HYROX DIARIES: Entry Six

I honestly think people overestimate how fit I am…

They take one look at me, what I do, how I train and nourish my body, and assume I’m fit (aka, that I won’t die running up a hill). Well, let me fill you in on a not so little secret… I am, or at least I was, very unfit cardio-wise.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a reason I look fit. I hold a decent amount of muscle for my size and shape, and I am strong. I am really freaking strong, (particularly for a female anyway). To the point where I’ve had multiple people come up to me at the gym over the years and comment on my strength. Yet when I tell people I’m not actually ‘fit’, they don’t really believe me.

This is exactly why HYROX is stretching my edges so much.

Strength training is comfortable for me. I know how to lift. I know how to get stronger. I know how to push myself under a barbell. Heck, just last week I was doing 80kg/176lb ass-to-grass safety-bar squats and dumbbell chest pressing 28kg/61lb in each arm.

That’s my foundation…. 

It’s the endurance stuff, the conditioning and the ability to keep moving when your body is already exhausted that is a very different kind of fitness. It has me huffing and puffing my way through circuit training, complaining that everything hurts, including my lungs.

So in many ways, it feels like I’m starting from scratch! Which is why I’m doing my absolute best to get as much exposure to it as I can before race day.

Fortunately, Les Mills, who are the official HYROX partner for group fitness, are putting on their Ceremony Games soon. They held one last year and another earlier this year, but I had only just been back in the country for a few weeks and honestly, I was nowhere near prepared to jump into it then.

This time, I’m using it as a really beautiful opportunity to get a feel for my first competition environment. I’ve roped in one of the members to do it with me, so we can practise doing a partnered workout, work on our transitions and get used to what it feels like to be in that team environment with a bit of pressure on.

It also happens to sit perfectly at the halfway point between announcing my HYROX journey and being three months out. A little voice said, “this is the perfect time to see what you’re made of!”

One bonus is that there is no running in the Ceremony Games! Don’t get me wrong, I neeeeeeeed to practice this, but I still have a lot of work to do on my cardio conditioning. So I’m glad I’m not throwing myself into the deep end with a full HYROX-style run just yet. 

There are plenty of HYROX-style movements, though, which means plenty of opportunities for me to realise that being strong and being able to do high-rep functional work are two very different things.

The other week, two of the other PT’s and I did a mini Ceremony Games simulation. We’ve been doing intense circuit training together in preparation for the Games, and two of us are also training for HYROX separately, so we thought we’d see how it felt.

We paired the reps back and got through two rounds. We were going to go for a third, but my legs were absolutely toast.

The sled I’ll be doing at HYROX is over 150kg. I can lift heavy, but pushing a sled with that much weight on it after you’ve already been working through an entire circuit is a whole different game. The wall balls have also been humbling me. I’ve done the Ceremony HYROX MAX class and 4kg wall balls feel fine, but 6kg wall balls somehow feel about ten times harder.

So this is where I’m at right now: getting the exposure, building the capacity and letting myself be new at something again.

I’m training for this as though I’m going to be doing HYROX doubles men’s weights solo. I want to be so over-prepared that on the day, my body knows what to do. I know it won’t feel like a walk in the park, but I would love to finish knowing I gave myself every possible chance to feel capable.

Which is why I’m taking this training so seriously, and documenting the journey with you is keeping me extra accountable.

Strong is my comfort zone. This is me finding out what else my body can do and getting comfortable in the uncomfortable, as I like to teach my clients.

Let’s see how this unfolds!

Sheree xo