Did I expect to spend my thirty-eighth year training for sled pushes and burpee broad jumps? Absolutely not. Did I expect to love it as much as I do? Also no. But alas, that’s what the past year has looked like for me (I turned 39 on July 20th, and this journey began almost exactly a year ago), and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Well, every minute might be a stretch, but you get what I’m saying. But let me back up and explain a bit what I’m talking about.
For anyone who hasn’t been sucked into the #FitTok algorithm the way I was, HYROX is a global fitness race built around eight one kilometer runs, each one followed by a different workout station. You run, then hit the ski erg. Run again, then the sled push. From there it moves into the sled pull, burpee broad jumps, rowing, farmers carry, sandbag lunges, and wall balls, always in that same order no matter where you’re racing.
The stations and the weights stay standardized everywhere, but the conditions don’t always match. My D.C. race was indoors, controlled and predictable, while New York had me running outside in the heat, which changed the whole feel of the race even though the format underneath it was identical.
That standardization is a big part of why the sport has taken off as fast as it has. HYROX held its first race back in 2017 with just 650 participants, and this year the company’s chief growth officer says they’re expecting over 2.5 million athletes worldwide, which is more than every world marathon combined. And because of that growth, new cities keep getting added to the calendar every season.
What’s stood out to me more than any of those numbers, though, is how many of “us” are showing up to these races. Participation runs close to even between men and women, which is rare for a sport built around distance and grinding physical output because most endurance races still skew heavily male. HYROX doesn’t, and Black women in particular have made themselves impossible to ignore inside that shift. I can’t scroll five minutes without seeing another one of us cross a HYROX finish line, and half the comments underneath are other Black women hyping her up. And when I walked into my own first race, half the room looked like a family reunion. Complete strangers were screaming for me like they’d known me my whole life. And as someone who didn’t grow up playing sports, it wasn’t something I’d ever experienced before… but I’ve absolutely grown to love it.
It didn’t start that way though. The day I signed up for that first race, I didn’t tell anyone. Except my training partner (who is also my linesister), and the one person I knew would actually hold me to it once that confirmation email hit my inbox.
Two races and a lot of trial and error later, here’s what I’d tell another Black woman thinking about signing up.
Strength train before you obsess over your mile time
Most people show up thinking HYROX is a running race with a few stations in between. Insert the meme that goes: If boys can do it, how hard can it be? I thought that too, and I was wrong fast. I’ve been going through SWEAT DC‘s Sweat Strength and Conditioning program (obviously because I’m based in the Washington D.C. area, which hosts the race several times a year), which cycles through monthly blocks of power, strength, and endurance. Before that I’d genuinely never touched a barbell with any consistency. My first race humbled me to that fact immediately. I hit the sled with nothing in my legs and realized my problem wasn’t cardio, it was that my whole posterior chain and grip had never been trained for load. The farmers carry humbled me the same way. Since adding more strength work, I’ve seen a major difference all around. If there’s no SWEAT DC where you are, find a studio that does strength cycles instead of circuit classes that change every week. Consistency in the programming is the part that matters.
Don’t skip the running, though
None of that strength work replaces the running. I tell anyone who will listen that this is a runner’s race. HYROX is still eight kilometers, just broken into pieces, and I underestimated that too. I’ve kept Barry’s in rotation because their format bounces you between treadmill intervals and floor work, which is close to the actual rhythm of race day. What it’s really taught me is how to come down off a hard effort quickly instead of showing up to the next station still gassed from the last one. If you’re not near a Barry’s, any interval class that pairs running with strength in the same session will get you there.
Mixed doubles is a different sport, literally
I’ve done two races so far, D.C. and New York (thanks to my good friends at PUMA), and I’ve got two more this fall. I’m heading back to D.C., then Dallas, which will be my first mixed doubles (For all of my races so far, I’ve partnered with women, and this time, I will be competing with a man). In mixed doubles, both partners work at the men’s open weights. That’s a 335 pound sled push instead of 225, a farmers carry at 53 pounds per hand instead of 35, and a 44 pound sandbag instead of 22. The sled pull jumps from 172 pounds to 227 too. The one place women still get a break is the wall ball, where we throw to a nine foot target instead of ten. Everything else, my partner and I are splitting reps and distance, but the weight in my hands is the exact same weight a man twice my size would be handling. I’ve been adding load I never trained with before, and honestly my grip still isn’t fully used to it. On top of that you’ve got to stay synced with your partner the whole race. Neither of you wants to be the reason the other one’s time suffers (though I’ve already told my male partner he’s going to have to pick up some of my slack at some points).
Turn it into a trip if you can
People are building trips around race weekends now instead of just flying in and out, and of course, hotels are cashing in on this. Westin, for example, has built their whole hotel experience around this kind of trip. They’ve got running routes mapped out from the property, gear you can borrow from Hyperice and Bala if you didn’t want to pack your own, and an entire menu built around helping you actually sleep and recover better before and after your race. Not to mention, they’ve got properties in cities where these races already happen, such as Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo. I’m looking at my fifth HYROX in Mexico City this fall, and I’m already eyeing the Westin there. Anyone who’s done a HYROX race knows the next morning is rough. Stairs, getting out of bed, all of it. So it’s nice that hotels like this think about all the tips and tricks to help you on your race journey.
You don’t need a reason that makes sense to anyone else
I’m 39, with no husband and no kids waiting on me, and for a long time I thought that was supposed to feel like something was missing. It doesn’t. What it actually means is that my Saturdays belong to me, and these days that looks like actually committing to my own health instead of putting it last.