I'm a fortysomething dad of four with a love for beer, pizza, and casual gym sessions. When a friend introduced me to HYROX—a tough indoor race blending running and strength workouts—my fitness routine took a serious turn. Join me as I juggle family life, tackle training, and navigate setbacks on my path to competing in HYROX.

Read Part 1 Here

7 – November 2023 – First HYROX Part 1

It felt rushed but we had a bit of time at Gatwick before our departure so we were able have a decent meal rather than feed the kids £20 melted plastic toasties courtesy of a well-known low budget airline with orange livery. By the time we got to our Airbnb in Barcelona it was pretty late though and we had a nightmare trying to get in and plenty of other problems with the accommodation which I will not go into here. Briefly though, I complained and got £100 back as a refund. Beer money.

I ran out to find a late night shop to ensure there was something to eat in the morning and managed to get some dodgy pastries. I need not have bothered though as it transpired our Airbnb had a decent supermarket directly below which we discovered later on. Our wave time was 9.40am so I did not have to get up particularly early but I did kind of need a decent sleep. That was typically not to be and I barely had an hour’s sleep. I showered, said goodbye to my sleeping family and set off to the venue.

Conveniently my cab dropped me off right next to the venue. Inconveniently the entrance was on the other side of Fira Gran Via. Just under a kilometre away. Brilliant. Dan and the rest of my group posted a video of their own walk and I could tell they were just a minute or so ahead of me. I felt more excited than nervous. I was confident I had trained sufficiently and would get a great time. One of our group had to drop out and the other pair had an earlier wave to us so me and Dan just did a bit of warming up outside.

8 – November 2023 – First HYROX Part 2

Dan assured me he was the weaker runner so we had planned that he lead on the runs and I tuck in just behind with a rough 50/50 split on the workstations. That build up in the start area is immense. Really fires you up and with a countdown from 10 for those who need even more of a bump in heartrate. Before you know it you are off and we entered our first run at a brisk pace but nothing too challenging. Our first run was 5:18. When we hit the SkiERG though, we pushed hard. Way too hard. I remember looking down and seeing 70s/m at one point.

This wore us out a touch to say the least which is clearly evident from the fact I ran a lap short on run 3 and Dan followed me into the roxzone despite querying whether we had done 2 laps. I guess I could barely think straight and had pushed too hard. It is stupid because how hard can it be to count to ‘two?’ The remainder of the event went ok though despite our runs getting slower and slower and we ended up with a 1:31:12 including the 7 minute penalty. My bad! But overall what a nuts experience and a massive eye opener. HYROX is bloody hard and my eyes were firmly opened now I had done my first.

Little did I know my simulations at my gym were wholly inadequate. Sleds feature in a quarter of the workstations and the sled push in particular works the entire body. It cannot be simulated by a few sets of leg presses. I needed a new gym if I was going to train seriously so I signed up to my local PureGym. It was a bit further away but had the much needed sled track for practice. Annoyingly my old gym needed a chunk of notice so I was a member of both for a while!

9 - February 2024 – Gdansk

I had the bug. I needed another HYROX in the diary. I kept sending events in our group whatsapp with little or no response. Nearly everywhere was selling out quickly and I was not happy about it! Looking down the find my race list I saw there was an event that appeared to have just been added. Gdansk in North Poland. I had a quick look at flights, accommodation and the location of the venue compared to the city and went for it. Booked! 3 months to train on top of a base level of fitness and a bit of experience now having completed an event. All seemed well.

I carried on doing my weekly simulations and my usual upper body strength workouts and it was taking me around an hour and 20 minutes to complete a full sim including the time setting up and moving between areas of the gym so my roxzone time was covered in my view. I returned to the gym locker room after training one evening and my locker had been smashed open and my bag stolen. The thief decided to empty my bag out plus also take a spare pair of ear buds. The padlock was still in place so I removed it and put it on the bench.

The smart thief stole a bag that I got for free 20 years ago when buying aftershave and some crusty and cheap ear buds off Amazon. One of life’s winners. I popped to the toilet and when I returned to my destroyed locker some arsehole had stolen my padlock. That did annoy me as that was just total inconvenience! The PureGym manager said there was nothing he could do so I cancelled my membership almost immediately.

Luckily it transpired that there is a HYROX-affiliated gym closer than PureGym so I signed up the following week and nestled down to training once more in my third gym in a very short space of time. It had everything I needed and all in the same area of the gym so I was very happy. The sled track surface is nothing compared to PureGym and takes a hell of a lot of strength to move the sled over it. I began training with heavy weights on the sled. 135kg plus the weight of sled took me up to about 175kg so this was good training and I slowly started feeling the sled push was going to be one of my strengths.

10 – April 2024 – Impatience

I had joined a few HYROX groups on Facebook and could see there was a build-up in chatter and questions regarding London Olympia. It was solidly sold out of course so I did not give it much thought at first. As April crept along and I continued to train for Gdansk, I started seeing people selling more and more tickets on Facebook. Not living far from Olympia I started thinking why not try and get a ticket. Olympia and Gdansk were three weeks apart exactly which was not much time to recover but I thought I could do it.

I started responding to people advertising their tickets – often as a result of injury – but one after another I was told the ticket had already gone. I became a little obsessed I must admit. I bit like an auction on eBay where you are not actually that bothered about the item but there is that part of you that does not like to lose so you end up not giving up. It was clear that in order to be successful you had to respond to someone’s post within a few minutes which required checking Facebook, you guessed it… every few minutes!

I must have failed ten times plus and even though it was probably for the best, I could not stop and my name was getting around and I was getting ‘tagged’ into posts for tickets. Eventually someone offered me a spare ticket. A quick form and the transfer of money borrowed from my bank I had a space at London Olympia! It was only a couple of weeks away so rather than heading towards a peak in training for Gdansk I more or less had to start tapering for Olympia straightaway.

11 - May 2024 – London Olympia build up

Wanting to be fully rested come Sunday, I did a full workstation walkthrough (without running to save my Achilles) on the Monday then an upper body workout on Wednesday then that was it. Rest. Rest. Rest. There is so much advice on what to do or what not to do that it’s almost better to find your own way on tapering leading up to an event. After all, who knows your body and ability best?? I felt excited. My first open singles and a proper shot in the dark as to what I could achieve.

I had been checking all day every day for my wave start time. Was really hoping for anything in the afternoon. That way I could take my daughters to the youngsters event, grab some lunch then have the support of my family during my event and maybe time for a beer after. It was not to be however, when the startlist was published I was given 8.30pm. The second to last wave time. This was immensely disappointing but thinking of putting a positive spin on it, I normally train in the evenings so maybe this would help me!

I have sort of moved jobs/roles recently from a very physical job to one where I sit at a computer all day so on the lead up to the weekend, I was mostly sat down. Resting. As Sunday rolled on I had no idea what to eat or do with myself all day. I was determined to get it all spot on and avoid feeling bloated during the event. I ended up having porridge in the morning, the most boring plate of pasta for lunch then leaving about 4pm armed with more porridge, a banana and a flapjack. Saying goodbye to the family was a bit sad. There’s nothing quite like sharing a HYROX experience with family but up to London I went.

12 - May 2024 – HYROX London Olympia

I got there way too early. The map was not simplest with run 1 being two and a bit laps long, runs 2-7 being 1km then run 8 being one and a bit laps so it was handy having a look around from the balcony area. After that I still had like an hour and a half to go. Luckily Dan and his brother Mard showed up shortly after so we just sat down and chilled for a while near the finish line. Come 8pm I got changed, ran around and stretched for a few minutes in what was definitely a pathetic excuse for a warm up, went to the toilet then entered the start area with a couple of minutes to go.

I did not feel nervous or anything. Just keen to pace myself, take things easy and did not feel any pressure to push myself. I love the build-up in the start area. Flashing lights, the countdown, the music, the anticipation. Nothing quite like it. I was second to last out of the start area which very quickly became last as the man behind me thundered past. After the mistake in Barcelona I was pretty focused on getting the laps correct. There was a massive screen that you run past which displays what you are on and what is next. Simple. Everything was going well.

Sleds felt surprisingly comfortable. Struggled on the farmers which I expected as I just cannot hold onto those dam things for 200m. But as I hit run 7, I developed quite an acute pain at the bottom of my calf muscle and started hobbling. This made the lunges particularly arduous and photos of me were entertaining but my time was ok. It was when I hit the wall balls though where I really struggled. Just could not get into a rhythm and my calf was searing away. I was doing like 6 or 7 at time and ended up completing this station in 9:09. What a disappointment! My overall time was 1:22:45.

I think people are always going to wish they had done better and I was no different but for my first attempt at singles, I guess I cannot complain too much. I could barely walk afterwards and I had a slowly building worry that I had wrecked my Gdansk HYROX. I missed a train due to my slow progress and eventually got home at 1am. As usual I could not sleep and I lay in bed praying my calf would recover quickly as I needed to get back to training as my next event was now under 3 weeks away.