31/08/2026
A conversation I’ve had more times than I’d like this week, following HYROX, has genuinely broken my heart.
Women who have just done something they once wondered if they were capable of. Women who trained for months. Got up early. Rearranged family life. Pushed through nerves, fatigue, injuries, doubt. Stood on that start line and did what they set out to do.
And then the event photos come through.
And suddenly the conversation isn’t about what they achieved.
It’s about their stomach.
Their arms.
The roll that showed up when they bent over.
The dimple they hadn’t noticed.
The angle that made them look “bigger”.
The video they wish someone hadn’t taken.
And I can’t help but wonder…
When did we become so conditioned to look at a photo of ourselves and immediately search for what’s wrong?
Because these women weren’t thinking about their bodies when they were running around that track.
They were thinking about the next station.
The person beside them.
How much further they had to go.
How proud they were going to be when they finished.
Their bodies weren’t the problem then.
Their bodies were the reason they were there.
And yet, a few photos can somehow convince us to forget all of that.
I’m not asking you to suddenly love every photo of yourself. That’s not realistic.
I’m asking you to stop letting an unflattering frame become more powerful than everything your body has done.
Because your body is not the before photo, the after photo, the good angle or the bad one.
It’s the body that gets you through your life.
And I think we owe her a lot more gratitude than criticism. 💜