A letter to my daughter
Anoushka,
You use this word, nervited. Nervous and excited. You’ve used it before swim competitions and before big moments in your life. You’d explained it to me, but I didn’t quite know what the feeling was like.
I did this time, waiting in the tunnel for our wave to start at my first solo HYROX in Mumbai. Before that, in the warm-up area. Before that, getting to the venue.
It’s a curious mix of: what’s it going to be like? Am I going to be good enough? Is this going to hurt? Am I going to be found out? There were so many thoughts, Anoushka, and somewhere in the middle of them I thought, this is what nervited feels like. Thank you for giving me a word for it.
There wasn’t much I could do at that point. The training had been done. The effort I’d put in was the effort I’d put in. The time I’d spent was the time I’d spent, and there was nothing the last minute was going to offer.
So I breathed into it. I told myself to enjoy it, not to go out too hard, and to love myself a little bit while doing it. To not let how I finished determine who I am.
I wanted to finish in two hours thirty minutes or under. I hadn’t told anyone that because I think I was afraid of being judged if I didn’t make it.
And then I went out and raced.
At some point, I realised I was pacing myself and the stations felt good. The sled push, which had taken so much out of me last time, felt light. I’d practised it, and this time I wasn’t exhausted at the end of it. The burpee broad jumps and the sandbag lunges—I’d been so scared of them, but I got through them. I enjoyed that.
At the farmer’s carry, where I’d thought I would have to take a break, I went through the entire 200 metres without putting the kettlebells down once.
The station I thought I’d do well at, the wall balls at the end, broke me.
I was meant to take a brief break every ten reps. I think I ended up taking twenty minutes for that station. My heart rate wasn’t really elevated, and I was recovering quickly. But my brain was saying, I can’t do this.
What got me through was knowing that I’d done this before. I’d trained for this. I knew I could finish it. But there was this utter confusion between how I was feeling and what the numbers were showing me. Usually, it feels like my body gives up before my brain does. This time, it felt like my brain gave up first. I didn’t know what to make of it.
I finished the race in three hours. That was not the time I wanted, but it was the time it took.
And I took a moment to enjoy finishing. I really enjoyed that moment, soaking it in. Hell yeah, I finished. I did this. I completed it, and I didn’t give up.
Later that evening, I was thinking about how I’d shown up for the training and finished the race. But then that little voice started saying, yeah, you finished it, but does it count?
I looked up where I stood. In my age group, there were about 150 people, and I finished around 140th. In the men’s open, there were some 3,000 people, and I finished around 2,900th.
And I started wondering whether I’d really done so well.
I was also thinking about how much I’d dedicated to this over the last six months, and really over the last year. Not just time, but resources. I have a strength coach, a running coach, a physiotherapist, a myofascial therapist. I have all the gadgets and the information they give me. Supplements, nutrition, time to train and recover. I haven’t had to worry about access to any of it. I was pretty much doing this full-time.
That is a lot of privilege. And I found myself asking whether my finish time and my placement justified everything I’d put in. That was the question in my head. I don’t have an answer to it.
Thankfully, I have you. I have Mama. I have great friends. And one of the questions they asked was whether I’d been racing to win or racing because I enjoyed it.
I’m still trying to work out who I’m competing with. Myself, the other people who raced, or even all the people my age who could have taken part but chose not to. And what value I get from doing this, compared with the value I get from being ranked.
I often say I enjoy racing, not competing. I think that’s true. But does saying it also protect me from having to admit that I want to win? That I want a better time, a personal best, to keep getting better?
If I say I do it because I enjoy it, I don’t have to say what I want out loud. And perhaps that protects me from disappointing myself and everyone else.
I don’t know, Anoushka. I’m trying to understand how much of this is wanting to discover how good I can become, how much is wanting a result that reflects everything I’ve put in, and how much is wanting to finish ahead of other people. Or whether I’m looking for a result that makes me feel good enough.
And the result is public. That takes me back to the thought I had in the tunnel about being found out. I think I was afraid of being seen as someone who trained seriously and hard, had all this help, and still finished where I did. Someone who looked more capable than the result showed.
I can enjoy the race and still want a result I can announce proudly without hedging and explaining. Enjoyment and ambition have a complicated relationship. I’m still trying to understand mine.
But there are things I do know about these past months. I really enjoyed showing up to do something consistently. I enjoyed doing it over time and not getting injured. I could feel the difference that regular practice made, including at the stations I’d been scared of.
It’s hardly a new discovery that showing up regularly matters. I might be the last person to make it. But knowing it and experiencing it have been different things.
I know I’ll do this again. I enjoyed the preparation as much as, if not more than, the actual race. Next time, I want to enjoy the race as much.
And I really enjoyed the process of becoming an athlete, no matter how amateur I might be.
But hey, I’m an athlete now. And hey, I can keep going for three hours.
Love,
Papa
Originally published on Substack on 22 September 2026. Read on Substack →