. I started running.
The first kilometer, adrenaline took over and I was flying. Then I caught myself. Slow down. You don't know what your heart is going to do today.
Ski-erg, which I had barely practised during my training sessions, came and went in around 4:40. Sled push almost broke me at station two. By round two I was asking myself how I was going to finish the other six stations if this is what station two already felt like. I finished it ugly. I walked the next Rox zone, then made myself run again. Sled pull brought back some confidence, I finished the station strong. I was still in the race.
I met Rajdeep just before the burpee broad jumps. He had started twenty minutes before me, which meant I was holding a decent pace. He told me he had been doing three laps on the runs. I told him no, only two, you are doing an extra one. A small thing, but it was the first moment in the race I felt sharp.
Then the burpee broad jumps took everything out of me. Rowing came easier. Farmers carry too.
Then came the sandbag lunges.
That was the moment I almost gave up. My quad cramped before I had even started round two. The Hyrox medics massaged me, which is a generous word for what they did to my legs but it worked, and I went back in. Round three was the worst thing my body has ever asked of itself. Sabu was there cheering. I do not know how I finished round three. By round four I was just whispering to myself, it is just this much more, it is just this much more.
I did not know what those lunges had done to my legs until I tried to run again.
Halfway through the next kilometer my calf locked up. I slowed down to check it, which made it worse, and then I was on the ground. A medical attendant came over. She was so gentle I will not forget her. She massaged my calf while I tried not to scream, sprayed it, told me to breathe. Another medic walked over and asked how much I had left. I said just the wall balls.
He told me not to give up. To walk if I had to. To finish.
I walked to the wall balls. Rajdeep was there. Seeing him there made me happy in a way I had not been all morning. He had started twenty minutes before me, and I had fallen, and my calf had locked up, and a medic had spent five minutes putting me back together on the floor, and I was still at the same station as him. My pace had survived all of it.
I tried my first set. My calf cramped on every squat. I could do five or six reps before I had to stop.
I asked Rajdeep how many he had done. He said seventy-five.
I had done twenty-seven.
That number took every bit of swagger I had left.
But I kept going. Five. Stop. Six. Stop. Three. Stop. The referee called the medic on me at one point. I was not pretty. But I was still moving. By the end I was doing seven at a time. I thought I had one more set when the referee told me I was done. A hundred. Go to the finish.
I crossed the line with my hands up.
I found out at the finish that I had a penalty. Somewhere in the cramping after the sandbag lunges, I had skipped a lap without realizing. Damn you, cramp.
It did not matter. I finished my first Hyrox.
There was a time in my life when I could not run 100 meters. I weighed 105 kilograms. The version of me lying on an arena floor yesterday with a medic massaging his calf was a version that earlier-me did not believe was possible.
Two months ago I wrote that I did not have a comeback story yet. Just heavy legs and a lot of questions I had not answered.
I am writing this with heavier legs. Most of the questions are still there.
But yesterday I got back the thing I have been missing. Not the time. Not the form. The belief that I can show up with nothing and still finish. That when everything else in my life is loud, I can quiet it long enough to do the next thing in front of me. That I am still the person I was becoming, and I have not lost him.
I limped out of the arena with an energy drink in my hand. I promised myself that next time I finish in the elite category. Under 1:30. Rajdeep joked that I now qualify for League, the Hyrox dating app, which is apparently a real thing for finishers. We took photos outside.
On the drive home I put on Victorious by Score and let it loop. Every line of it felt like it had been written about today. About wanting to win something just once, no matter the story you came in with. About not losing the fight even when the dark is loud. I had lived every line of that song in the last few hours.
Tomorrow I will fight everything else.
And the best part is, I am just getting started.