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Two days ago my brother and I competed in one of the world’s most popular fitness competitions—Hyrox.
In this email I’m going to talk about our experience at Hyrox, the power of having something (or someone) to chase, and the hidden cost of achieving more.
If you’re not into fitness, don’t worry—there’s something for everyone here.
Part 1: Hyrox Glasgow
On Sunday my brother and I spent about an hour running around a stadium in Glasgow, lifting weights, and sweating buckets.
Hyrox is a fitness competition that includes 8 runs, each about 1km, along with 8 different workout stations testing you in different ways—lunges, sled push, rowing, etc. You can compete either solo or as a team, which is what we did.
We went into the event shooting for a sub-1-hour finish but missed it by a few minutes.
That was mostly down to me. My legs were pretty fatigued from the get go and I was suffering from the start.
I’m also just not quite as fit as my brother—objectively, he’s both stronger and quicker than me.
But don’t feel bad for me.
Because by pairing myself with him, I gave myself someone to chase.
I’ll return to our Hyrox performance later and discuss some of the interesting data we collected, but first let me explain why having ‘someone to chase’ is so important…
Part 2: Why You Need Someone To Chase
In 2014 Matthew McConaughey started his Oscar acceptance speech with the following line:
“There's a few things, about three things, to my account that I need each day. One of 'em is something to look up to. Another is something to look forward to. And another is someone to chase.”
McConaughey’s ‘someone to chase’, he revealed, is a future version of himself. Someone he’ll never quite achieve, but that will push him to keep improving.
Here’s why that’s important…
We all like to think of life as having certain destinations. We dream of one day ‘getting into shape’, ‘building a business’, or ‘finding the one.’
The way that we talk about these things makes them sound like one-time events—things that we work for and then one day realise we’ve achieved. Like there’s going to be a specific moment where we can finally take a sigh of relief and say “That’s it. I’ve arrived. I’m in shape. I have a business. I have the relationship I wanted.”
But the truth is that anything worthwhile in life isn’t an event, but a process. It’s something we’re always chasing and never quite catching—but that’s ok, because it’s the chase itself that makes us who we are.
You don’t wake up one day ‘in shape’ and call it good. As soon as you do, you’re going to start to get out of shape quite quickly. The only way to stay in shape is to keep taking the actions that got you there. In other words, by continuing to chase being in shape, you stay in shape.
A business isn’t something you can build and then leave alone. It’s a living thing that requires constant maintenance, course correcting, and repetition of the steps you took to build it. You keep chasing the potential of what your business could become, and it hopefully keeps moving in that direction—maybe never quite arriving, but better for the effort.
Relationships are also far more process-oriented than event-oriented. Both people are constantly changing and growing, and the relationship is forced to evolve with that.
In all the above cases—and so many more—there is no destination, only a moving target. Something to keep chasing.
The best way to achieve your goals and become the person you want to become is to fall in love with that chase.
Famous business consultant and speaker Simon Sinek has sold millions of copies of a book based on this very concept. He calls it the difference between ‘finite games’ and ‘infinite games’.
Finite games are games where you play for the score. You work on the business because you want to see the number in your bank account go up. You lift weights because you want to see the number on the scale go down. You’re chasing because you think you’re going to catch something.
Infinite games are games where you play because you love the game. You work on the business because it’s what you do best, and you feel fulfilled doing it. You lift weights because you enjoy lifting weights. You’re chasing because you love the chase.
People who play infinite games will almost always beat people who play finite games. It’s very hard, if you’re someone who plays for a score, to outperform someone who simply plays because they love the game. Those who love the game will keep playing for so much longer, which inevitably will lead to better outcomes.
The goal of life, he says, is to find and play infinite games. In other words, find something that you can chase and never grow tired of chasing.
For me, trying to keep up with my brother is an infinite game. He’s a moving target. I spend six months training and finally make it to his level—but by then he’s already moved up himself.
In the process, though, I’m growing into the athlete that I want to be.
There’s a cost to this: I’m rarely satisfied with where I’m at. But would you rather be constantly improving and rarely satisfied? Or satisfied but rarely improving?
No right answers. Just a thought.
Part 3: Returning to Hyrox—How Did We Do?
Philosophical points aside, the data from the event was pretty interesting…
We love data and metrics at What Counts, so I was pleasantly surprised at all the data Hyrox automatically gives you after the event. It calculates everything based on a chip you wear around your ankle.
Here’s a couple interesting stats:
We were in the top 8.9% of athletes based on how fast we ran our first kilometer, but top 2.9% by how fast we ran kilometer six. In other words, we got stronger the further into the event we went. Probably as a result of the fact I’m mainly training endurance and not speed right now, I do better when the conditions are worse.
Hyrox is divided into running, functional fitness, and the ‘roxzone’ which is literally just how quickly you transition between stations. We were top 7% for running vs top 30% for functional, and only 67% for our performance in the Roxzone. So the biggest gains might come from working on those in reverse order.
Of the functional stations, our strongest event was the farmer’s carry, and our weakest event was the 1000m row. (Picture below is live footage of the moment I realised I’d fumbled the row.)
My average heart rate was 170bpm, Jonathan’s was 161. My Whoop recovery the day after the Hyrox was 35%, the lowest it’s been all year.
That’s all for this week’s email. Hope you found something useful in it.
One more thing:
As you can tell by the pictures, we did this Hyrox as a fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer Support.
If you’d like to donate to the fundraiser, click below:
Any donations are much appreciated.
Thanks!
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Your friends,
Benji and Jacob
