Mail Sport Extreme: Meet two of the Scots women proving that age is no barrier to fitness in the world of HYROX

Look up mantras about age and you'll hear the same thing. When it comes to sport though, age really does have an impact.

Both the mind and body slow down, injuries become harder to recover from and, generally, athletes become less competitive at the top end of their sport as Father Time takes hold.

That's where HYROX is different. Teenagers right through to the over-75s category can perform to the top level, competing against thousands of others in their age category across the world, potentially qualifying for the world championships, most recently held in Chicago, last month.

While Scotland had a whole host of athletes who performed at Navy Pier, including Team Scotland who finished eighth in the relay event, perhaps there would be few women who could sell the sport to newcomers than Kim Lole and Joda Quigley, who both qualified for worlds along with their respective partners in the doubles events Elaine Timlin and Carly Waine, respectively.

Friends for close to 16 years, ever since the days of fitness classes in the local gym at the mariner centre in Camelon, Lole and Quigley have both found their way into HYROX, competing at their first and third world championships last month.

For Lole, aged 51, Chicago was just her sixth HYROX, while 44-year-old Quigley has been involved in the sport since its infancy and is an ambassador. Both are in agreement it's one of the best things they've ever done.

Having had backgrounds in football and martial arts, equestrian and bodybuilding, HYROX may not seem like a natural fit for either woman. However, since finding a love for CrossFit and Spartan racing in particular, both Lole and Quigley have made a natural progression to HYROX and would never look back.

'The best part of HYROX is that my girls are at an age where they can do HYROX with me,' says Quigley. 'They're late teens, early 20s, so for us it's something that the whole family can do, even my mum in her 60s, who did a relay race at Glasgow.

'Here, it's a women-only gym, we have girls who have over time had families of their own and they can bring the babies and they're so used to the music they can come along, sleep through it all and chill. So the mums are able to bring the kids along, get their workout done within that hour or so. With HYROX, kids are coming from other sports into it. A lot of girls are coming from dancing so can't commit the time to that if they're off to uni or whatever. At GirlCodeBox, we've got a girl who competed internationally in taekwondo, so a really good level of fitness, and is now making HYROX her sport because it fits in better with her life.

'It's for everyone. You don't have to compete. It's a growing sport, looking to become an Olympic sport so there are athletes coming in from different fields and looking to take it all the way.'

Lole adds: 'That's the good thing about HYROX. You can do it from a young age right up to 75+. (My own kids) Becca and Jamie grew up with me doing sport and even though I didn't force sport on them but they've found their own way.

'Becca and I did a doubles at Glasgow last year which was amazing. So you can do it seriously or for fun too. It was nice to go through everything with her over the years then do a race with her, I loved that.

'HYROX isn't good just for younger women coming through either. I think for us, as older women, I it's really important to say that even if you're older, you can still get involved. As you're getting older, it's important to keep up your cardiovascular fitness, your strength, and HYROX hits everything. So I'd encourage anyone our age to get involved.'

Despite being the younger of the pair, Quigley can't stress the importance of age groups enough. The 44-year-old gym owner has never finished outside the top five for her age category across three world championship appearances, but with HYROX set to introduce more groups, the theory is that it should improve some people's chances of a podium finish on the grandest stage.

She admits: 'At no point are you thinking: 'oh I should take a step away' because you just go into the next age group. It kind of gives you some hope as you compete as you get older because of the age groups. I think that's why it's so popular because it keeps everyone involved.

'I think girls are now focusing on being fit and functionally fit - rather than aesthetically fit - is a huge positive. You're seeing girls becoming strong now. You have to eat well, sleep well. When I was younger, you focused on going out and saving money. But now the younger generation are putting their time and hard-earned cash into fitness and not going out.'

The issue of making HYROX a legitimised and - potentially one day - Olympic sport comes up again. At the world championships, there was huge controversy surrounding the sleds and carpets in particular, with the sport in general being criticised for its inconsistencies in judging at every event. Quigley has seen huge improvements in her time in the sport.

She says: 'Chicago was the best world championships to date. It was bigger, better, everything was outstanding. The course suited me as a runner, it was well laid out. I was a judge over the weekend as well so I got to see it from the inside - so I got to get my bearings and so on.

'Everything from the opening ceremony to the adaptive athletes closing the event was incredible. speaking to them afterwards, watching them was inspirational, the highlight of the weekend for me.

'With the sled and the carpets, it was underneath the sleds that was rough and catching, HYROX took that on board and fixed it. It was an issue but it was sorted so when I came into the sled pull, there was no issues.

'With the push, a lot of people try to lift and push, but with the sleds you've got to just push straight ahead, body weight over it and just push straight ahead. Just make sure your technique is right and don't be lifting the sleds because on the new surface it won't happen. I think it was a mix of the sleds being rough and an element where racers were lifting the sleds and they just won't shift.

With the judging, as the sport grows, it does need to be consistent. At the worlds, it was one to one. Every step of the lunge, knee was to the ground, hips through at the top. Burpees, hands and feet parallel, no shuffling. I think, HYROX, because they want it to become a recognised and Olympic sport, you're going to see more of that, especially at the top level. They certainly did that at the worlds.'

The HYROX journey is far from over for Lole and Quigley. Age is proving to be no barrier for the pair, if anything the targets they're setting themselves going forward are only getting higher.

While the competitive future is less certain for the 51-year-old, Lole is still keen on another run at the world championships.

She reveals: 'I've known, trained and been friends with Elaine for years through CrossFit. It was her 50th at the start of the year, so when tickets went on sale, a girl was selling a ticket so I messaged Elaine to convince her to do it for her birthday. She'd done a session, done well at it, and told her it would be a laugh, a 'one and done' type thing. Just so happened that we qualified for worlds!

'We went into it with no targets, no times, nothing. We don't have the running volume in us to be super competitive. If you want that, you need to be running a lot or have a really solid running background. So we just thought let's go and see what happens. When we took off, we thought: "This feels great" and it was going well. After the burpee broad jumps, I pulled my calf and couldn't run. We just pulled it back a little and I hobbled round. It wasn't how we wanted to finish but we got through it and finished third in our age group. So we got the invite and thought: "Should we do it?" You don't often opportunities like that so we just went for it.

'It was overwhelming. It was a fantastic set-up but overwhelming in general to get there. The race itself was tough but we just dug in, did what we could. No pressure on us or anything, just go enjoy it, finish it and came 17th in the world, 6th in the UK and first in Scotland.

'With hindsight, I was maybe a little jet lagged, dehydrated. But we went, gave it our all and I absolutely loved it. You just build on these experiences, remember to do x, y and z next time.

'I want to do Birmingham and London, maybe Dublin towards the end of the year. But because of the cost of going to worlds, tickets out for those three at the same time so I couldn't manage a ticket then, but I'll try and get one before the end of the year as I'd like to do another one.'