What does it take to be at the Elite level in HYROX?
The Elite 15 races at the 2024 HYROX World Championships saw the 15 fastest men and women in the sport battle it out for the crown of HYROX World Champion.
As the sport continues to grow, so does the standard of the top athletes…
On the Men’s side, the average personal best time of the top 15 was 56:10m (77secs faster than last season), and the Women’s side it was 01:02:28 (85secs faster than last season!).
To give readers an understanding of what it takes to reach this “Elite” level, I surveyed the qualifying athletes. Here’s some of the main findings…
The Athletes
The Elite 15 athletes are shown below (along with their current personal best time in the Pro division). These are the athletes we believed will be lining up for the race in Nice as of a few days before the race (though there were, ultimately, a couple of late changes, due to injury).
Weeks, Lauren – 58:03
Jacoby, Megan – 58:52
Norman, Mikaela – 1:00:35
Meier, Linda – 1:01:02
Griffith, Lauren – 1:02:18
Oberländer, Viola – 1:02:33
Massa, Camilla – 1:02:37
Tafuto, Vivian – 1:02:41
Piergianni, Zara – 1:02:45
Lebenstedt, Jana – 1:03:21
Willnow, Alina (replaced Rebecca Mason who withdrew due to injury) – 1:03:41
Bevilacqua, Amy – 1:03:47
Davey, Kate – 1:04:02
Fecik, Maria – 1:05:11
Hardes, Antje – 1:05:38
McIntyre, Hunter – 53:22
Kelly, James – 54:03
Roncevic, Alexander – 54:16
Kent, Ryan – 55:12
Scott, Dylan – 55:34
Wills, Beau – 56:03
Wenisch, Tim – 56:07
Storath, Lukas – 56:18
Tvrdik, Tomas – 56:21
Sandbach, Michael – 56:34
Wynn, Jon – 56:58
Menendez Fernandez, Pelayo – 56:59
Halliday, Graham – 57:35
Ryan, Rich – 58:16
Magida, David (replaced Rylan Schadegg who withdrew due to health issues) – 58:59
Note: some of the data I have from a couple of the athletes is from several months ago and they didn’t confirm the latest info that I have is up to date. But that’s only a couple of the athletes and I don’t think would change any of the below significantly.
Ok, let’s start with some of the basics…
Geography
16 of the athletes are from Europe, 11 from America, and 3 from Australasia.
By country, the breakdown is as follows:
USA – 10
Germany – 7
UK – 4
Australia – 2
Austria – 1
Czech Republic – 1
Spain – 1
New Zealand – 1
Sweden – 1
Italy – 1
Canada – 1
With the sport continuing to grow in popularity all around the world, it will be interesting to see how / if the nationalities represented in the Elite 15 changes in future years.
Age
Median age is 31.5 on women’s side, and 35 on the men’s (averages are 33 and 34 respectively). The youngest athlete (Tim Wenisch) is 25 years old, and the oldest (Amy Bevilacqua) is twice that of Tim at 50.
Last year we saw 4 athletes aged 40+ in the races whereas this year there are 2 (Amy Bevilacqua and Lukas Storath).
Weight
Median weight of the athletes is 136lbs (62kg) on women’s side, and 185lbs (84kg) on the men’s.
There’s a reasonably wide spread between the athletes though ranging from 118lbs (54kg) to 168lbs (76kg) for the women, and 163lbs (74kg) to 203lbs (92kg) for the men.
Sporting Background
Here is how some of the athletes described their sporting background prior to discovering HYROX…
Meg Jacoby – Cross country, Track and Field, Powerlifting
Lauren Weeks – CrossFit, Soccer, Swimming
Linda Meier – Fitness, Running
Viola Oberländer – Gymnastics, Running
Vivian Tafuto – Swimming
Camilla Massa – I did figure skating until I was 17 then basically nothing but going to the gym 2/3 times per week. And basically no running.
Alina Willnow – Handball when younger. HIIT Classes and Les Mills Courses, Cycling Classes (just for fun)
Lauren Griffith – OCR, Rock Climbing, Running
Antje Hardes – None really. I studied medicine, got 2 kids , worked as a dentist and just randomly did sports with friends. Then 2020 I started triathlon but just did it for 1 year and then got into HYROX.
Maria Fecik – Ultra running 50k – 50 miles, triathlon, bodybuilding
Amy Bevilacqua – Running, Triathlon, Road Cycling
Zara Piergianni – CrossFit, Netball, Running
Kate Davey – Triathlon many years ago, then more CrossFit style training after having children
Jana Lebenstedt – Running, Tennis & Handball
Mikaela Norman – CrossFit
Graham Halliday – Bodybuilding
Alexander Roncevic – Swimming
Dylan Scott – Running
Jon Wynn – Athletics and Rugby League as a junior. Then as an adult I was in the military and didn’t do sports until finding HYROX.
Tim Wenisch – Track and Field Athlete
Hunter McIntyre – OCR
Michael Sandbach – Football
David Magida – Running and OCR
James Kelly – Australian Rules Football
Pelayo Menendez – Triathlon
Ryan Kent – Spartan Race, road running
Rich Ryan – Running, CrossFit, OCR
Lukas Storath – Football, triathlon, OCR
Beau Wills – Tennis at College, then CrossFit for 8years
Tomas Tvrdik – Mountain bike, Strongman, Mountain bike, OCR/Spartan, Crossfit
Job / Occupation
It’s easy to assume that these Elite levels athletes must simply spend all their day training, with no other commitments to worry about. But that’s not the case. Almost all have jobs or businesses in some way, and approximately half derive their main income from the fitness industry (as personal trainers, online coaches or gym owners, for example). The others are in a range of professions including teaching, software sales, management consulting, and project management to name just a few (not to mention many are also parents!).
“I Don’t Know”
One interesting thing worth highlighting, before we go any further, is the high number of athletes who responded with “I don’t know” to many of the questions (or they had to make rough guesses).
The main questions I asked in the survey were as follows:
Approx. current 5km / 10km / Half Marathon / Marathon run time
Approx. 3 rep max Squat / Deadlift / Military Press / Bench Press
Approx. 2km Ski Erg / Row Time
Make of that what you want but, if anything, it shows that you don’t need to be testing yourself on these distances, maxing out on lifts, etc, week in week out to prepare for HYROX. The Elite – in general – are much more specific than that and train for HYROX. If you want to go and race 10km run every Saturday morning I’m not saying that’s wrong – but it’s clearly not something that most of the Elite of the sport are doing.
In particular, very few (the women especially) were able to estimate their marathon time, or their 3 rep max bench press.
Running Times
Based on those who could answer (many of which needed to give a rough estimation), these were the median running times for each distance…
5km – 18:42 (women), 15:50 (men)
10km – 38:05 (women), 33:14 (men)
Half Marathon – 01:25:00 (women), 01:14:00 (men)
Marathon – 03:12:30 (women)*, 02:45:00 (men)
* Only 3 women were able to estimate their time for a marathon so this number is based on a very small data set.
In general, one of the quickest runners on the women’s side looks to be Megan Jacoby, with 16:42m over 5km, and 01:20:21 half marathon.
On the Men’s side, Pelayo Menendez seems to edge it with 15:10m over 5km, 32:00m for 10km, and 01:12:00 half marathon. Michael Sandbach though, who weighs over 30lbs more than Menendez, has a (recent) 5km time of 15:23.
It’s worth saying that most people were able to give an estimation of their 5km but as the distances increased fewer athletes seemed sure of how they would fare, and many couldn’t give an estimate.
SkiErg and Row
The average 2km times for the athletes on the Concept2 Ski Erg and Row machines looked like this…
Ski – 08:01 (women), 06:45 (men)
Row – 07:45 (women), 06:33 (men)
Hunter McIntyre (06:20 ski, 06:10 row) was one of the faster athletes on the men’s side, and Vivian Tafuto (07:25 ski, 07:07 row) was one of the faster women.
Strength
Approximate median 3 rep max (3RM) deadlift, squat and military press were as follows:
3RM deadlift – 249lbs / 113kg (women), 375lbs / 170kg (men)
3RM squat – 181lbs / 82kg (women), 290lbs / 132kg (men)
3RM military press – 93lbs / 42kg (women), 155lbs / 70kg (men)
Again, these numbers are based on those who were able to answer or estimate (not everybody was).
The strongest women (in general) appear to be Megan Jacoby (315lbs deadlift, 270lbs squat, 105lbs military press), closely followed by Lauren Weeks and Camilla Massa.
On the men’s side it was Hunter McIntyre (485lbs deadlift, 370lbs squat, 185lbs military press) and Michael Sandbach.
I did also ask athletes for their 3RM bench press. Very few answered this but the median was 145lbs for the women, and 225lbs for the men. Megan Jacoby had the strongest female bench press (225lbs) and Alexander Roncevic was strongest male (265lbs).
Training Volume
So how much do these athletes train to get to this level? Well, it varies quite a lot, but the median was just over 16 hours a week for the woman, and 14 hours for the men. Both those numbers are around 2 hours more per week than we saw for the Elite 15 last year – showing these athletes are putting in more work to reach the top level!
Running Volume
Running is obviously a major component of HYROX, and running volume is a major part of most athlete’s training schedule. The median total was 45 miles (72km) per week for women and 40 miles for men, though again there was a lot of variance…
Lauren Weeks and Viola Oberlander are putting in around 60 miles running per week, whereas Amy Bevilacqua is doing around 17.5 miles (she discusses this in our podcast interview with her).
On the men’s side, James Kelly and Rich Ryan are doing around 60 miles a week, and Lukas Storath and Alexander Roncevic are on the lower end at around 25-30 miles.
What Else?
There is much more to HYROX than being strong and good at running. Of course, those are important, but muscular endurance, pacing, tactics, nutrition and mindset all obviously come into play, amongst many other things. There are certainly athletes in the elites who are not the strongest in a deadlift or squat, and not the best runner, but still compete at the top level. Rebecca Mason touched on this in the past with this comment:
“I feel it’s great to have really good numbers in the above but I have watched so many really good athletes who are far better than me in training & on paper, not be able to pull it all together on race day. The mental ability along with the ability to stick to a game plan suitable for you – not get caught up in race adrenaline/hype is so so important. Know your strengths, know where you can push & race your own race. You can’t measure that. For me personally, competition exposure & composure came from my time as an ex-gymnast, mental resilience & the courage to dig deep when things get tough!”
When I interviewed Rebecca (you can watch that here) we talked about this some more, and one thing I highlighted was how much more closely her running time in HYROX is aligned to her 10km pace than it might be for some other athletes (and a similar story for her Ski and Row times in HYROX relative to her 2km pace). Maybe this is down to her abilities at “compromised running” which means her pace doesn’t drop a huge amount even after fatiguing her legs on the functional stations. It’s all very well being a good runner but if you can’t do it compromised then you’ll struggle in HYROX.
Rebecca also told me her heart rate is “in the red” for the whole of the race. It’s made me wonder whether some athletes who can make it to the Elite level are not necessarily just physically more capable than others who don’t reach that level, but they have the grit and mental toughness that allows them to be incredibly uncomfortable for the duration of a HYROX and grind it out, whereas others may back off a little.
The word “grit” is something that Megan Jacoby, James Kelly and Felicity Cole have all used when I’ve spoken to them, and it’s something too that ex-Australian special forces Jon Wynn alluded to. Jon told me this about where his mind goes during a race: “I empty my mind. If you’ve followed me for a bit, you know that in some of the big races, I’ve run an extra lap. It’s costly, but it’s literally because I had this disconnect. I’m in so much discomfort I just detach from my body. I’m just moving. My background and experience allow me to go to that place and stay in it.“
Grit can’t be distilled down to a number in a survey (I can’t give you the median grit level unfortunately!) But suffice to say the Elite of the sport aren’t just strong, fast, physically impressive athletes. They also seemingly have incredible levels of grit, determination, and resilience – and they are using that not just when it comes to race time, but day in day out during training as well.
