Do I Do a Hyrox Solo or with a Partner?

I posted enough edited photos of me exercising that you think that a Hyrox race is the next thing you want to train for. I love it. Let's go. But now you ask me, should I do it solo or with a partner? That's tricky.

What's the difference between Solo and Doubles?

Both races are 8 1 kilometer runs followed by a fitness event. When you tackle it Solo, all of it is your responsibility to finish. When you do it in Doubles, you and your partner run together (so you're both still running all 8 kilometers) but then when you arrive at the event you split it however you want. That could be partner one does half, then partner two does half. That could be partner one does 1/10 and then partner two does 9/10. You and your partner could swap back and forth every 10 seconds (not recommended). You could even have a partner not do ANY of the events if you so chose.

You Should Race Solo IF:

-You have a high enough level of fitness to tackle an over hour long steady workout of running and weights by yourself (or will train enough to get there.

- You like the idea of relying only on yourself and your own fitness to get through a race

- The challenge of tackling it solo is personally meaningful to you

- None of the scenarios as a partnership sound appealing to you

A solo race is a big challenge. You need to be ready to work steadily for over an hour. I would argue that your 10K running pace and your half marathon running pace are going to become useful metrics for you to track. The Solo race is awesome and challenging and if you got into this because you followed some people on the internet, this is probably what they do and you want to do it the cool way. I get that. This is an awesome goal.

You should race Doubles IF:

- You have a partner of comparable running prowess that you'd enjoy tackling a difficult challenge with

- You have a partner of differing running prowess from you, but the less accomplished runner would be useful in the events so you can balance it out

- You have a partner that you want to encourage to exercise and can do so by taking on this challenge

- You have a friend or relationship that you'd like to celebrate by taking on a challenge together

Having a partner changes the race dramatically. First, you get breaks in the workout now. In the doubles race you run together, but can split up the events however you want. This makes it more of an interval style workout than a steady slog. It's not necessarily EASIER than a solo race since you and your partner should be able to push harder with the knowledge that a break is coming, but it definitely CAN be easier and is less daunting. With it now being more of an interval sort of race, I'd care a lot more about your 5K and 10K times than i do your 10K and half marathon times.

Due to the rules of Doubles races, there is a lot of opportunity for creativity on how you split up the events. If you have a partner that is a less accomplished runner, but you two still want to push for the fastest possible time, then you could strategize about exactly how to split up the events for maximum speed. You could make a plan of starting every event, doing 35% of the event, handing off to your partner to do 30% and then picking up for the last 35%. Now they get a rest on either end of the run and you very much DON'T. Suddenly their running pace that felt slow on the first lap is way too fast and you're dying to hold on. 

Partnering with different people would result in different race strategies and fun. I would race with my friend Noah, my friend Connor, my friend Nick, my friend Brame, or my friend Devin and have a different strategy for each one that would be fun to experiment with. Partnering with Morgan or Val would be a fun challenge and knowing that the heavier weights would punish a girl would result in a difficult strategic decision of how to do extra on the events and still keep up with their fast running paces. Finally, as I said before, I would be thrilled to partner with a friend and know that they have an extra layer of accountability for their training for the next six months. 

My friend Andrew and I teamed up for a race last month. He started training as an unconfident runner. He had dealt with some foot issues in the past and was worried that running wasn't for him. First, he became a MUCH better runner by race day. Importantly though, even though it might have improved our time and given him a break, he never wanted to split the events anyway but evenly. He did his fair share of every event and we blew our expected time out of the water. He trained HARD and consistently for months to not let me down, and I was with him every step of the way so that I wasn't going to let HIM down. There's no way my last 4 months of training go that well without knowing a friend was counting on me.

If you have questions about what sort of race would be good for you, send me an email at info@coreblendtraining.com. If you have a partner and you want to spend an hour looking at charts and discussing different race strategies I'm down. 

Corey Davis