For me, burnout came on gradually – but when I was done, I knew I was done.
For 15 years I was the editor-in-chief of Hello! magazine, and for most of that time I thrived on the pace and glamour.
But towards the end, I felt permanently wired and exhausted – both frayed at the edges and drained of energy. I’d successfully ignored the stress and poor sleep for so long, I no longer knew what it was to feel ‘normal’.
By the time it came to a head – in a pool of tears in a London hotel room after hosting a big event and waking to the ping of emails, texts and endless demands on my time – I was physically on my knees, my heart beating so hard I could almost hear it.
I remember gazing at the two unanswered FaceTime calls from my young children from the night before and feeling suffocated by guilt. I longed for a different life.
A doctor signed me off for six weeks. I went home to my husband and two boys, who were then aged eight and six, feeling relieved, anxious and uncertain. What would I do now? Who was I without a job title that defined so much of my working life?
The short-term answer was the school run, some gentle exercise and lots of evenings in. Slowly, my nervous system calmed and my sleep improved. Week after week, I felt my energy return.
I began to reflect on the endless round of royal and showbiz news I’d loved for so long, and realised it wasn’t exciting me the way it used to. Interestingly, the world didn’t spin off its axis when I admitted this to myself.
When I went back to work part-time, with a new job description, plans for a complete reinvention of my working life bubbled at the back of my mind; I couldn’t shake off the desire for something new.
If you’d told me that would include competing in one of the toughest fitness races in the world at the age of 50, however, I’d have said you’d got the wrong woman. I might even have laughed in your face.
Rosie Nixon does her workout against the clock, surrounded by some of the fittest people you’ve ever seen – the kind who were born doing planks
At school I was never a ‘sporty girl’ and, until my 40s, I thought trainers were only for pairing with a dress and fresh manicure (Adidas Gazelles, naturally).
In fact, when my friend Petra, who happens to be a personal trainer, decided to enter me into a Hyrox race in London as an off-the-wall present for my 50th, I had to Google the word Hyrox. Flowers would have been fine.
But reinvention after burnout has to be physical as well as mental. Something about entering my 50s sharpened my desire to prove I could be strong again – strong and taut in my body, and strong in my choices about starting a second chapter not solely defined by work. More prosaically, I had also begun to notice some wobbly bits around my midriff and under my arms. It made me think upping my fitness with some gentle weight-lifting would do me good.
Oh how naive I was. Nothing about Hyrox is gentle.
We all know that smug middle-aged friend who swears by Tough Mudder or runs half marathons. Hyrox takes it up a gear or three.
A wholly indoor race, Hyrox is made up of eight 1km runs, with each one followed by a functional strength workout that feels like it was designed to break the spirit.
You run and then do SkiErg, for example – a downward pull yanking on handles like you’re cross-country skiing through treacle. Then another run before Sled Push – heaving a weighted metal sled across the floor while questioning all your life choices. Ditto, Sled Pull – the same idea, but pulling it with a heavy rope.
At the end of the next run, you find 80 burpees waiting for you, where the chest touches the floor followed by a puke-inducing, frog-like leap. Next comes a 1km row, then a Farmer’s Carry, aka lugging 16kg kettlebells around a circuit like you’re bringing in the world’s heaviest Waitrose shop.
This is followed by walking lunges with a 15kg sandbag on your shoulders (basically a metaphor for midlife). The punisher comes last – squatting and throwing a weighted ball at a target while praying it doesn’t smack you in the face… 100 times.
You do all this against the clock, surrounded by some of the fittest people you’ve ever seen – the kind who were born doing planks.
If it sounds like torture – and it sort of is – that hasn’t stopped Hyrox becoming a worldwide phenomenon since its invention in 2017, spanning 85 cities across 30 countries, with 650,000 participants last year alone. So fashionable has it become, it nowadays dominates the social media feeds of anyone with even a passing interest in fitness – for both good and bad reasons.
This year it has dominated headlines after Australian world-record holder Joanna Wietrzyk suffered bowel incontinence mid-race and continued to compete covered in faecal matter. The decision to allow her to continue – and ultimately win – sparked widespread debate about hygiene, athlete welfare and race management, particularly as other competitors were required to use equipment after her. Critics have also bemoaned its eyewatering price tag, the standard of judging and the accusations it can be a ‘toxic’ environment.
Yet people keep pouring into the sport, despite the gruelling setup – and indeed gruelling recommended training regime – and its push-to-the-limit mentality.
The former Hello! magazine editor says she hasn’t dropped any weight at all – but her waistline is noticeably tauter, her arms are sculpted and she is stronger than she was at 30
If Hyrox makes even the most dedicated weekend warrior mum blanch. If it defeats even the most puffed up Mamil (Middle-aged Men In Lycra), how on Earth would I fare? Petra had bought us entry to the Hyrox race at the Olympia exhibition centre in west London, and the only saving grace was her suggestion that we compete in the Open Doubles category – a team of two version, where you and your partner complete the full race in tandem, but sharing the workouts as desired.
When she handed me that ticket, maybe she saw what I didn’t yet: that I needed a challenge that wasn’t career-based; something to get me out of my head and into my body. Saying yes also meant instant kudos with my husband and two sons, now aged 12 and ten, who were far more impressed their mother was going to do a Hyrox than they have ever been looking through the commemorative issues of Hello!. Doing it for them spurred me on during the toughest training sessions when the old me might have given up.
By the time I started preparing for Hyrox at the start of this year, I was already moving into a better place mentally. I’d re-trained to become an accredited life coach, and felt happier and more creative than I’d been for years.
Perhaps my sunnier outlook explains why I started my training with such naive enthusiasm. I had no idea what I’d signed up for.
Hyrox was at the end of March, but much of January was in the end knocked out by a persistent chest infection. Even my husband thought I should probably drop the idea then. But I was determined, obsessed even, with the ‘road to Olympia’. And with each session in the gym, I could feel it: my legs were getting stronger and my lungs were, well, screaming less loudly than before.
Training for Hyrox turned Rosie into the kind of gym-obsessed woman she once side-eyed – those who talk about ‘splits’ before 7am
Training three times a week over five weeks was enough to see the beginnings of abs appear at my waist and more muscle tone and definition elsewhere. At 50, I’m not chasing a lithe model body, but strength and agility – the version of myself who can do anything she puts her mind to.
I’m also reaping the benefits of boosting my muscle mass, which drops with age, and counteracting many of the biological shifts driven by declining oestrogen during perimenopause.
Training for Hyrox turned me into the kind of gym-obsessed woman I once side-eyed – those who talk about ‘splits’ before 7am.
Suddenly I was waking at 6am, marching into my local Hyrox class like a woman possessed, fuelled in equal parts by determination and the quiet terror of humiliating myself at Olympia. I became that person who knows exactly where her deltoids, quads, glutes, hamstrings and even those shy little obliques are – because I could see them.
In case you’re wondering, your obliques sit along the sides of your waist, running diagonally from your ribs down toward your hips. They’re the muscles that give you that sculpted, athletic ‘V’ at the sides of your torso – the ones you suddenly start noticing in the mirror when you’ve been doing a crazy amount of working out.
There was a flicker of guilt about how much time I was investing in training, but it was drowned out by the pride of watching my body change shape. My confidence for race day grew, as did the admiration of the small men in the house – when we sat down to watch Gladiators, I was able to seriously contemplate how fast I might make it up the travelator.
Every gym session felt like a tiny act of rebellion against who I used to be, and a big vote for the woman I was becoming. Physical reinvention wasn’t an abstract concept anymore; it was in the mirror, flushed, sweaty, slightly unhinged – yet unmistakably happier for it.
On the day itself, my nerves were intense. Much of the Hyrox equipment wouldn’t look out of place in a military fitness camp and the marshals are just as strict, dishing out time penalties for every below-par lunge or wall ball that doesn’t quite hit the target.
Then there’s the noise – booming dance music, sleds clattering and crowds erupting in waves.
Once acclimatised to the scale of the event, I necked a banana for pre-race sustenance and we joined a warm-up station. Then we were at the start line, a dark tunnel, following our wave of female pairs (each race is divided by sex, age and ability levels). I tried not to feel intimidated by the number of sculpted bodies and French plaits around me.
Before long, the smoke guns erupted and we were off. After the first few exercises and 1km runs, I seemed to find a steady flow – grateful to be doing this with a partner. But then the chest-to-floor burpee jumps – always my worst station – made me feel horribly nauseous. I kept going through gritted teeth.
Each run came around fast and my heart felt as though it was about to break through my chest. It was time to dig deep, while Beyonce’s hit Run The World (Girls) pumped out of the speakers, giving me a much-needed boost at the 5km mark.
There were moments in the weighted lunges when my thighs were burning so badly, the old me would have screamed: ‘Enough!’ But I thought of how proud I’d make my boys if I finished, and ploughed through it.
The wall balls were pure pain. But before my brain had time to catch up, I was throwing the last ten at the digital target. I found a final burst of energy after that as Petra grabbed my hand and we pounded to the finish line together. We crossed it in one hour, 26 minutes – a highly respectable time I am very proud of.
My legs were jelly, heart hammering, but I couldn’t stop grinning, knowing that just a few years ago, I’d have found this impossible.
In an age of fat-jabs and the return of the emaciated twiglet aesthetic, my aim was never to be thinner. I haven’t dropped any weight at all – but my waistline is noticeably tauter, my arms are sculpted and I am stronger than I was at 30.
Best of all, I’m now the Mum Who Can Do Anything according to my boys. That feels fantastic.
Completing a Hyrox was the perfect challenge at this point in my life, when I have reinvented my career, beaten burnout and started my sixth decade. I don’t feel late to the party – I feel like I’m just getting started.
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