HYROX DIARIES: Entry Four

This week, we really shook things up.

Robbie has taken my training to yet another level, and I feel like something properly clicked this week.

Interestingly enough, I was training on Tuesday evening and, honestly, I wasn’t really feeling it. In terms of the weights, I was kind of just going through the motions and getting the workout done.
But I was itching to get on the treadmill, which in all honesty, so bizarre for me.

We have gone from counting down how long I had to run for, being the person who was like, “You’ll never catch me dead running,” to, “Okay, when do I get to step on the treadmill?”

I think with such a crazy, hectic week, and my event this weekend my nervous system just needed to release a whole lot of energy. So I got on the treadmill and I was just floating through the workout. From the minute I started, it felt so easy.

I thought to myself, okay, we’ll just see how we feel when we get to minute 20, because this could suddenly get really hard.

Then I got to about 15 minutes in and I was like, f*ck it, I’m going to push the limit.

I’ve been running at 8.5 and it was feeling so freaking simple. Why don’t we try 9?

So I did 9 for the next five minutes, and then I thought, you know what? Why don’t we try to go for 25 minutes as a run?

I pushed it up to 9.5, and then for the last two minutes I ran at a 10. My whole body felt incredible.

I walked away knowing that if I had not been short on time, I actually would have just stayed there in the zone, enjoying my run. I felt like I could have just kept going.

Then today, I went through my leg workout, which felt way stronger than normal.

I put the 20kg sandbag on, which I was absolutely crippled by the other day, potentially because it was under different circumstances. But anyway, I breezed through that, no problem. No pain in my knees, my legs felt really strong, and I was like, wow, this is off the back of doing a longer run and a harder session just yesterday.

I do not normally run on a leg day, but it was really the only time I had for it this week. So you either chuck it in or you miss it, and I was not prepared to skip my training.

Again, I felt really light, pretty fluid and relatively easy. The difference for this session was it was broken into 1km bursts. Nothing intense, just really seeing how my body went.

Of course, I started at 8.5. After a few hundred metres, I was like, this is way too easy, so I jumped up to 9 and finished that first kilometre there.

Then we had a two-minute walk in between before I did another kilometre.

I started the next one at 9.5 because I was like, well, why don’t we just see what the body is capable of?

Then we got to the next two-minute break and I was like, you know what? Let’s try it at 10, because it was not feeling challenging.

About halfway through that third kilometre, I was like, okay. This is starting to expand my capacity. I am starting to feel the resistance. I am starting to reach my threshold.

And I still persevered through.

It was starting to get to the point where I was like how much longer every few metres, but I was not ‘struggling’, it was just an expansion for me.

So I did my two-minute rest and was like, stuff it. Fourth kilometre, why don’t we just try 11?

So we did…

I started at 11 and I think I ran for about 600 metres before I could feel my lungs reach their absolute capacity. I could have kept going, but the point of this training (especially first time around), was not to max myself out.

The point was to start expanding my capacity. To keep me in that Zone 3 and 4 space, without really pushing into Zone 5 too much, and to start building my conditioning and endurance.

So I dropped back to a 10 and managed to keep running.

It was a very hard final kilometre, but I still walked away with zero pain, a body that felt incredible, and I was not a red-faced tomato.

It has been such an interesting week because I am due for my period literally today or tomorrow, and I could not believe how much I breezed through training. Even my training with Robbie on Monday felt fantastic!

And it just goes to show, which ironically ties into me teaching on nervous-system capacity at my retreat this weekend, that it is the same when it comes to training.

It’s not about how we take every stressor off our plate. It’s about how we expand our capacity to hold it.

And we do not do that by jumping straight up to the next level. We do not do it by going too extreme, too quickly. We do not do it through an all-or-nothing mentality.

We increase the load to something somewhat uncomfortable, just on the edge of our window of tolerance

From a scientific perspective, this is called hormetic stress. It is why things like saunas and ice baths can be such incredible tools for your body and nervous system to adapt and learn to hold more.

But it is also something we can do through training.

This has been a huge week in expanding my capacity. From the amount I am holding with organising this event, the extra training, navigating running my normal business responsibilities, and still showing up for all of it (check my other blog if you want a little behind-the-scenes of what that has looked like).

The parallels life has to offer us sometimes are actually so incredible, and I am so grateful that I am always continuing to learn, grow and reflect so that I am expanding at every level!

Sheree xo