I was once in a chat group with a number of experienced athletes who were asked, by HYROX, what tips we would share with a first timer to the sport.
I’ve actually already written an article on this topic myself (you can view it here), but by far the most common response was to pace yourself. I wholeheartedly agree with that. In fact, in this running pacing article, I clearly show that the best of the best in HYROX run at a very consistent pace throughout the race. Whereas slower performances tend to start out too quickly and slow down later on.
A couple of ambassadors then added in these comments:
“The race is won in the last 3rd of the event”
“Start slow, finish fast”.
Now I’m fully behind proper pacing (not going out too fast, and remaining consistent through the race), but the above two comments prompted me to look into the data to see just how true they were. Is the race REALLY won in the last third of the event? Should you really start slow and finish fast? I wasn’t too sure…
Elite Races
When considering things such as this, there normally isn’t an easy way to dive into the data, purely because in a normal HYROX race there are just so many competitors, all with differing start times. However, the Elite races are more pure racing and give us a unique opportunity to analyse things we otherwise might not be able to.
Just in case you don’t know, there are Elite races throughout the HYROX season which features 15 of the fastest men and 15 of the fastest women in the sport. There are “Major” races through the season, and then also Elite races at the World Championships. More detail on the Elite structure is in this article.
To understand where these races were won, I looked at the position in the race of each elite athlete after each of the runs and functional stations. I then compared this with their overall finishing position.
If the race was really won in the last third of the race, I figured we’d see lots of changes in positions up until that point. And then sometime in the last third of the race, we’d see the positions start to align with the overall finishing positions.
But we didn’t.
In fact, in most (not all) cases, it looks like the finishing positions of the race started to take shape VERY early on.
2022 HYROX World Championships
I first looked at the Elite races at the 2022 HYROX World Championships. You can see the results in this chart…
To explain that chart some more, the data compares where someone was in the race at that point, compared to their finishing position. If, say, Linda Meier was in 8th position after the SkiErg, but then finished 2nd overall, that counts as 6 position changes from that point onwards. The chart shows the average of the position changes across the 15 men and 15 women after each run and functional station.
By looking at the chart you can see that even after the sled push, just a quarter of the way into the race, the average position changes from that point were just 1.8 in the men’s race, and 1.6 in the women’s race.
If you had no idea who any of the athletes were but had to place a bet on their finishing positions after they had come off the sled push, you would have gone very close to getting it right by just assuming they would all stay where they were from that point.
If we look at the last third of the race (everything after the rowing), hardly anything changes at all from thereon; average position change in the men’s race is 0.8, and the women’s is 1.7.
Hunter McIntyre, the winner of the men’s race, essentially led from start to finish. In fact, the top 4 in the men’s race were pretty much the top 4 from the SkiErg onwards!
The Outliers
We have looked at averages so far and, on average, the positions seemed to change very little from early on in the race. But if we look at specific athletes, there are of course outliers.
The most obvious outlier in all this is the eventual winner of the women’s race – Kris Rugloski. After the sled push you probably wouldn’t have guessed she would win – she was sitting around 7th at that point. After the rowing she was around 5th. She truly DID win the race in the final third.
Dylan Scott in the men’s race finished 5th overall. He was pretty much at the back of the field after the sled push, but then clawed his way back in the subsequent runs and stations to put himself in 5th.
It’s probably worth noting at this point that I think it’s fair to say that Kris and Dylan are very good runners, with very big engines (i.e. great endurance). Neither of them is known for their sled pushing abilities relative to others in the elite field. But they did both have the best running times in their races. This perhaps indicates, if you want to perform well in your race in term of overall finishing position, if you aren’t going to be high up the field after the sled push, you better have a very good engine, and be very good at running.
2023/24 Majors
I revisited this topic after the 2023/24 Majors. There were 4 Major races in the season (in Chicago, Stockholm, Vienna and Washington D.C). The below shows the point in the race at which the eventual winner took the lead and didn’t lose it.
Elite Men
Chicago – Sled Push (Ryan Kent)
Stockholm – Run 3 (Hunter McIntyre)
Vienna – Burpee Broad Jumps (Alexander Roncevic)
Washington D.C. – Sled Pull (Dylan Scott)
Elite Women
Chicago – Sled Pull (Megan Jacoby)
Stockholm – Run 3 (Megan Jacoby)
Vienna – Run 2 (Lauren Weeks)
Washington D.C. – Burpee Broad Jumps (Lauren Weeks)
So as you can see, the latest that the eventual winner took the lead (and didnt concede it) was at the burpee broad jumps. Often it was much sooner.
Summary
So where does this leave us? Here’s some thoughts:
- I am still convinced that pacing yourself is important. You don’t want to start out too quickly relative to your abilities. And you do need to run at a consistent pace throughout the race.
- For people who are competing in HYROX for the first time, I do also think that “start slow, finish fast” is probably good advice, just purely for the fact that almost all first timers start out too quickly. If they try to start “slow”, it might just end up being the right pace for them (as most people overestimate how quickly they can run in HYROX).
- If you aspire to get a podium spot in your race / age group, or win an Elite race, you likely can’t afford to start out too slowly. In most cases, you need to be in the mix as early on as a quarter of the way into the race. Of course, in most HYROX races you don’t really know where you are relative to everyone else until everyone has finished (due to the different wave start times), but in Elite races, and World Championship events (for Elite and age groupers) you do get a better idea.
- The performance of Kris Rugloski in 2022 shows that you can win the race in the last third. If you aren’t great at the sled push, and if you aren’t near the lead at that point, then you need a good engine, and / or to be a very good runner, so you can claw your way back. That said, the sport, and athletes, have moved on since 2022 and it may be a mistake to leave it too late in the race nowadays.
- One of the ambassadors commented his tip would be to “Start fast, go fast through the middle, and finish fast”. He may have been half joking but, based on most of the data I’ve looked at here, I think he might have been right!
Photo credit: Erik Wittkopf
