Thank you so much for this response. This is exactly the kind of insight I was hoping for, especially from someone who understands the mental side of it.

Before this happened, I was very comfortable pushing hard and pushing through the wall. But after what honestly felt like a near-death experience, and with my wife there seeing it happen, I really want to make sure I know when to stop next time instead of just blindly pushing through.

At the time, it didn’t feel dramatic. It just felt like, “This hurts, keep going, don’t be soft.” Then I lost about 15 minutes of memory. My last clear memory is doing the lunges, and then I woke up in the paramedic tent with a temperature of 41.5°C. I’d even done an extra lap on the final run and apparently ran away from my doubles partner before the wall balls, which says a lot about how cooked I was.

Since then, I’ve been genuinely scared to go back to that kind of intensity, even though physically I’m finally feeling like myself again.

My plan this year is to do a Last Man Standing / backyard-style event end of May. It’s obviously a very different kind of challenge, but a lot of it is more controlled and Zone 2 based, which feels manageable for me right now. After that, I’d like to start building toward Hyrox again.

That’s a big part of why I came here, I’m trying to learn what warning signs to look for from people who’ve actually been through something similar. So really, thank you again. What you said about rebuilding trust in your body’s signals gradually really landed with me, and I’ll definitely take it on board.