Hyrox Recap Ft. Worth 2023

Stay hopeful, stay humble, stay HY. These are the words repeated at the start line of every HYROX race. Honestly, everyone should run at least one Hyrox race just to experience the emotions at the starting line. The combination of butterflies and rocks in your stomach at the beginning — you know the torture you are about to commence, but you also know it isn’t anything you can’t do — is a crazy combination for sure.

While in line to register, I overheard someone telling her friends that we get nervous before these races, because we care. If we didn’t care about the outcome, we wouldn’t be nervous. She was both right and wrong. She was right that yes, I care about the race. But if she thought I cared about winning the race, or qualifying for world championships, she would be wrong. Everyone races for different reasons. I race because it is fun to see what I can accomplish. Can I improve on what I achieved last time? I’m racing against myself, looking for my own personal bests.

Always better with friends

I don’t know that I would want to run this race as a single competitor. There is something about having a friend by your side, commiserating with you, that makes the experience more special. Sharing the work doesn’t hurt, either! Except when you look at the official photos and realize, maybe I actually did more work than I thought. My partner’s photos look way happier than mine. (Evidence below — she smiles, I work haha!)

Takeaways from this race

We have quite a bit of room for improvement. Our time did not improve from last November, but that could be because we took a bathroom break this time around. 🤣 Like Malcolm says in Jurassic Park, “when you gotta go, you gotta go.” Lucky for us, it only cost us about 5 minutes, and we weren’t eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex during the experience.

Another reason our time did not improve — I have been dealing with back pain for the better part of a month. It is so frustrating to know I can do certain things (like sled pull, or burpee broad jumps) and feel so limited by something almost completely out of my control. Fortunately, the pain is subsiding and soon (I hope!) I will be back to 100% function pain-free. Frankly, it is close to a miracle we had a similar time with how much I had to hold back and avoid doing! I joke about my partner doing no work but honestly I just happened to be closer to the camera when I was working. I would say this time around she did more of the work. She is a beast!

We decided on a training regimen to begin when I’m at 100%, and I’m excited to see what we can truly do in November! 💪 We are going to measure our improvement like the rockstars we are!

Speaking of friends…

Watching my friends race was the highlight of the whole experience! I loved watching my friend shine ☀️during her very first race, and watching my trainer coach her through the entire experience. They made a great team!! We had multiple friends run that day and each of them did an amazing job and just made my experience that much more fun. A special shout out to the hubbies that came along for the ride…even though they most likely think we are crazy!

Hyrox claims this is a race for every body…and they are not wrong. No matter your fitness level, you can do this. You may have to set some goals and improve in certain aspects of your fitness to do as well as you would like to, but it is achievable. It is not out of your reach. Set those goals, and come out and compete at your local race. You will be so glad you did!