I Didn’t Do It Alone

“You can do it yourself. You got this.”

My coach Mariesa said this when I told her I didn’t know anyone I could race HYROX doubles with.

She had known me for all of three months.

She was the first person I met at my new gym and helped me train for a half HYROX simulation. A full race alone had not even occurred to me. Two years earlier, I hadn’t even heard of HYROX.

Then someone told me I could.

I’m not sure I would have taken this on otherwise, in one of the busiest seasons of my life so far, with two little kids under five and my young business, Zavaya, to build. I would have read “100 wall balls” at the end of an eight-kilometer race and said, forget about it. I’m not in a season of racing.

Yet the part of me that loves racing, and loves testing the limits of what I can do, got excited. I signed up.

The next three months of training were nowhere near ideal.

My 18-month-old went through the hardest sleep regression I’d experienced with either kid. Then came weeks of school holidays. Some days I barely made it to the gym. On long runs, I took walk breaks because I was so sleep-deprived and exhausted.

What helped was deciding what the smallest version of showing up would be before the hard days came.

What is the smallest version of this action that still counts when my energy or capacity is low?

It’s a question I use for myself and with the women I coach.

On those days, my smallest version was simply showing up. Lighter weights or fewer reps, breaks when I needed them, sometimes a shorter workout, without guilt. The goal was just to cross the finish line.

On days I felt like I could conquer the world, I still had my bigger goal: coming in under two hours.

The people around us matter, too.

Some days, the smallest version meant walking into class ten minutes late instead of skipping it. One morning, someone joked, “Maybe you should set an alarm clock.” Well-meaning and just making small talk, I’m sure.

I didn’t have to say a word. Coach Danny responded. I don’t remember what he said. I just remember feeling seen.

He knew I had young kids. He understood that getting them out the door can be a workout before the workout.

Having coaches who not only encouraged me and guided my form, but also cared enough to know me as a whole person made the training more enjoyable and much easier to keep doing.

Huge gratitude to Coach Mariesa and Coach Danny. 💛

On race day in D.C., Mariesa’s words played on repeat in my mind. I crossed the finish line in under 1:40.

Since then, I haven’t been able to shake the power of those simple words, said out loud.

With belief, discipline, and one or two of the right people around you, a lot more becomes possible. It also helps to have a plan for the days when life inevitably gets in the way.