Let me be honest with you. I signed up for HYROX thinking my regular gym routine (Orangetheory, mixed with some weight lifting a couple of times a week) had me more than covered. And let me just tell you… boy was I wrong. And that became very obvious, very fast. In the first couple of weeks of training actually.
HYROX is a global fitness race that combines eight one-kilometer runs with eight functional workout stations (things like sled pushes, rowing, burpee broad jumps and wall balls), all done back to back with no rest between them. It has taken over gym culture and social feeds for a good reason, because it pushes you in ways that a standard workout simply doesn’t, and while it was one of the craziest things I’ve done in a long time, it was also something I’m the most proud of.
Getting through it, or even just finishing upright, requires a lot more preparation than most people anticipate going in. Your training has to cover endurance and strength at the same time, which means you’re asking your body to do a lot over a sustained period of weeks. What you eat, what you wear, how you recover and how you fuel before and during your sessions all starts to add up in ways you notice when race day comes.
These are the things that actually made a difference throughout my training, and that I’d tell any woman considering the challenge to look into before she even laces up.
Something people in the HYROX community will tell you pretty quickly is that this is a runner’s race before it’s anything else, and I learned that lesson the hard way early in training. I needed to get my miles in consistently and having the Echelon Stride 6 at home took every excuse off the table. The AI coaching feature was the thing that actually kept me on track because it built sessions around where I was in my training.
Available at Echelon Fit
I cannot tell you how many sessions I showed up to underfueled before I figured out that part of my routine, and the difference it made once I got it right was immediate. These became my go-to about 30 minutes before training because they’re light enough that I wasn’t weighed down but substantial enough to actually carry me through.
Available at Amazon
There were training days where I could feel myself dragging before I even got warmed up, and that’s when I started being more intentional about what I was reaching for beforehand. CELSIUS became a consistent part of my pre-session routine because it gave me enough to push through without making me feel like I was crawling out of my skin or crashing an hour in.
Available at Amazon
My skin was an absolute mess about three weeks into heavy training, between the sweat and the outdoor sessions and honestly just not paying attention to it the way I should have been. I started using Prequel’s spray after workouts as a way to calm everything down, and it became one of those things I just didn’t skip anymore because the difference was noticeable. It’s quick, it works on your face and body, and it doesn’t require a whole routine around it.
Available at Prequel Skin
My playlist carried me through more tough sessions than I can count, but only once I stopped tolerating headphones that kept cutting out or falling off mid-run. These became the pair I reached for every single training day because they stayed put, blocked out everything around me, and the sound quality made every mile feel more manageable.
Available at JLab
I’d been meaning to add creatine to my routine for a while but kept falling off because pills and powders just weren’t something I was consistently remembering. The gummy format changed that for me completely because it felt less like taking a supplement and more like something I actually wanted to do every day.
Available at Amazon
I was deep into training before I realized that a lot of the fatigue I was chalking up to hard sessions was actually me just being chronically under-hydrated on top of everything else. Adding Proper’s Hydration Boost into my daily routine, not just on training days, made a noticeable difference in how I felt going into workouts and recovering after them.
Available at Proper Health
I used to treat rest and recovery like an afterthought, something I’d get to once training was done, and that mentality caught up with me faster than expected. Making time for a proper treatment at Burke Williams mid-training block rather than saving it for after race day was genuinely one of the better decisions I made throughout the process.
Available at Burke Williams Spa
There is nothing worse than adjusting your waistband during a sled push, and I say that from painful experience before I found gear that actually stayed where it was supposed to. The Oner Active leggings and tank became my default training set because they moved with me without any of the shifting or rolling that makes a hard session even harder to get through.
Available at Oner Active
I went through two pairs of shoes before I landed on something that could handle both the running volume and the lateral demands of HYROX training without my feet paying for it later. The 9060s gave me the cushioning I needed for the mileage and held up through the functional movements in a way my previous shoes simply didn’t.
Available at New Balance