Last week, I told you about my son’s birthday party and how, looking at the crowds of people, I was concerned that my contemporaries haven’t put enough emphasis on taking care of themselves.
Walking into the Meadowlands Convention Center the very next weekend for a fitness competition called “Hyrox” (more on this later) I was struck with the opposite feeling.
As I gathered my wrist band, house-arrest ankle bracelet (which doubled for a timing chip) and had my participation number scrawled in black sharpie on my arm, I couldn’t help but notice the sea of ubiquitous, exposed six packs and accompanying anxiety that seemed to fill the obstacle course.
Jesus Christ, these people were fit.
Which makes sense given that the task of the day - completing the Hyrox course - requires its participants to run 8 kilometers (the equivalent of about 5 miles), push a 300lb sled, ski, row, farmers walk and more as fast as possible.
This feat can be accomplished as a solo endeavor or can be completed in teams of two (in this case, both participants have to each do all the running but can split up the other tasks). If you are really feeling saucy you can participate in a separate division in which you are responsible for all the same requirements but while wearing a weighted vest.
Times to completion tend to range from the one hour to the two hour mark which is very, very different from the Olympic weightlifting meets which satisfied my most recent previous desire to compete. In weightlifting, at absolutely maximum, your time on the competition platform lasts 6 minutes.
I decided that since this competition was well out of my comfort zone - I tend to lean more toward the “lift heavy things for as few reps as possible” side of training rather than the “let’s breath hard for 90 minutes” type events - I would enjoy myself much more if I did this with a partner. But I also knew that I needed someone who wouldn’t be frustrated by my slow running pace.
Enter my friend and colleague Brett who is a much better athlete than I am yet is the only person I know who may run less frequently than I do. Brett charitably and enthusiastically agreed to be paired up with me. But, to be fair, she tends to be enthusiastic about most things.
Walking into the competition hall after registration was certainly a bit overwhelming. Thousands of people were crowding fairly tight spaces and this being my first foray into the world of Hyrox I had no idea what to do or where to go (NOTE: turns out this was my fault. I signed up late and apparently HYROX sends out detailed emails explaining everything if you actually take the time to read them).
But after finding friends, checking my bag and doing exactly 12 seconds worth of warm-up activities, we found ourselves in the pre-race staging tent where a very enthusiastic woman alternated between giving us very useful and pragmatic information (“make sure you run exactly this number of laps each time”) and shouting motivational affirmations (“breath in the good shit, breath out the bullshit”). Given that she probably runs through this shpiel every 10 minutes for 10 hours I give her a lot of credit for keeping the vibes high.
As the video screen counted down the final 60 seconds until our heat began we all gave each other last minute high fives.
3-2-1….
The curtain to the tent opens and we are spilled out onto the training floor, the suddenly bright lights filling our eyes.
Brett and I decided that our strategy would be to take everything at an 8 out of 10 intensity at most. We didn’t want to push the pace, red line and spend the next 15 minutes at the watering station catching our breath.
I’ll spare you the details of each station but I will tell you that I exceeded expectations on the run (huge shout out to our Fort Remote Running Coach Jess who’s program really got me prepared to run more than I have in, well, ever), burpee broad jumps should be banned as an activity (by far the hardest station in the entire course for me) and my time to shine were in the classic strongman and conditioning type of activities (sleds, ropes, ski, carries, row) that we do at The Fort all the time.
The pinnacle was when our judge on the last event - Wall Balls - complimented me on how good my technique was. Take that, Rich Froning!
And just like that, one hour and twenty-eight minutes later, we crossed the finish line drenched in sweat having completed the course without any glitches or penalties.
The goal of any competitive event should fall into one of two buckets. The first is performance. If you have past experience or you have a scholarship or sponsorship on the line, then certainly things like time to completion, weight lifted and overall placement matter.
But I think most of us fall into a second category. Where the goal of the competition is to have fun, build confidence in your abilities and, perhaps most importantly, get you excited to do it again.
Which leads me to the question nearly everyone asked me once the event was over.
“Would you do it again?”
And my answer is an enthusiastic “yes”. The minute I stop enjoying spending a Saturday with friends and fellow meatheads lifting weights, breathing hard and putting our fitness to the test is the minute I’ll know that it’s time for a change.