It's my birthday week! I'm 34, feeling great and about to have another kid! Yay!

And I don't listen to noise. Like what today's post is about.

Getting older gets a bad rap. People love to say things like, “Just wait until you hit 30… or 40… or 50. It’s all downhill from there.”

And sure, there are changes that come with age—you don’t recover quite as fast, the little aches stick around longer, and staying up past midnight feels like running a marathon without training.

But here’s the thing: getting older isn’t a slow march toward decline—it’s a chance to value your time, your energy, and your body more than ever. And if you’re a hybrid athlete—competing in HYROX, DEKA, obstacle course races, or just chasing strength and endurance in the same season—you actually have the perfect training lens for aging well.

Time and Space Become Priceless

When you’re younger, time feels endless. You can waste an afternoon scrolling or hang around people who drain your energy without giving it a second thought. But once you hit your 30s, 40s, and beyond, you realize: time is the most valuable resource you’ve got. Because of work, jobs, kids, and routines.

Training teaches you this lesson too. If you’ve got a race on the calendar, you’re not just “working out”—you’re following a plan, balancing recovery, nutrition, mobility, and all the details that make you faster, stronger, and healthier. You stop wasting hours on fluff. You start protecting your calendar like it’s your most valuable piece of equipment, because it is.

And space? Same deal. Whether it’s physical space in your home gym or mental space to focus on training, you learn to keep people and things in your life that add value—while cutting out the noise.

Who Sticks Around When You Get Older

This one stings a little, but it’s true: not everyone’s going to make the journey with you. Friends you thought would always be there drift away. Sooner rather than later. Some people can’t handle that you prioritize training, family, or your own well-being, or they just drift away due to distance.

Here’s what you notice when you get older: the people who stick around are the ones who understand your boundaries. They don’t guilt you for skipping late nights because you’ve got an early long run. They cheer for your PRs, even if they don’t fully understand what a sled push feels like at the end of a HYROX.

It’s not about how many people are in your corner—it’s about the right people being there. And if you’ve ever run through a brutal wall ball set with teammates screaming for you, you know exactly what that feels like.

Why It’s Not All Downhill

Aging doesn’t mean you’re destined for weakness, slowness, and injury. It just means you’ve got to be smarter about how you train. And this is where hybrid training shines:

1. Strength Training → Muscle loss (sarcopenia) is real as you get older, but lifting heavy slows it down dramatically. A landmark study showed that adults in their 70s and 80s can still build significant strength and muscle mass with resistance training (Fiatarone et al., 1990). More recent research confirms resistance training improves function and longevity in older adults (Fragala et al., 2019).

2. Endurance Training → Aerobic capacity (VO₂ max) does decline with age, but not as fast if you keep training. Master’s endurance athletes often have 30–40% higher VO₂ max than sedentary peers of the same age (Trappe et al., 2013). Zone 2 and aerobic conditioning literally keep your heart younger.

3. Hybrid Combo → The magic is in combining both. Strength protects against injury and independence loss, while endurance training keeps your heart, lungs, and energy systems working efficiently. Together, they reduce risk of chronic disease and extend “healthspan,” not just lifespan (Garber et al., 2011).

Getting older isn’t a curse—it’s just a reminder that you can’t skip the basics. Sleep, protein, mobility, recovery, and consistency matter more now than they did when you were 20 and could survive off Red Bull and 3 hours of sleep. Ahh, the glory days.

Nutrition Becomes a Performance Edge

You can’t out-train a bad diet at any age, but once you’re past 30, your body will call you out on it faster than ever. Nutrition becomes less about vanity and more about performance and longevity.

• Protein → Studies show older adults need more protein per meal to stimulate muscle protein synthesis compared to younger athletes (Moore et al., 2015). Aim for 25–40g per meal, especially after lifting.

• Recovery Fuel → Carbs aren’t the enemy—they’re your friend for hybrid training. Glycogen replenishment supports both strength and endurance adaptation, especially immediately after running.

• Micronutrients → Vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, and omega-3s all play a role in recovery, bone density, and inflammation control. Neglect them, and little aches become chronic pains.

• Hydration → Aging reduces thirst sensitivity (Kenney & Chiu, 2001). Translation: you’re more likely to under-hydrate if you’re not paying attention. A quarter of older adults is chronically dehydrated, which leads to a host of other problems.

Dialing in nutrition isn’t optional anymore—it’s the difference between feeling strong and feeling broken.

Recovery: The Secret Weapon

When you’re 20, you can pull an all-nighter, crush a workout, and somehow still survive. By the time you’re 30 or 40, that game is over. Recovery isn’t just “nice to have”—it’s the entire foundation of progress.

• Sleep → Seven to nine hours. Non-negotiable. Chronic sleep deprivation has been linked to impaired muscle recovery and higher injury risk (Dattilo et al., 2011). Love sleep.

• Active Recovery → Walking, mobility, easy cycling, yoga—these are no longer “fluff.” They keep blood flowing, reduce soreness, and speed up healing.

• Stress Management → Cortisol doesn’t just mess with your mood; it slows recovery and affects performance. Mindset tools like meditation, journaling, or even just unplugging for a day become performance enhancers.

If training is the spark, recovery is the oxygen. Without it, you’re just burning out.

Mindset: Playing the Long Game

You know what’s underrated about getting older? Perspective. When you’re younger, everything feels like a race to the finish line. Every injury feels like the end of the world. Every bad workout feels like a sign you’re “losing it.”

But once you’ve been through a few seasons, you start seeing the big picture. You realize:

• Progress isn’t linear.

• One bad workout doesn’t erase years of fitness.

• Patience beats intensity when it comes to longevity.

Hybrid athletes have a natural advantage here because our sport is about balancing extremes—speed and strength, endurance and power, grind and recovery. That balance is the same mindset that keeps you training for decades instead of burning out in a few years. And literal balance.

The Hybrid Athlete’s Advantage

Here’s why hybrid athletes are set up perfectly for aging well: we already train across the spectrum. We don’t just run. We don’t just lift. We build engines and armor. That means we’re harder to break down, harder to burn out, and better at adapting.

And guess what? Many hybrid athletes peak later than traditional endurance athletes. Why? Because strength and aerobic capacity can be maintained and even improved well into middle age with the right training. You’ve got time to get better, not worse.

So if you’re sitting there worried about the next birthday coming up—don’t. Treat it like a checkpoint in your race. You’ve built experience, resilience, and the wisdom to know what actually matters. That’s not a downhill slide—that’s an upgrade.

Final Thoughts

Getting older forces you to value your time, protect your space, and appreciate the people who stay in your life. And for hybrid athletes, it’s not about slowing down—it’s about training smarter so you can keep racing, lifting, and pushing sleds for decades.

Strength + endurance isn’t just a race-day strategy—it’s a longevity strategy.

So the next time someone says, “It’s all downhill from here,” just smile and think: yeah, downhill… like negative splits. Happy birthday to me. If you want to work together, click here to book your free call.