Running training for HYROX

The three runs you need

HYROX running training is built on three types of session:

• Easy runs. Conversational pace, where you could talk in full sentences. These build your aerobic base, and they should make up most of your running.
• Quality sessions. Intervals or tempo running at or around threshold, the hardest pace you could sustain for roughly an hour. These raise the pace you can hold.
• Compromised runs. Runs done straight after station work, so you learn to run well on tired legs. Covered in detail in compromised running.

A longer easy run of 45 to 75 minutes once a week is a useful fourth ingredient for people with the time, especially if your race is likely to take well over an hour.

How much running per week

It depends on your background, but these are sensible starting points:

• New to running: two runs a week, one easy and one easy with a few short pick-ups. Run-walk is fine.
• Some running background: three runs a week: easy, quality and compromised.
• Experienced runners: three or four runs a week, including a longer easy run.

Many recreational HYROX athletes do well on somewhere around 15 to 30 km of running a week in the build-up, on top of their strength and station work. More can help if you recover well, but running volume brings injury risk, so increase it gradually over weeks rather than all at once.

Key quality sessions

Rotate through these for your weekly quality run:

1. 1 km repeats: 5 to 8 x 1 km at slightly faster than your target HYROX run pace, with 90 seconds of easy jogging or walking between.
2. Threshold blocks: 3 x 8 to 10 minutes at a comfortably hard pace, with 2 minutes easy between.
3. Progression run: 30 minutes starting easy and finishing at threshold pace in the final ten minutes.
4. Strides: after an easy run, 6 x 20 seconds of fast but relaxed running, walking back between.

Keep the quality session genuinely hard but controlled. You should finish feeling you could have done one more rep, not wrecked. If heart rate is your preferred tool, the guide to heart rate training for HYROX explains how to set zones for each session.

Running technique for the HYROX course

The HYROX run course is indoors, flat and made up of laps, often with tight turns. That has a few practical consequences. Short, quick steps help you through the turns without losing speed. A relaxed upper body saves energy you need for the stations. And a steady rhythm matters more than a long, powerful stride.

On tired legs, your stride naturally shortens. That is fine. Let your cadence rise rather than forcing long strides, which tend to overload tired quads and calves. Practise this in your compromised runs so it feels natural on race day.

Treadmill running is useful in bad weather and for pacing practice, and it is closer to the flat indoor course than hilly routes. Mix it with outdoor running if you can, because the turns and changes of pace outside are closer to the race than a treadmill belt.

Building up without getting injured

The most common running problems in HYROX training are shin pain, calf strains and Achilles irritation, usually from adding too much running too quickly on top of station work that already loads the lower legs. Burpee broad jumps, lunges and sled pushes all add to that load.

• Increase your weekly running gradually and hold it steady every third or fourth week.
• Do calf raises and single leg strength work, as in strength training for runners.
• Rotate two pairs of running shoes if you run often.
• Take pain that builds during a run, or that is worse the next morning, seriously.

If you do develop pain along the inside of the shin, the physio guide to shin splints explains what usually helps and when to get it checked.

Putting running into your week

For someone training five times a week, a balanced layout might be an easy run on Monday, a strength session and a quality run on Tuesday, an easy run on Thursday and a compromised running session at the weekend. At Lycan Strength, an Upper class on Tuesday and the Friday Engine or Lycan Shred session fit naturally around two or three runs of your own.

Whatever the layout, protect your easy days. The most common mistake is running every session at the same moderately hard pace, which is too hard to recover from and too easy to improve your top end. Easy should feel easy, and hard should feel properly hard.