Even though a HYROX race is broadly consistent from venue to venue, there are still some factors that differ, and which can be affecting your time. Some of this is in your control, some isn’t – but all of them are worth being aware of.
Let’s take a look…
Running Track
With each HYROX venue, there is a very slightly different running track. From my perspective, the way that this could affect your time falls into two categories:
- The length of one lap of the track
- Width and busyness of the running track
Laps of Track
In London 22, at the London Excel, athletes needed to run just over 2 laps of the track to complete 1km. Whereas a week later, in Los Angeles, 4 laps were required. This has some potential implications…
Firstly, with 4 laps, there is the greater possibility of an athlete running the incorrect number of laps and incurring a time penalty (or running further than needed). This is very common in HYROX anyway, and the likelihood of that increases with an increased number of laps to race. Anecdotally, it sounds like there were a lot of athletes who received time penalties in LA for this reason.
Additionally, more laps mean more corners to turn which will likely slow down your running speed. It’s hard to run as fast as you’d like if you need to take a 90 degree turn every 60 meters. The effect of this isn’t easy to define with data with any certainty. However, I did look at the median of the top 10 running times from both LA and London in the Men’s Open…
LA = 38:59m
London = 32.28m
I should say I don’t think, by any means, was that difference solely down to the increased number of laps (and it was probably more due to the number of competitors, and the standard of the competitors), but it likely was a factor to some extent.
There was one athlete (that I know of) who did take part in both events; Chris Wooley. His total run time in London was 31:02m, and a week later in LA it was 32:27m. I suspect that this 1:25m is a better indicator of the impact of the running track though there could have obviously been other factors involved too (if sleds were heavier in LA did that slow him down, or the heat in the venue, or just having to run a HYROX a week after London and perhaps not being fully recovered).
Chris also ran in Las Vegas, a week after LA (where 3 laps of the track were required). There his total running time was 31:40m. So directionally, solely based on his numbers, we might be able to say an extra lap per km can cost you perhaps 40 seconds in total across the race (obviously this is a sample size of 1 so take it with a big pinch of salt!).
As one further example, Erik Woodward (who finished second in LA) had a total run time of 33:26m. Previous races of his include a 31:24m run time in Madrid, and 32.04m in Hamburg (both 2.5 laps).
Finally, it’s worth adding that if the “corners” of the track are a little more curved, like an athletics track, then this facilitates greater running speed than most of the tracks which are harder corners.
Width of Track
How wide and busy the track is can play a part in your running time. If the track is very narrow and crowded, with a lot of people, it’s going to make it much more difficult to run as fast as you ideally would like.
If I think back to two of the events I’ve competed in, the nice wide track in London 22 was vastly different to the narrower (busier) track in Manchester. As above, it’s very hard to determine what impact this has on run times, but the median of the top 10 run times for the Men’s Open in those venues looked like this:
London 22 = 32:38
Manchester 21 = 33:35 (57 seconds slower)
Some of that may be the standard on the day, but I suspect much was down to the width and busyness of the running track.
One additional factor that can affect how busy you find the track is the time of your starting wave. If you start quite soon after the Doubles event, you can find that the track is much busier. You can’t really control your starting time, so this is pot luck to a large extent, but it definitely seems like the track is busier when there are more Doubles pairings still on it. I was the first individual wave to set off in Birmingham 2022, and the track was VERY busy still with doubles pairings. There is no way you could run as fast as you would have ideally liked with it being so busy.
Size of the Zone
The size of the station zone will be a factor. For example, London 22 was a big event with lots of competitors. The sled push zone was, therefore, bigger than it may have been for other events, and appeared to have a greater number of lanes (I’d estimate 40 lanes in London, compared to 20 in some smaller venues). This meant that, quite simply, the distance an athlete had to cover from entering the sled push zone, to leaving it, was larger than it may have been elsewhere. The effect was probably only a few seconds in reality, but there was still a difference.
Station Turns
The layout of some of the stations can be affecting your times. This is particularly the case with the Burpee Broad Jumps, Walking Lunges, and Farmers Carries.
This hidden time killer became most evident in the Elite race at the 2022 HYROX World Championships. In this, the athletes completed all of their stations in the same spot (essentially, the sled pull area was used for everything). Each athlete’s lane was 12.5m long. Therefore, for the Walking Lunges, for example, to cover 100meters, athletes had to cover 8 lengths of their lane. This meant a lot of stopping and turning around. You could compare that to another venue where typically the lunges might be in a 50meter lane, and only one turn is required.
Again, defining the impact of this is difficult. But to give a rough indicator, I looked at the top 5 finishers in the Elite men’s race at the World Championships and compared their times on those 3 stations (BBJ, lunges, carries) to their times in their previous HYROX event. Here’s the median time differences by station:
Burpee Broad Jumps – 36 secs slower
Farmers Carry – 39 secs slower
Walking Lunges – 28 secs slower
The additional turns certainly seemed to have an impact.
The World Championships is probably an extreme example, as most of us won’t take part in the Elite race and I suspect there will be very few venues where the average HYROX competitor needs to work in lanes that are only 12.5m long.
If you are going to push me for a more realistic example, it looks like there was only 1 turn required on the farmers carry in Los Angeles, but (I think) there were 3 required in London. Chris Wooley took 4 seconds longer on the carry in London. Obviously whether or not those 4 seconds were down to the additional turns we can’t know.
Heat
The heat in the room can certainly be a factor that could be affecting your time. In general, HYROX venues can get very hot, but some venues will be warmer than others. This makes exercising for an hour plus, at high intensity, quite difficult and likely slows people down (not to mention makes them more likely to stop for drinks in the Roxzone).
For more information on this topic, check out our “coping with the heat of HYROX” article.
What Can You Do About It?
So far, much of what we have covered is out of your hands. You don’t get to choose how many laps you run, how wide it is, how busy it is, how hot it is or anything else. There are other hidden time killers which you do have a greater influence on (and we’ll cover those in a separate post). However, here’s a couple of things that spring to mind that might limit the impact of the above…
- Don’t be afraid to shout if someone is in your way on the running track. It’s easy to be polite, and quiet, and just tuck in behind someone, even if they are running a bit slower than you’d like. But the best of the best don’t do that. I’ve certainly heard loud shouts behind me before from faster runners coming through. “ON THE LEFT” is common, as people fast approach you from behind on your left side. It’s not a problem, don’t worry about shouting it if you want someone out your way. People won’t judge you (much!).
- Be careful of slowing down when you don’t have to. When I say this, I’m specifically thinking about the turns at the station. It’s very common to see people taking a bit more of a rest on the turnaround in the BBJ or lunges, for example, than they might do anywhere else. If you don’t need the short rest, don’t take one just because you are turning around.
- Hydrate very well before the event, including with the use of electrolytes. This should be in the days leading up to the event, not just the hour before. This is something you should do anyway but will be more important in a warmer venue.
- If you are happy to, compete in minimal amount of clothing. As a man, I’m able to compete with my top off, and always do as it keeps me that little bit cooler. This is obviously a personal preference thing but again comes in handy in a warmer venue.
In a follow up post to this (which you can now read here), we cover more hidden time killers, all of which will be within your control.
Photo credit: Erik Wittkopf
