Why Runners Are Better at Hyrox Than Weightlifters

When Meredith and I began training for Hyrox back in April, we had one big question: Whose strengths will help more in the race, hers as a runner or mine as a weightlifter? We ran the 2026 Hyrox race in New York City this past weekend, and we definitely have our answer. You can see a few video clips and some of my thoughts in this wrap-up I posted on Instagram, but read on for the detailed breakdown. For the record, our finish time was 1:36:48.

As a reminder, Hyrox is the fitness race where you do eight short runs, each followed by a different strength-based workout station. (I have a full explainer here.) It’s what you’d get if you asked runners to redesign Crossfit, which may be a bit of a spoiler for our results. Meredith and I did the race as a doubles team, meaning we had to do the runs together, but could divide the work any way we liked when we were at the strength stations.

How the Hyrox race felt for each of us

Heading into the race, Meredith said she was worried she would have to leave me with (literally) all the heavy lifting. I was worried I’d be too tired from the runs to be much help with the lifting at all. Unfortunately, I was right. 

For me, the first few runs and stations felt good, as I was warming up and being careful not to go out too hard. But about halfway through the sled push (the second station), I realized I was too gassed to be a hero. From that point to the finish, I was just hanging on for dear life. I kept telling Meredith we had to slow down on the runs; I cherished every brief moment of rest I got during the stations when she was taking her turn. 

Meredith had a very different experience. Since we had to stay together on the runs, and she’s a stronger runner, my “oh god this is as fast as I can go” pace was a relaxed jog for her. She says: “I did really get to recover on the runs, so I could be way more explosive / ‘full send’ at each station than I originally thought I would.”

Originally, I’d wanted to take more of the strength stations and expected we’d split the more cardio-heavy stations 50/50. Instead, we ended up splitting strength 50/50. Some of the cardio was still 50/50 (we each did 500 meters on the rower), but on other stations, like the burpees, Meredith had the energy to take on more.

What our Hyrox race heart rate data shows

Meredith and I wore heart rate monitors so we could analyze our effort levels in a more-or-less objective way. She used the Garmin HRM 600 paired to a Forerunner 970; I had my trusty Coospo connected to the Coros Pace 4. Conveniently, despite the fact that I’m about 16 years older than her, we have similar max heart rates, so the graphs line up nicely. (Max heart rate doesn’t correlate with age the way you’ve probably been taught—more on that here.)

In this graph, Meredith is the darker purple line and I’m the lighter blue line. Both lines spike at the stations, but the run segments show why she had an easier time with this race: Whenever we left a station and took our running laps, Meredith’s heart rate dropped. 

In other words, the runs were recovery time for her. But for me, the run after each station was just as hard as the station itself. I was pushing myself the whole way, while for her, the effort level varied like an interval or fartlek workout. 

Why runners are better at Hyrox

Hyrox is, ultimately, an endurance race. The average finish time is around 90 minutes (we were a bit slower than average), and that means it’s a long aerobic effort no matter what. 

To put that in exercise science terms, the main energy system you’re using during a Hyrox race is your aerobic system—the same as in a long running race like a marathon. When you do strength work in the gym, with heavy weights and complete rest between sets, that’s a different story. But the strength work in a Hyrox race uses light weights and little to no rest, so it’s really just more endurance work in disguise. 

To look at it another way, let’s think about race strategy and timing. The heaviest station was the sled push, and it took us 1:55—just under two minutes. Pushing the sled a little faster wouldn’t affect our race time very much. According to Hyresult, the very fastest women’s doubles teams take about 1:00 flat on this event. If we worked to become one of the best sled-pushing teams in the world, we’d only save 55 seconds on our total race time. 

Contrast that with the returns you can get from being good at running. Each of our runs averaged 7.5 minutes, and over the course of the race, we ran for a full hour. Runners in the top 10% of our division tend to get each run done in just four minutes. If we could run as fast as those ladies, we’d have finished in something like 1:09 instead of 1:36. That’s a drastic difference. 

So, to summarize: runners do better than weightlifters at Hyrox because (1) running takes up most of the time in the race, (2) the demands on your body are endurance-focused; and (3) the weights aren’t heavy enough to be a serious barrier to runners. A heavy sled might slow you down, but it won’t make a huge difference to your race time. 

What I (the weightlifter) would do differently next time

I’m already thinking about how I would improve for another Hyrox race. I’m not saying I want to do another one, but I can’t help thinking about this as a problem to solve. And the answer is painfully clear: run more. I’d need to have really good endurance—which I could build with any exercise, like running but also cycling—and ideally good running economy as well. In other words, I’d have to turn myself into a runner. 

What Meredith (the runner) would do differently next time

I asked Meredith for her thoughts on improving, but before we get to that, there’s a really simple way Meredith could improve her time: Team up with someone who runs as fast as her! Not having to drag my tired ass around the track would get her a much better finish time regardless of how the stations go. 

But she graciously did not say that, at least not to my face. Instead, she says: “I would do what I could to focus on strategy, finding as many simulations as possible, since I think my greatest challenge was a lack of familiarity. I think I lost a lot of brainpower trying to tap into a muscle memory [on the strength stations] that simply didn’t exist.” 

My advice for anyone thinking of tackling a Hyrox for the first time

So what does this all mean for you, dear reader, thinking about trying a Hyrox and assessing your strengths and weaknesses? 

First of all, I think you should know you need to work on your running, or at least your endurance, no matter how good or bad you are in this department to start. Being a good runner means that, in any given moment of the race, you get to choose whether you want to push the pace and finish faster, or relax and recover while still moving forward. Us out-of-shape runners can only suffer or stop. 

But that doesn’t mean that a Hyrox race is equivalent to, say, a half-marathon. (Meredith has more thoughts on that here.) The strength stations are quite a challenge if you’ve never done them before, and a Hyrox-themed class at a gym is not the same as proper race preparation. For example, Meredith’s classes had never gotten around to doing actual wall balls (the last and arguably most challenging exercise of the race) so I gave her a crash course in the warmup room before the race. 

We also discovered that a strategy that came naturally for me, as a competitive weightlifter, was a mind-blowing new idea to Meredith, who only strength trains for the purpose of building strength (not showing it off). That’s the idea that in a competition, you want to use as little energy as possible on exercises, even if you’re used to doing the opposite in training. So we step up from our burpees instead of jumping, we run on the farmer’s carry so that our grip strength doesn’t have to last as long, and we pull the sled by walking rather than trying to get the sled pull to work our biceps. 

Credit: Hyresult.com

It’s also worth taking the time to study the race: knowing what order the stations come in, and studying the venue map so you know where to find each of them. Besides station time and run time, your results also include your “roxzone time,” the roxzone being the transition area between segments. While we were slightly below average on workouts, and well below average on runs, we actually had a better-than-average roxzone time. That means our preparation helped us shave off a bit of time there—and every minute helps.