I want to thank HYROX for putting on an event that allowed me to feel like I was playing a football game back in the day. The energy is real. That is the magic, they make you have fun and compete in something that brings you away from your daily life. I entered in good shape, very focused and pain free. Candidly, I did not train very hard, consistently, or focused for HYROX, but I was in very good overall shape. I basically lifted heavy and took jogs. Outside of that, I played sports with as many people as possible, hiked, and climbed rocks.
CHICAGO - HYROX Men’s Pro
This was a blast. Emma made me feel so special leading up to the event and helping me prepare. That alone gave me energy and focus that was used on the course. The more “social” you make something the better you will likely perform. Emma and I did this with a community which was a great way to experience this. Leading up to it, we ensured our meals were clean, we slept well and stress was low. Performing well is not really what it is all about. These events are about one thing… did you leave the race feeling as if you gave your best effort, an effort you are a proud of. The results don’t matter unless you are completely dialed in and know what to expect. I never once shared a time I thought I was going to get with others or set expectations in my head. I don’t where a watch, as many of you know, and I never even looked at the clock on course during the race until I was towards the end. This is key to allow for true flow, uninterrupted by analytical thinking. Being away from "data" does require a tremendous level of intuition and understand of RPE (rate of perceived effort) THAT IS UNBIASED TO YOUR CURRET EMOTIONAL STATE. That just takes practice. I use my breathe as my governor. If I can breathe through my nose and feel in control of my breath, I am safely in a heart rate that I can continue at. Where it gets interested is in two places. First is trying to find the edge of how hard can you push that. As you can imagine, I am not slowing breathing, these are big massive breathes that require an effort and a lot of my focus. To be able to focus on that, the movement you are doing must be a true habit. I define a habit as something that the body (and the sub-conscious mind) knows how to do it better than the conscious mind does.
LESSON: This is why practice is important. I earned the right to not focus on my form because that is a habit. My focus was on my breath.
There is a small window where if you can aggressively inhale through your nose and stay in control of the exhale, you a keep your heart rate and lactic level low enough to continue. The second place of why this can get hard is focused on the exhale. Simply put, exhales down regulate your heart. Your movements are so “up-regulating” your breath needs to be down regulating.
Enough about the breathe ad the subconscious...
I was off to the race and feeling good. The easy thing about this breath is it generates a flow state where you really cannot focus on anything else and that is a big win. It takes one lap and one exercise to get my mind into it. Once you hit the 2nd exercise, the sled… well you better have your mind into it because that sled is heavy. I find the 2nd through 4th exercises the most challenging (sled push, pull and then burpee broad jumps). This fits nicely for me because after that, it is time to boogie. Negative splits are solid in HYROX and I always striver for that. Halfway through I might glance at the clock if I need a dopamine hit but I then go right back to focusing on my breath. In this race, I never looked at the clock and just knew it was time to kick it. In my mind, what gets me through hard things is CURIOSITY. Again, I need to thank HYROX for creating an environment to really get me to this mental spot. It feels damn good. Curiosity helps a ton. Imagine asking yourself, "What happens if I keep pushing?!" Instead of "I am tired." I have experience with this and know that if I remain curious, I will be more proud of my effort, I will feel better alert (more good chemicals in my brain) and I probably wont die trying. So f*ck it! Time to crank and lean into curiosity. This does need to be balanced. You need to move as fast as you think you can while continuing to increase your speed. I just remained curious of what will happen if I continue to push. I got negative splits on all the runs and finished strong with a 1:06. Proud? Check!
DALLAS - HYROX Men’s Pro DOUBLES
Well this one was interesting… so my buddy bailed a few days before the race and I didn’t have a partner. Well I got a second partner but he bailed Wednesday, and the race was Saturday! So, I was staying at my buddies Matt Choi’s house and asked Matt. He was very hesitant but finally said yes. We had a huge training week. Ran every day, 10 hard mile Tuesday, heavy legs Wednesday and 2.5 hours of Basketball Thursday. Maybe we overdid it? So Friday, we chilled out hard and drove up. We basically wanted to keep the stress low and stay well fed/hydrated. What’s fun here is the dynamic between Matt and I. We have been competitive with each other since playing the same sport and position in High School and pushing each other in business more recently. We are also very close friends. For both of those reasons we wanted to push each other and not let each other down. We also have a strong respect for the other one’s capabilities. On the drive from Austin, where Matt lives to Dallas, we started talking about the strategy for tomorrow, along with expectations. Matt has a little bit of a presence online so he definitely wanted to go for a good time as that’s solid PR for him. We started getting excited in the car thinking about how low we could go? Could we crack 60? Lower? The day came and we had a similar day as last week before the race. Lots of water, food and sitting. We also walked around the venue watching other friends throughout the day. It was fun feeling like I had a responsibility to perform for my buddy. We were on a team. We got our minds right, got loose and took the starting line. Lap one was wild. So many people I must have ran 1.2 km to cover the 1 km because of all the weaving. I also didn’t feel the hottest. Ski Erg came and we hammered it. We quickly realized we were towards the front. The sled push/pull was funny because I was dragging and having trouble sticking with Matt. I was on his tail but my breathing was hard and my legs felt tired. Mentally, I was looking for every excuse. Trained to hard. Low back pain. Fighting a cold. The excuses kept coming and I kept shutting them down.
LESSON: Focusing on shutting down negative thoughts will never work. Just like focusing on not eating a certain food will never work. You have to replace that food with health food. And you have to replace that thought with a new thought.
Shutting the negative thoughts down.. was not working. They kept coming. Then we hit the row. A nice controlled section where I feel comfortable. At this point, I was dragging on the runs, but hammering the stations hard. Matt was looking to motivate me and yelled in my ear, “We don’t get tired.” This is a quote from our boy Jesse Itzler. A quote we love and a quote Matt and I have history with. A way to replace the negative thoughts with the positive. This one quote anchored me through. At this point, we knew we were in third. We knew we were on a sub-60 pace (barely) and need to get a negative split. We also knew that we don’t get tired and were extremely confident in that! I clipped Matt’s heels and began to even push him on some runs or lead the pack. Matt gave me energy and it was my turn to return the favor. The next station was farmer carries and when I got the hand-off from Matt, I literally took off running with those things. Setting the tone and leading the way. Matt did the same by covering almost 60% of the distance in one go on those. Then, we crushed another run and were almost in second. Then, lunges. Matt went and handed me the sand bag. I grabbed it a screamed, “Matt, I was built for this one baby!” And I was. A year of climbing mountains makes lunges feel easy. I tapped into those experiences climbing huge obtains, in the dark, in the snow, for hours and hours and hours. This was nothing. 2-3 minutes, inside, air conditioning, lights on (no headlamps needed) and sure footing. This is where I employed a tactic from David Goggins called :The Cookie Jar" diving into old memories of me doing something hard enough to give me energy for this! Then, Goggins was in my head and I thought of another tactic he has called, “Taking Souls.” I grabbed the sand bag on the last section and was a good 15m behind second place. I literally went 100mph and caught/passed them on the lunges. My legs were feeling it, but I was ahead. I ran with the bag (showing no sign of weakness), dropped it off and took off running fast. Taking souls is when you get ahead of someone and then show nothing but more strength, making them weak. I started cruising, leading the way. They were on our asses but I was not going to lose this race if my life depended on it. We ended up entering the wall ball station about 0.5 seconds ahead of them. But we had a better strategy. 4x25 walls versus 5x20. Mat and I crushed these and SPRINTED to the finish. 58:40. 2nd Place overall. Proud? Check!
Sports are fun. Then can give you a lot of transferable skills. To me, it is the best teacher of the mind, teaching me to overcome my body, environment and thoughts.
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