My experience with Hyrox Melbourne was an absolute dream. I had a blast and was really proud of myself… and of my result!
I received my start time of 12:40pm in the week leading up to the race, and arrived 2 hours early to make sure registration was completed smoothly and to collect my timing anklet. This was a super smooth process and really quick, so there was quite a long wait around until it was time to go in and start warming up. I had my mate ‘caddy Pete’ from gym with me – a good friend who has been supporting my training, doing some stats and generally all round good advice.
Tom and the kids drove in later in time for the race and were there cheering me on from the sidelines!
After a quick warm up with some dynamic stretches, ergs, and some practice sleds, it was time to head into the start line ‘cave’ where they keep you for 10 minutes, pump you up with some music and advice from the Elite athletes on screens before the big 10 second countdown. I had to focus on breathing in this part, the adrenaline starts to pump, the nerves kick in and your heart rate soars! Deep belly breaths were needed to make sure I stayed calm and focussed. Then before I knew it, it was go time!
The 1km running laps were faster than I had planned for, but are still area for improvement. I managed 5:20-5:30 minutes per km. In order to get a better time, I’ll need to push under the 5 minute per km pace.
The ski erg was a breeze, and the sled pushes felt a lot lighter than what I’d trained and moved really easily, so I got through that pretty quickly too.
The sled pull was a bit of a downfall – I miscounted my laps and ended up on the wrong side of the exit – and couldn’t find my way out. Jogging up and down the sideline trying to find a judge to ask where the exit was, not knowing if I’d done to many or too few laps, I started to panic! I decided to do one more just to be sure I had done enough and wouldn’t receive a penalty, and then ran to the exit. All up that lost me probably 3 or more minutes of time – and some stress from a heckler spectator who called me ‘stupid’. I brushed it off as best as I could, left what had happened in the past and soldiered on.
Next up was burpee broad jumps – these are a staple for me in training, I flew through them without any problems and even passed a few people along the way. The rower, farmers carry and lunges were all smooth sailing too, although on reflection I definitely could have pushed harder in these. By the time I got to wall balls I was feeling fatigued but still with life in me. It was confusing keeping track of my count vs the judges count and being able to hear them telling me what number I was up to overtop of the loud music.
It felt wonderful crossing the finish line with a very respectable time of 1:25:48! Not bad for my very first race! As soon as I had finished I was already looking forward to doing it again (and again and again!).
There were lots of lessons learnt, I could have gone harder in some of the stations, and can definitely improve my running! But all in all it was a wonderfully organised event, so much vibe and atmosphere and something I’ll be looking forward to next year. I might even rope a few people in to do a doubles race and mixed doubles as well.
Next year my aim will be to get below 1 hour 20!
