I wanted to revisit and reword a blog I wrote a few weeks ago, from a perspective of just completing my 3rd and “FINAL” Hyrox. Over the last year, here are some of my observations. Over and above the built-for-athletes bags, patches everywhere, and the deep psychological currents that run beneath these endurance events. In our modern world, dopamine is king. It governs our desires, fuels our ambitions, and tricks us into believing that the next achievement, the next challenge, the next event will finally bring us peace, give us resolution. But here’s the catch dopamine doesn’t deal in peace. It deals in pursuit. It is the whisper in your mind that tells you, “More. More. More.”
In this endless chase, we find ourselves drawn to extreme experiences: Hyrox races, ultramarathons, gruelling endurance challenges. These aren’t just fitness events they’re something deeper. They tap into something primal, something unresolved. They are the modern arenas where we prove our worth, not just to ourselves but to the watching world, the likes, the kudos, the fakebook post, the constant comparison . It’s a Personal best fucking circus for many. When your watch says PB it becomes the emotionally available parent you never had, the empty cavern of neediness still seeking mummy or daddies approval.
Its close on an obsession the addiction to chasing times, splits, and the Stopwatch. It starts as a desire to improve, to get faster, to get stronger. Then, suddenly, you’re not just competing in an event you’re competing against yourself, against time itself. It’s no longer about experiencing the race it’s about shaving seconds, obsessing over splits, checking your watch every few strides. Even in a single event, you’re already running multiple races chasing different markers, different milestones.
When one event no longer satiates the thirst, it’s an event stacked on top of an event a single, a pro, a double mixed double relay, it’s how many events can i maxxxx the credit card out to go to.
This obsessive relationship with time isn’t just about performance. It’s about control, about the need to quantify progress, about the addiction to the validation that comes with improvement. The stopwatch becomes the master, and the race is never truly finished. Because once you cross the line, the numbers demand more.
Then there’s the need to belong. Patches, Badges, and the Narcissism within the Hyrox arena.
Humans are tribal by nature, and in the age of disconnection, we cling to any sign that we belong. Enter the Hyrox badge laden bags, the ultramarathon medals, the finisher shirts, the social media posts. These are not just trophies they are proof of identity, proof of worth. They say, “I am part of this. I matter.”
Some athletes even go so far as to hire personal photographers to capture their suffering in perfect lighting. The agony, the gritted teeth, the sweat-drenched shirts these become content, proof of dedication, fuel for the external validation machine. The suffering must be seen. Otherwise, did it really happen?
But what happens when the event is over? When the medals collect dust and the dopamine spike fades? The need to belong doesn’t disappear. It just shifts to the next thing the next challenge, the next impossible feat, the next hit.
Hyrox just another form of bagging another event “in the bag.” Roll on the next one. The same psychology is at play in the world of Munro bagging. Climbing a mountain used to be about connection to the land, to yourself, to the silence. Now, for many, it’s just another notch on the belt, another box ticked.
I love mountains, but I’m certainly not bagging them. I don’t need to complete them like some kind of spreadsheet challenge. When I tell people I’ve hiked the Big Shepherd 38 times, they look at me with disgust. They can’t comprehend why I would repeat the same mountain when there are so many left to “bag.” Not content with a simple day on the hills, people now feel the need to run them, to race them, to climb them in a leotard, or to be on their second round of all the Munros before they’ve even had time to enjoy the first.
It’s never enough. The next mountain, the next race, the next event it’s always looming.
The Inability to Handle Defeat: Competition and the Oedipus Complex
Competition in endurance sports isn’t just about self-improvement it’s about dominance, about proving superiority, about winning. For many, losing is not an option. The inability to handle getting beaten isn’t just a personality quirk; it’s deeply psychological, tied to unresolved childhood conflicts, often linked to the Oedipus complex.
Freud’s Oedipus complex theory suggests that, as children, we develop subconscious competition against our same sex parent, vying for approval, attention, and dominance. This dynamic carries into adulthood where the race, the event, the competition becomes a reenactment of proving oneself worthy, of outpacing the imagined rival.
Endurance sports, particularly Hyrox and ultramarathons, provide the perfect battleground. If you win, you confirm your worth. If you lose, you’re plunged into self-doubt, unworthiness, and the desperate need for redemption in the next event.
This is why some athletes become obsessed. They train harder, push themselves further, chase every advantage. The idea of someone overtaking them, performing better, being stronger it’s unbearable. They need to be the best, not just for external validation, but to silence the internal war that never really ended.
At first, these challenges start as a way to push limits, to test oneself. But for many, they morph into just another escape from stillness, from unhealed wounds, from the discomfort of simply being.
The addiction to performance doesn’t stop at training it extends into food, body image, and control over every physical aspect of oneself. Macros and micronutrients become an obsession. Protein intake, carb cycling, fasting windows it’s all meticulously tracked. Food is no longer nourishment; it’s fuel, measured, weighed, optimized.
For many endurance athletes, body fat is the enemy. The pursuit of peak performance often leads to extreme calorie restriction, cutting back on anything deemed unnecessary. This hyper-focus on physique is just another layer of control, another way to prove discipline and dedication. It’s not just about running faster it’s about looking the part, about sculpting the body into an image of endurance and suffering.
For me It mirrors the rave scene of the late 80s, of which I had a very active part in from88-93 where the pursuit of euphoria, community, and escape through music and ecstasy became a lifestyle. Just as ravers chased the next festival, the next DJ set, the next all-night high, endurance athletes chase their own brand of transcendence through suffering.
The same can be seen in the personal development world, in those addicted to self-help seminars, motivational retreats, and high-ticket coaching programs. The Ayahuasca spiritual seekers, who trade one addiction for another swapping alcohol, drugs, or social media for plant medicine ceremonies and deep, mystical healing journeys. They develop their own language, their own sense of belonging, reinforcing the illusion that they are healing, evolving when in reality, they are just hiding in a new habit, escaping under the guise of self-improvement.
It’s all the same game, just in a different form. The high of achievement is still a high. The pain of endurance becomes a drug. The suffering becomes a badge of honor. And when the race is over, the question remains what now? What next? What dead relative can I dedicate my next race to? What charitable cause can I ride on the back of to justify my endless pursuit?
Addiction doesn’t always look like a bottle or a needle. Sometimes, it looks like a perfectly planned training schedule. Sometimes, it looks like another entry fee, another race bib, another weekend lost to mileage. The truth is, many endurance athletes aren’t running toward something they’re running away.
Endurance sports offer a socially acceptable way to check out. Hours spent running, rowing, lifting, sweating time where the mind doesn’t have to sit in silence, where emotions don’t have to be felt, where the weight of real life can be pushed aside for just a little longer.
Pain isn’t the enemy. Pushing limits isn’t bad. But when the chase becomes an endless cycle when the finish line never truly feels like an ending it’s time to ask yourself:
Are you truly growing, or are you just running from something?
Am I using these challenges to find myself, or to lose myself?
Dopamine will always keep us reaching, always keep you wanting. But true fulfillment doesn’t come from the next race, the next challenge, the next peak. It comes from knowing that you are enough even when the race is over.
I advocate exercise, so train hard, push your limits and test yourself. But don’t mistake suffering for salvation. The real challenge isn’t in the miles you run it’s in the silence you’re willing to face when you finally stop.
Are you willing to? Willing to sit silent, no phone , no distractions
Let’s see if that takes off, the next circus .I was still , had no phone and no distractions for the night , push it to two, or three fuck lets throw three sheets to the wind and do a week .
May the force be with you ….
Make the Connection 
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