Glasgow hosted the fourth HYROX event in the UK of the 2022/23 season on 11th February 2023 at Glasgow Scottish Event Campus (SEC). It was the first ever HYROX event to be held in Scotland, and is clearly something the Scots were ready and waiting for as (roughly) 4500 athletes were in attendance, and the overall standard of competition on the day was VERY high!
Upon announcing Glasgow as a new HYROX venue a few months ago, Eddie Dier, UK Brand Manager commented, “It was only natural to add an event in Glasgow to our competition calendar as part of our continually growing UK expansion after multiple sell-out races in 2022. We want as many people as possible to experience and take part in a HYROX event, as it is a race everyone can complete, no matter your fitness level, whether that be in the individual category, pairs or team relay. Expanding our reach to Glasgow was the next logical step for us and we’re very excited to bring HYROX to Scotland’s biggest city.”
There had been some concerns before about the layout of the track prior to the race. But afterwards the feedback was really positive, with many experienced HYROX athletes telling me its one of the most enjoyable layouts they’d experienced.
Men’s Pro
The winner of the Men’s Pro race was Graham Halliday, who finished in an incredible time of 57:53. That’s one of the quickest times we’ve seen from a Male Pro so far this season, makes him the 5th fastest man we’ve ever seen in HYROX (at the time of writing) and puts him firmly inside the qualifying spots for the Elite races at the HYROX World Championships in May. Halliday has actually won the last UK based HYROX Men’s Pro race just 2 weeks earlier in Manchester, but this performance was a significant improvement, time wise, vs. that, at 4:14m quicker than that showing. This was also the fastest ever time we’ve seen in Men’s Pro in the 25-29 age group, setting a new world record. He sent us these comments after the race:
“I wasn’t really sure what time I was getting but I did think it was sub 60. To look up and see it say 57.53 was incredible. I think the home support and the fact that so many people from my gym smashed through hyrox yesterday it motivated me to push harder.
I felt like the runs where more close to 1km for sure this time. The runs on this course mirrored more how I run during my training. So I was very happy with how the course was laid out. I thought with it having so many corners it would be a slower course, but the sides seemed to have a big distance to allow me to open up on my runs. The sleds felt good this time, the carpet was solid to the floor, there was no messing about. I just got low and got stuck into it with planned rest times based on how pumped my legs were at the time.
The course compared to Manchester was much better in my opinion. I actually liked the fact the last run was the longest with the extra lap round to the separate wall ball section.
In terms of how I improved. It’s very difficult to say based from one course to another as they are all quite different. This time round I actually just recovered harder. I took 4 days recovery before Glasgow, I did a 20 minute moving session on the Friday just to get my body fired up and this seemed to have worked better for me. My food was on point and I went in 1kg lighter for Glasgow. I really just planned to run harder as I know I had much more than what Manchesters times said. So pushing more on the runs and taking more recovery days seemed to have worked a treat!”
2nd in the Men’s Pro was Tony Revell, in 01:01:20, and third was Ben Spilman in 01:01:56.
Women’s Pro
The Women’s Pro race was won by Aoife O’Sullivan in a time of 01:09:56. That was an impressive 8 minute PB for her, and more than 3 minutes in front of Alice Hardy in 2nd place, and Kristjana Hildur Gunnarsdôttir (more on her below) in 3rd.
World Records
Aside from Graham Halliday’s age group world record, there were a few others who also broke world records on the day.
Firstly, there was Kristjana Hildur Gunnarsdôttir (aka Kiddý) who broke the Women’s Pro world record in the 50-54 age group by nearly 10 minutes, with a time of 01:13:22! That’s only her second ever HYROX race – in her first, in Birmingham, she broke the age group world record in the Women’s Open. 2 races, 2 world records for this amazing Icelandic (from Keflavík) woman who is 51 years old (52 in July). I asked Kiddý for a little more info about herself after the race and she sent this:
“My background in sports is handball, running and a lot of X-training competitions in Iceland, Scotland, UK and Dubai, and then also few CrossFit competitions in Iceland. I started competing in X-training in 2001 and really found my path. I heard about HYROX from Nuno Baretto, a HYROX competitor, but I got to know him through X-training competition in UK. I saw on Facebook when Covid was making travelling really hard that Nuno had done HYROX and he loved it, and I knew that I could probably be ok doing it. So I had HYROX in my mind for a year until a registered for HYROX Birmingham with a really good start in HYROX women, world record in my age group. So after getting the invite to World Championship I had no doubt saying yes to that, even though I knew that the weights would probably be a big challenge. And it was definitely a big challenge moving up to Pro 😉 The course felt good especially the first 2 km but the sled push really turned up the heat. There was some kind off a bump on the sled track and it was pretty hard to move it over that “hurdle” but I made it through so I knew I was fine. I was worried about the sled because I don’t have it in my gym. Everything else was pretty much as I expected but I was getting pretty tired in wallballs so I know where I can improve myself. I want to give a big shout out to my training partners Þuríður Þorkelsdóttir (pro women 55-59), Àsta Katrín Helgadóttir and Árdís Gísladóttir ( doubles 55-59) who all earned a spot to World championship, I’m so proud of them ❤️”
Separately, 2 more amazing women broke the age group world record for the women’s doubles in the 40-49 age group. Leah Smith, and Denise Brazier (you can see my interview with her here about running her HYROX affiliated gym) got a time of 1:00:54, to beat the previous best time by 13 seconds.
Jake Dearden got an impressive time of 00:57:09 in the Men’s Open, which was the fastest time of the day, and a world record in the 16-24 age group.
And finally, late on in the evening, the Men’s Relay world record was set by Alfie Howes, Joe Canlan-Shaw, Andrew Rodgie, and Michael Jamieson with a time of 54:27m (in Glasgow 2023).
Click here for a full up to date list of HYROX World Records.
Fast Course?
There were a LOT of very fast times set on the day, many new PB’s set, and with all the World Records, there was speculation that this was a fast course. That certainly hadn’t been expected beforehand – a look at the layout of the running track, with the twists and turns towards the bottom – meant many were worried it would be chaotic and slow. It doesn’t seem as if that was the case at all.
As one example, in the Men’s Doubles, there were 28 pairings (out of 341) who broke the 60-minute barrier. That compares to 7 (of 229) in Manchester, 2 weeks prior, and 14 (of 343) in London in November 2022.
Or if we look at it another way – the person who came midway out of everyone in the Men’s Open (a method I use in this article that looks at venue differences), the times of recent UK events were as follows:
Glasgow (Feb 2023) – 01:24:28
Manchester (Jan 2023) – 01:30:18
London (Nov 2022) – 01:28:51
Birmingham (Oct 2022) – 01:26:29
There’s often talk of sleds feeling different between venues, but from what I can tell I don’t think the sleds were especially fast in Glasgow, with no huge difference to a normal venue. I’ve spoken in depth with the powers that be at HYROX regarding all they do to standardise as much as possible, and they do work really hard to ensure consistency. In Glasgow, most of the athlete’s improvements in time, and the overall fast times, seem to have come from fast running and Roxzone times. So perhaps the layout, busyness, less sharp corners, width of track all played a part in helping to make it relatively fast. Of course, it might just be that the standard of athletes on the day was especially high as well, we can never know, all I can say if there were very fast times put down!
Women’s Open
It was a very close race in the Women’s Open. Ultimately, first place went to Kirsty Oldham in 01:06:15. She beat Rebecca Brown who was second in 01:06:41, and Fay Morne in 01:06:56.
Men’s Open
Fastest of the day in the Men’s Open was Jake Dearden, who broke the 16-24 AG world record in a time of 57:09. Second was Lawrence Brown in 57:50, and third was David Parkin in 59:12.
Doubles
The fastest Women’s doubles pairing of the day were Danielle Woods and Klaire Osborne, who won in a fantastic time of 00:58:52.
The Men’s doubles was won by Conor Harkness and John Carlisle in 52:34. That’s the 10th fastest Mens Doubles time ever!
Mixed doubles were won by Katrin Hulme and Greg Foot in an impressive 58:28.
An Incredible Feat
Joel Enoch completed an incredible 4 HYROX races (2 doubles, 2 individual) in one day. The feat was to help raise money for 2 worthy charities. In this video I talk to him about the day, how he got on, how tough it was, how he fuelled for the events, and much more.
If you competed in Glasgow, let us know in the comments how your race went, what you thought of the day, and how you feel about the venue set up / whether it was a relatively fast course…
Here are some photos of the event (photo credit: 1rmphotography):
Getting to Glasgow SEC
The address for Glasgow SEC is: Scottish Event Campus, Exhibition Way, Glasgow, G3 8YW.
The Scottish Event Campus is situated just outside Glasgow City Centre and is accessible by numerous modes of transport.
Train/Tube
The SEC is served by it’s own railway station – Exhibition Centre. The station is 3 minutes train journey from the City centre.
There are numerous direct trains into Glasgow from both London and Edinburgh.
All of the relevant information for travelling by train can be found here.
Bus
The X19 Stagecoach service stops a few minutes walk from the venue on Finnieston Street.
The timetable can be found here.
Car
The SEC is situated just off of the M8 motorway. The satnav postcode is G3 8YW.
Parking is available in a multi-storey car park which is operated by Glasgow City Council. The car park address is 10 Stobcross Road, G3 8YW. Up-to-date parking charges can be found here.
Plane
There are two airports in Glasgow – Glasgow Airport (GLA) and Glasgow Prestwick Airport (PIK). Glasgow is situated 63km from Edinburgh Airport (EDI).
From the airports, the SEC can be accessed by train or taxi. Further information can be found here.
All of the most up to date information can also be found here.
Please ensure that you double check all travel timetables and information directly with the train/bus websites before travelling.
Where to Stay
Some of the closest hotels are:
Hilton Garden Inn Glasgow City Centre
Premier Inn Glasgow Pacific Quay
How HYROX works:
- At HYROX, everyone worldwide competes in the same race, in the same format
- The competition starts with a 1km run, followed by one functional movement, and repeats eight times
- Athletes can sign up to different race categories, making it accessible no matter what level of fitness you’re at
- Individual – take on the standard HYROX for a challenging but achievable race for everyone
- Individual Pro – For the experienced racer, heavier weights make for a more challenging experience
- Doubles – find a partner and take on the challenge as a pair splitting the workload across the event
- Relay Teams – perfect for gyms, companies, and other groups, split the work up between 4 people for the fastest and most accessible version of the race
For more information, visit www.hyrox.com to sign up for a race or PFT, or check out our beginner’s guide to HYROX here.
