How One Man Became a HYROX World Champion at Age 77

I spent my childhood trying nearly every sport my dad and his brothers were good at: football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, gymnastics. But none of these stuck for me. I wasn’t all that coordinated, and I was quiet and shy.

In high school, I fell in love with distance running and continued running throughout college. After graduating in 1969, I enlisted in the Air Force, and my strong finishes during Officer Training School intramural races earned me the title of team captain.

I ran on and off through adulthood, finishing four marathons and eight half-marathons. When I was sidelined with plantar fasciitis in my 50s, my wife encouraged me to work with her personal trainer. I took it as an opportunity to get stronger, which benefited my running when I got back to it. A few years later, I decided to pivot from long-distance running to sprint triathlons.

Later, in the fall of 2023, I was doing burpee broad jumps at Life Time when a training group (that included small-group training coach and personal trainer Jen Walter) began cheering me on. They called out, “You should train for HYROX with us!”

At the time, I was too winded from the broad jumps to do more than chuckle and shake my head. I assumed the competition was for young people at the peak of their athletic abilities.

There’s no way I can do that, I thought. I may be in good shape for 76, but that’s ridiculous.

The Next Fitness Frontier

Even though I didn’t take the invitation seriously, I was intrigued enough to do some research. I learned that HYROX competitions consist of running 1 kilometer before each of eight workout stations. At these stations, athletes perform, respectively, 1,000 meters on the SkiErg, a 50-meter sled push, a 50-meter sled pull, 80 meters of burpee broad jumps, a 1,000-meter row, a 200-meter farmer’s carry, 100 meters of sandbag lunges, and 100 wall balls.

I wondered how others my age had done in the competitions. I found a spreadsheet listing everyone who had completed the race to date. Sorting the age field, I discovered no one my age was listed. That’s when the goal took hold: Maybe I could be the first.

I started training with Jen as my coach and joined the group preparing for an upcoming race in Anaheim, Calif. It was a qualifying event for the 2024 world championships, and I only had to finish to qualify for a spot because there wasn’t anyone else in my age group.

Still, I knew finishing wouldn’t be easy, and I had just two months to train.

Because I was familiar with almost all the exercises and equipment (only wall balls were new to me), I focused on endurance. I needed to make sure I could run and transition right into an exercise, and vice versa, even when I was already out of breath.

At my age, improvements don’t come easy. Recovery is tricky too. So I made sure my foundation was strong by taking days off and getting good sleep. Jen encouraged me to stay hydrated and increase my protein intake to at least 150 grams a day.

Although preparing for HYROX was physically different from training for running races and triathlons, the mentality of committing to a goal — with its routine and challenges — felt familiar and energizing.

The First Older Champion

Thanks to my training, I was able to improve my strength and endurance in time for the May competition in Anaheim. I knew I would be slower than my younger counterparts, but I felt confident that I could finish — I just didn’t know how quickly. The average finish time for the men’s open division is about an hour and a half; my goal was two hours.

Early in the race, I struggled with the sled push, which felt harder than I’d expected. Then I got into a groove and ticked off each station. I’d been working nonstop for nearly two hours when I got to my toughest exercise: wall balls.

At this point, the announcer came over and asked for my name and age. He shared that with the crowd and focused everyone’s attention on me. As I struggled to finish, the crowd chanted, “Pete! Pete! Pete!”

I was so gassed from the effort that I had to stop for nearly 30 seconds to catch my breath. I was embarrassed by all the attention while I was doing nothing. I felt like I was letting the crowd down.

In the end, I finished in a little over two hours. And because I finished, I was invited to compete at the world championships in Nice, France.

I accepted the invitation, even though the competition was only three weeks away. I barely had time to recover between events. But since no one else my age was competing, my goal, once again, was to just finish the race.

In France, I started in the last wave of the day. When I completed the wall balls and turned to cross the finish line, cheering spectators formed a reception line with their hands in the air. One of the race officials said, “Grab my wrist” and pulled me through the line while the video screen flashed “New World Champion.”

On social media, HYROX World posted a video of the finish and later shared that it was the organization’s most memorable moment of the year. I was far from the fastest competitor, but at 77, I was the oldest. I was proud to ­become the first HYROX world champion in the men’s ages 75–79 category.

Fitness for My Future

I’ve since finished two more HYROX events. In December 2024, I competed again in Anaheim, and this time I had competition. I was able to beat my competitor and finish with a personal record of two hours and four minutes.

I then had six months to train for the next world championships, in June 2025. This time, my training was hampered by sore knees, arthritis in my neck, and plantar fasciitis in my right foot. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish, but coach Jen encouraged me to go anyway and treat the event like a victory lap rather than a competition.

I was one of three competitors in my age group at the event, a sign of the sport’s increasing popularity. It’s good to see that some of the growth includes more older people giving it a try.

Unfortunately, I did not finish that race. The sled push took me three times longer than normal to finish and just killed my legs. I dropped out during the lunge portion of the event when my legs said, “No more.” I later learned that some of the sled lanes had problems, which led to many other competitors not finishing too.

Despite failing to defend my title last year, I’m happy to have made my mark as the first HYROX world champion in my age group. I’d like one more chance to improve my time by finishing in under two hours, and that’s what I have in mind as I continue to train.

Pete’s Top 3 Takeaways

1. Stay active. “Moving your body at any age is important, and any activity is better than none,” Pete says. “Find something you enjoy doing and stick with it.”

2. Find a fitness partner. “Sharing your fitness activity with someone not only makes it more enjoyable but also increases the likelihood that you’ll stay committed.”

3.  Don’t be afraid to try something new. “You never know until you try,” Pete says, recalling his first foray into group fitness. “I went for it and never looked back.”

This article originally appeared as “Never Too Late” in the March/April 2026 issue of Experience Life.