My first HYROX race.

November 2022.

London Excel. 

I put myself on the waiting list after seeing a video of HYROX online. Looked good and always like to try something new.

I was currently training to add some size over the winter. Little to none cardio was being focussed on.

I get the email!

A spare ticket has come available. Only 2 weeks before the event.

I like a challenge!

I sign-up and quickly change my very Hypertrophy focussed training to sporadic conditioning work.

I go in with absolutely no expectations. If I'm being brutally honest I didn't event know the order of the exercises properly. No matter how many times I looked at the map the night before!

I turn up (with a relatively thick nike training top) ready to start my race.

In the start tunnel and a lot of testosterone was flying about - including mine!

HR was beating fast and we hadn't even started the race!

10 second countdown is up and we are off for our first 1km run.

Shit I'm going off fast here! 

Ski-erg - Actually felt good on this. However as soon as that station was done the thick Nike training top was off!

Sled push - Under-estimated this. Trainers didn't help and nor did my varied and not so successful sled push technique.

Sled pull - A tough station but blasted through this with my arms only technique. Only problem now is my HR is through the roof, arms felt like they were going to fall off and there was over half of the race to go still!

Burpees - Considering I hadn't trained these much at all, I managed these OK. However got to the end of the 80m and my legs didn't want to know. Oh well I suppose I better try and run a fast 1km before the next station eh!

Row - Time to chill and let my arms and legs recover from the previous two stations. Literally plodding on this station. The row felt like it went on forever!

KB carries - This is my station. All the strength work I do meant I had no excuses. I fly through it in around 90 seconds.

Sandbag lunges - Another station that I weirdly enjoyed and done well at. Paced myself nicely and got to the 100m finish line. Right let's hit the last 1km run hard now - Legs had other ideas. Although the legs felt good during the lunges - they certainly didn't after! 

Wall balls - What the hell are these. Never done a wall ball in my life. I can front squat heavy so surely 6kg isn't going to cause me that much bother! Boy was I wrong. My slowest station of the 8 and one that made me realise I need to do ALOT more wall balls in training! Also how many times is the judge going to say "no rep" to me! Didn't help that I threw it over the top of target a few times either!

I cross the finish line in 1 hour and 15 minutes. 

Not bad for a first go at it.

The buzz at the end of the race was something i'd never experienced before at other races. Hard to explain. A lot of the time during the race you want the pain to end. But once you finish you forget all of that and want to do it all over again. Such a weird feeling! Why would you want to put yourself through that again!?

I was hooked instantly to HYROX!

I think I've now found a sport I can properly get my teeth into.

Tough Mudders etc had been a big part of my fitness racing career. Even Mike's Gym I would race quite often. But HYROX had something very special about it.

Let's now properly train for this and sign-up to the next one.

London Olympia in May 2023 was now booked. Literally the same day I had finished London Excel. In fact I'm sure I signed up on the train home from the Excel centre.

Time to now really see what I can do in this sport.

And the rest is history as they say.....

​To be continued....

Aaron.