HYROX SUCKS! Here’s why I LOVE IT…

January of 2024 I was coming off finishing my first 140.6, IRONMAN Florida, and I was needing a change in my training. I had just completed a 24 week IM training plan and was a little burned out on triathlon. I don’t remember how I found HYROX - perhaps an Instagram post or a YouTube video… but I was immediately intrigued. My first impression was that it reminded of me of games that I along with my grade school crew would make up at recess. Who’s the baddest fourth grader kind of stuff. Before you think I’m throwing shade let me explain - I dig that sort of thing. And so within a few days, I was registered for not one but two of these competitions that I knew next to nothing about: HYROX Fort Lauderdale and HYROX Houston.

So I had to quickly figure out what HYROX actually is. First of all it is a competition in the “fitness racing” sandbox. Other brands in this space are races like Tough Mudder and Spartan. Second, HYROX is somewhat similar to CrossFit but with a lot more running. The event is made up of 8k of running (almost 5 miles) integrated with 8 CrossFit-like stations. Specifically here is the format - and this format is the same for all HYROX races.

Courtesy HYROX.com

The event is usually held indoors in a convention space. As you can see the idea is that you run 1k (typically 3 laps around the competition area) and then complete a station and then run 1k again, complete the next station until you have run the 8k and completed 8 stations. It takes most folks around 90 minutes to finish. Anything under 75 minutes is salty. The stations are physically demanding but not as technical as a lot of what you see in CrossFit competitions. This makes the sport more approachable and safer for less skilled folks or people with injuries/mobility problems (like me…). 

Being a triathlete first, I was curious about the true barrier to entry for people from a triathlon background. I think that the base level of strength required to push and pull the sleds is something that you need to make sure you can handle. And the grip strength required for the sled pull and the farmers carry will be hard for a lot of pure endurance athletes.  

But don’t sleep on the aerobic demands. If you go hard this ends up being a high end threshold effort. For reference, in my first race (Fort Lauderdale), my heart rate hit zone 4 within 2 minutes (probably some nerves and adrenaline) and it never came down. I was seeing spots. In fact, I made two mental errors because I was so blasted - I did an extra leg on the sled pull and got lost trying to find the farmers carry. I learned a lot though and followed Fort Lauderdale with a better showing in Houston a month later. 

So in a nutshell, the race is a REALLY HARD WORKOUT. And the training is pretty different from most of the training I was doing for my IRONMAN. But I loved it. And I think it has significant benefits for triathletes. Specifically, the strength you will gain from all the functional exercises is exactly what triathletes need in an offseason and the threshold work will help you improve your VO2 max. I came out of my first HYROX season ready to get back to my tri training and followed it up with a PR at IRONMAN 70.3 Louisville. 

As I am writing this, I am way behind on my prep for HYROX Houston (March 15). So I gotta wrap this up and get after it. I will close with this. HYROX SUCKS! You gotta try it!