HYROX
A HYROX race is 60 to 120 minutes at a heart rate most people cannot hold for ten. That is long enough for fuelling to decide your time, and short enough that the plan is simple.
Load 6–8 g of carbohydrate per kg of bodyweight across the 24–36 hours before the race. Eat 2–3 g per kg, three hours out, low in fat and fibre. Take 30–60 g of carbohydrate per hour on course if you will be racing over an hour. Practise every part of it in training and change nothing on the day.
The format is the same at every event: 1 km run, then a station, repeated eight times. SkiErg 1,000 m · sled push 50 m · sled pull 50 m · burpee broad jumps 80 m · row 1,000 m · farmers carry 200 m · sandbag lunges 100 m · wall balls 100 reps.
The energy demand is almost entirely glycogen. There is no meaningful fat-burning contribution at this intensity, which is why HYROX punishes low-carbohydrate approaches more obviously than most endurance events. Wall balls at the end of a depleted race is the most reliable way to discover this.
Nothing dramatic. Keep training but taper volume, keep protein where it normally is, and start nudging carbohydrate up from about 72 hours out. If you have been in a deficit, come out of it — racing a HYROX underfed is a decision you make in the diet, not on the day.
Target 6–8 g of carbohydrate per kg of bodyweight across the day and a half before the race, with carbohydrate at roughly 65–75% of total calories.
| Bodyweight | Carb target (24–36 h) | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| 60 kg | 360–480 g | ~5–6 large meals with a carb base |
| 70 kg | 420–560 g | rice, pasta, potatoes, bread at every meal |
| 80 kg | 480–640 g | plus juice, sports drink and sweets to top up |
| 90 kg | 540–720 g | spread widely; single huge meals do not work |
Two practical notes. Reduce fibre as you increase carbohydrate — white rice, white pasta and white bread exist for exactly this weekend. And expect the scale to rise 1–2 kg: stored glycogen carries water with it. That is the loading working, not fat.
Moderate, familiar, high carbohydrate, low fat, low fibre. Chicken and rice, tuna pasta, potatoes with a lean protein. Finish eating three to four hours before bed so digestion does not cost you sleep, which at this point is the more valuable asset.
Do not try the restaurant you have never been to. Race weekend is not the time for novelty.
| Time before start | What | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| 3–4 hours | Main meal: porridge, toast and honey, rice, bagels | 2–3 g carb per kg |
| 1–2 hours | Light top-up: banana, rice cakes, sports drink | ~30–60 g carb |
| 15–30 minutes | Optional gel or a few sweets if the wave is late | ~20–25 g carb |
| Throughout | Fluid, sipped | 5–7 ml per kg in the 3–4 h before |
Caffeine, if you use it, works at roughly 3 mg per kg about 45–60 minutes before the start. If you have never raced on caffeine, race day is the wrong day to find out how your stomach feels about it.
Late waves are the underrated problem. A 3pm start means a normal breakfast, a proper lunch three hours out, and a plan for the five hours of standing around in between — not a 7am breakfast and a long, hungry wait.
Under about 60 minutes, you do not need to eat. Between 60 and 120 minutes, 30–60 g of carbohydrate per hour is worth taking, in whatever form you have already practised: a gel, a carbohydrate drink, or chews.
The practical windows are on the runs, not at the stations — you will not be eating during sled pull. Most people take one gel somewhere around the halfway point, after station four, and sip at the water stations.
Eat a carbohydrate-rich, low-fat, low-fibre meal three to four hours before your wave, at roughly 2 to 3 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight. Top up with about 30 to 60 grams of easy carbohydrate one to two hours out, such as a banana or a sports drink.
Around 6 to 8 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight across the 24 to 36 hours before the race, which is about 420 to 560 grams for a 70 kg athlete. Reduce fibre as you increase carbohydrate, and expect a 1 to 2 kg rise on the scale from stored glycogen and water.
Not if you will finish inside about an hour. Beyond that, 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour helps, taken during the runs rather than at the stations. Most athletes take a single gel around the halfway point and drink at the water stations.
Within about an hour, aim for 1 to 1.2 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of bodyweight plus 25 to 40 grams of protein, and replace roughly 1.5 litres of fluid with sodium for every kilogram of bodyweight lost. Follow it with a normal meal that evening.
Carb loading is the one week where hitting a gram target actually matters, and 500 g of carbohydrate is difficult to eyeball. NutriMacro tracks carbohydrate as a running total and keeps your training sessions on the same screen, so the taper and the loading line up.
NutriMacro is a nutrition and training tracker for iPhone and Android. It logs food by barcode, photo or search, counts food in slices and units rather than grams, and keeps strength training, GPS activities, sleep and recovery in the same daily view. It runs in the language of your phone across 108 countries.
General guidance for healthy adults, not medical advice. Race-day fuelling is individual: practise everything in training and change nothing on the day.
Read next: HYROX Dublin 2026 guide Calculating macros How much protein do I need?
