Here’s a lesson training teaches you eventually… You can waste an unbelievable amount of energy worrying about stuff you have absolutely no control over. I used to do it all the time. You can’t control: • The weather on race day. • Who turns up in your category. • How fit the person next to you is. • What everyone else is doing on Instagram. • The session you messed up last week. None of it. But you can control: • Whether you show up today. • The effort you put into your session. • What you eat and drink. • How seriously you take your recovery. • Your attitude when things aren’t going perfectly. And that’s where your energy should go. Because worrying about what everyone else is doing won’t make you fitter. Doing your own work will. So instead of asking: "What if they’re fitter than me?" "What if the weather is awful?" "What if I’m not ready?" Ask yourself one much better question: “What can I control today?” Then go and do that properly. The athletes who improve the most usually aren’t doing anything magical. They’re just consistently doing the boring stuff that everyone else knows they should be doing… but doesn’t. Control the controllables. Show up. Do the work. Recover. Repeat. Stack enough boring little wins together and eventually you get a pretty impressive result.

Your first HYROX doesn’t usually go wrong because you’re not fit enough. It goes wrong because you make stupid little mistakes that become very big mistakes after 60 minutes of racing. Here are the big ones. 1. Going Out Like a Lunatic The music’s banging, everyone’s flying and suddenly your 5K pace feels “comfortable”. It isn’t. Start controlled. You can always speed up. You can’t un-fuck a blown engine. 2. Not Running Enough HYROX has 8 × 1km runs. Yet somehow people still spend 80% of their training practising sleds and wall balls. It’s a running race with some horrible P.E in between. Train accordingly. 3. Using the Runs to Recover This is one of the biggest mistakes. Destroy yourself on a station → jog the next kilometre trying to recover → repeat. Control the stations so you can actually RUN the runs. 4. Underestimating the Sleds That sled in your nice quiet gym might feel lovely. Race-day carpet may have other ideas. Get strong enough that the sled isn’t a near-death experience. 5. Ignoring Wall Balls Leaving wall balls until the final few weeks is brave. You’ve got 100 of them waiting for you at the end. Practise them. 6. Making Burpees Harder Than They Need to Be Nobody gets bonus points for beautiful burpees. Meet the movement standards, find a rhythm and keep moving. Efficient beats impressive. 7. Having Bag SkiErg Technique If your arms are doing everything, congratulations. You’ve turned 1,000m into significantly more work than necessary. Learn enough technique to stop wasting energy. 8. Obsessing Over Technique Yes, technique matters. No, you don't need a PhD in sled pushing. Once you can perform the movements efficiently and meet the standards, getting fitter will probably help you more than another 400 technique drills. 9. Wearing New Kit on Race Day New trainers. New shorts. New socks. New gels. What could possibly go wrong? Nothing new on race day. 10. Eating Like It’s Your Last Supper You don’t need to consume 4,000 calories because you're racing tomorrow.