My Non-Hyrox Era

Pilates and Gyrotonic stretch and rotate all the kinks out of me, and to keep the fascia nimble. I work out fairly religiously at the gym not because I love weights or strength training. I do it because I don't have a choice — aging muscles — keeping fit. Also, it has become an outlet for stress (and anger) management. 

I'm having some fun training with friends at their gyms for their Hyrox race prep. It's not a recent thing. I've been training with them since early 2025. They're the mad people who would fly to Seoul, Hong Kong and Paris to race. I wouldn't mind tagging along as a spectator, but my traveling inclinations are curtailed by a floof. 

This training usually means doing a lot of squats and running. I can do barbell squats on my own. Wall balls are so painful when it's the last station and you're literally dying. If you have no strength in those quads, hamstrings and glutes, you will cry.

Then you need a ton of upper body strength and a solid core. Somehow, you'll have to figure out how to build strength to push a sled of 102kg, which will feel easier than pulling a sled of 78kg. Of course I'm not doing Pro weights lah. Walao. 

I have to do all the stations that I hate, especially running. It's ridiculous to push me to run so far. Ugh. I'm made to run 8km and I detest that. My max is 5km. That's my comfortable distance. I'm not racing, so I refuse to run 10km. Ha! On normal days, I don't even like running outdoors, but these people do. Grrrrrr. Thankfully, we run at the stadium (nice track) or around the Kallang Riverside, MBS and Esplanade area, both of which are acceptable to me. I refuse to run elsewhere. NEVER ON A TRAIL. Running is utterly unenjoyable.  

You can analyze the best positions and form for each station. You delve all you want into how to improve strength, stamina and timings. But Hyrox is first and foremost, an endurance and a running race. If you can't run 10km comfortably without collapsing at the end, don't do Hyrox as an individual. I know people said don't bother about timings, just train and just aim to finish injury-free. Ehhh, people do bother about timings. So you can talk to all the enthusiasts to figure it out.

I have done the simulations, and I'm pretty impressed with my timings for the 45-49 age group. LOL However, I'm not joining a race at all. I won't because I'm not interested in joining any sort of competitions this way. It's not me lah. I don't have the bandwidth to do it. I can't commit to Doubles or Relay because if Choya needs me, I tend to drop everything for her, including any potential races. 

No matter. This is my non-Hyrox era.