For seasoned gym-goers, getting a 152kg sled to budge a few centimetres would be tough. Yet Margaret Lim, 51, and Seah Seow Ping, 54, pushed one across 50m at the Puma Hyrox World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden, last month. They were competing in the Women’s Pro Doubles category for those between 50 and 54 years.Widely regarded as one of the world’s toughest functional fitness races, Hyrox combines 8km of running with eight gruelling workout stations.Standing at 157cm and 150cm tall respectively, Lim and Seah also powered through other stations, including a 103kg sled pull, lunges with 20kg sandbags on their shoulders, and 100 repetitions of 6kg wall balls, which involved squatting and throwing a medicine ball to strike a target.In the Women’s Pro division, the weights used are equivalent to those in the Men’s Open category.The women, both Singaporeans, secured their spot at the international level after competing in AIA Hyrox Singapore 2025, last November, where they placed second.Competing against women from the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East, some young enough to be their children, the pair said they wanted to challenge assumptions about what women in their 50s are capable of.“We had the privilege to compete on this world stage, and we trained incredibly hard for it. We may not be the fastest, the fittest, or the strongest athletes out there, but we didn’t give up,” Lim told CNA Women.Seah added: “I think many women underestimate what they are still capable of in their 50s. I never saw myself as an athlete, so qualifying for the World Championships felt surreal. It reminded me that growth and new possibilities don’t stop with age.”FROM AGEING WELL TO FITNESS RACESWhen they first started their fitness journey, neither imagined they would compete at a world championship.