I'm a Marathon Runner, and This Is What Surprised Me Most About Competing in Hyrox

Is Hyrox harder than a marathon? It's the question I've been asked more than any other since last Friday, when I participated in a Hyrox event for the first time. Here's the short answer: A marathon is harder. With that out of the way, I still believe the question (and answer) deserve unpacking, because comparing the two is apples to oranges-except everyone keeps asking me to do it.

Some context first: My fellow Lifehacker writer Beth Skwarecki is a weightlifter. I'm a marathon runner (my eighth is this October). A few weeks back, we figured we could make one reasonably competent Hyrox athlete. We put that theory to the test at the New York race on May 29, competing in the Women's Doubles.

If you haven't heard of Hyrox, it's a running race combined with functional workout stations, repeated eight times: You run 1 km, hit a workout station, run another 1 km, hit another station, and so on. The stations include a SkiErg, a sled push, a sled pull, burpee broad jumps, rowing, a farmers carry, sandbag lunges, and wall balls. Each station sounds manageable in isolation. After multiple rounds of running, they get increasingly tough.

Our Hyrox race results

We finished in 1:36:48, landing us in the top 65.6th percentile. These screenshots show how the Roxfit app breaks it down:

Credit: Meredith Dietz Credit: Meredith Dietz

Our running splits totaled 1:00:03, the functional stations took 29:42, and transition time in and out of the Roxzone added another 7:12. Our average pace was 7:43/km, with an average run of 7:30. Looking at these numbers, it's clear how different Hyrox is from Crossfit-the majority of this event is running. With that in mind, I'll toast to the fact that we kept fairly consistent splits, at least for runs two through seven. The station times naturally varied more.

The spider diagram from Roxfit showing our performance across all stations reveals our relative strengths: sled push and burpee broad jump were our standout stations, while rowing and sandbag lunges yank that shape inward. I'd say that between the two of us, no one station was catastrophically weak. Still, what I see here is two athletes who are much better at some things than others, which is exactly what you'd expect from a runner and a lifter teaming up.

How we hacked our Hyrox race

We ran a bit slower than my typical recovery pace, which gave me a bit of an edge at the stations I was most nervous about. Going in, I was scared of the strength and coordination work; Beth was scared of the running. Running slowly enough that neither of us got gassed on the 1 km laps meant we arrived at each station with something left in the tank.

In prepping for the race, Beth helped me with a mental reframing I think is grossly underappreciated: the difference between "training mode" and "competition mode." In a workout class, you want to eliminate momentum. This is why you pause at the top of a rep and control the lowering. You make your muscles work harder so you get a better workout. But in a race, you actually want the opposite-you want to hack" your body by taking advantage of every bit of momentum available to you, because the goal is speed, not hypertrophy.

Take the farmers carry, for example. In a class setting, you'd walk deliberately, keeping your shoulders level and your core tight throughout each step with no wasted motion. In competition, you find a rhythm that lets your body swing slightly with each stride, using that natural pendulum motion to carry some of the load. It's the difference between fighting the weight (to get stronger) and working with it (to go faster). Similarly, with wall balls, rather than catching the ball at chest height and resetting, you let it drop into a fluid squat, using the ball's descent to load the next rep. I will say, it seems Beth knew all of this intuitively; I had to be coached into it in real time.

What surprised me most about Hyrox as a runner

For women's doubles in the open division, the weight standards weren't nearly as devastating as I feared. The sled push comes in at 102 kg (around 225 lbs), including the sled. The sled pull is 78 kg (around 172 lbs), including the sled. Farmers carry uses 2 * 16 kg (around 35.2 lbs) kettlebells for 200 meters. The sandbag lunges are done with a 10 kg (22 lbs) bag for 100 meters. And wall balls use a 4 kg (8.8 kg) ball thrown to a 2.70 m target for 100 reps.

I went in expecting the weights to humble me far more than they did. Again, Hyrox isn't Crossfit. You don't need to be able to "lift big" to finish. What caught me off guard were my defincencies in form and coordination. Some of these stations were still unfamiliar movement patterns for me, and doing them on fatigued legs made everything feel more awkward than the weights themselves probably warranted. The Hyrox-specific studio classes I took at F45 beforehand were completely necessary-without them, I would have been figuring out basic mechanics mid-race. And for a few stations, I still was. Whenever this happened, I found myself appreciating the lower barrier to entry that road races offer. I'd wager more people know how to run than how to use the ski erg. A marathon may not be easy, but at least you can turn your brain off and run.

So, is Hyrox harder than a marathon?

A marathon tests your mind in a way that Hyrox, at least in doubles format, simply doesn't. For me, that's the crux of the whole comparison, even if it is apples-to-oranges in terms of physical fitness.

At the same time, I have to consider what Beth and I saw in other athletes before our race even started. Near the wall balls-the final station, steps from the finish line, with 100 reps still to go-I watched solo athletes completely stall out. Fully gassed, needing to rest, not moving, progress at a standstill. I witnessed a brand of frustration that looked a lot like bonking," or the wall" you'll hear marathoners groan about. With the burden split between the two of us in a doubles format, Beth and I never had to deal with that level of mental toughness.

A marathon gives you hours of monotony, but that suffering is what makes a marathon a marathon. With Hyrox, so much constant variation means you're never really alone with yourself for long enough to start bargaining with a higher power. I've been thinking about what the solo experience would have been like, alone with my thoughts for the full hour and a half. That element might get closer to the mind games of racing a full marathon. But in doubles, Hyrox is almost mentally breezy by comparison. The stations break up the running in a way that I found relieving.

But when I say relieving," I mean it in a purely mental sense. My heart rate nearly hit my max (around 193 BPM) during Hyrox in a way I would never approach in a marathon, where hitting that ceiling would end your race. They stress different systems in fundamentally different ways. I think a fairer comparison, physically and mentally, would be Hyrox versus a half-marathon. Here's what the comparison boils down to for me, after completing both: Is running the scariest aspect of Hyrox to you? If so, then of course a half-marathon is going to be even worse. Personally, I'd rather run another marathon tomorrow than ever do another burpee broad jump.

What I'd do differently next time I try Hyrox

From the community with other competitors, to the sense of fulfillment, to the physical challenge, to the mental resilience, I think road races are a deeper experience than Hyrox. I do get the appeal of the controlled chaos that comes with Hyrox's nine different feats of physical fitness, and I want to be careful not to package my conclusion as "Hyrox was too easy," because it was not. We ran a smart race, had a solid partner dynamic, and still felt the burn. And again, I must emphasize that my form was, by my own assessment, less "sleek athlete" and more "inflatable tube man outside a car dealership." Still, that was after four to five weeks of frantic, targeted training. Who knows how I would've felt with a proper 12-week training program, or if we had run a less conservative pace, if I hadn't had Beth around to do so much of the literal heavy lifting.

My personal victory right now is the renewed appreciation I feel for running. Racing is a privilege, and it's easy to take for granted when you've done it enough. Hyrox reminded me why I love the particular version of the sport I've chosen. I know the monotony that would make some people quit a marathon at mile 18 is exactly what I find meditative and rewarding about it.

If I do compete in a Hyrox race again, I'd want more time to train the specific stations, as well learn as all the race-specific cheat codes available to you. The most important thing Hyrox and marathons have in common for me: After finishing one, I immediately want to sign up for another.