Hyrox: '1km of running followed by 1 workout, repeated 8 times.'
My friend Tom and I recently competed in Hyrox Doubles.
After reflecting on our event, something quite interesting dawned on me...
The things you have to do to be competitive at Hyrox Doubles (and any other team fitness competition) are exactly the same things you have to do to excel at work:
Push yourself as hard as you can…but never cross the red line
Communicate with, and lean on, your support network
Pay attention to the little things
Run your race
A Hyrox event takes over an hour – it’s a slog. Going too slow won’t ruin your race but going too fast definitely will.
At times I felt completely up against it, like I was running in treacle and letting Tom down. It was frustrating, but I knew if I didn’t take my foot off the gas, I’d red line and do more damage to our overall result.
Yes, completing that particular run in a good time would’ve felt like a success in the short run, but there was another workout after that, then another run…
At work, how many times have you promised yourself/your family that you’ll slow down ‘after’ you’ve got this deliverable over the line…only to be immediately given another project that needed addressing yesterday?
If you only slow down when you’re unable to maintain at the same pace, it’s too late.
Be honest if you need help
Rowing ruins me. I don’t know why, but I sit on a rowing machine and it drains me of everything. Tom is a strong rower, so for that reason we split workout 5 (a 1km row) into four uneven legs (300m, 200m, 300m, 200m) - so he could take on more.
The last leg was mine and I fell off that rowing machine into the next 1km run. I asked Tom if we could start slower on the run than we’d planned, build into it and finish faster to make up the time.
He told me to set the pace until I was happy my legs were alive again, then he’d take over to make sure we achieved the planned split time…which is exactly what we did.
At work, there are things that give you energy, and things that rob you of it – we’ve all got our strengths and weaknesses. Your network is there for you to lean on, to make sure you all arrive at the right outcome together.
If in doubt, over-communicate. Asking for support is a strength not a weakness.
When you’re focussing on the bigger picture, it’s easy to forget about the little details.
We were hell bent on achieving the time we set ourselves.
At one point, Tom threw his water cup toward a bin and missed. A referee called him back 20 metres to pick it up and put it in. We lost about 30 seconds in total.
Later on I hurriedly threw down a sandbag after a workout and ran on…but it slipped off the pile. A referee called us back about 25 metres and made us stack it neatly before we could continue. We lost about 30 seconds in total.
Because we were focusing only on the end result and not the immediate task, we were rushing, and we got sloppy.
Our final time was 1:01:33. Cutting out those mistakes and a couple of others like it may have meant we broke the one-hour mark – which would have meant so much to both of us.
At work, we are always trying to achieve things bigger, better, faster and more impressive. It’s important to remember that every delivery is made up of small pieces of work, decisions and actions…they’re the foundations of the end result, and they need to be solid.
Success is the culmination of hundreds of little details. Sweat the small stuff.
Focus on yourself
When we arrived at the venue, the scene was an intimidating one. A massive hall packed with machines. Every other couple appeared to be in matching, professional kits. Sports tape absolutely everywhere. People talking loudly about the time they were going to achieve. We felt amateurish.
The race started and within a minute we were back of the pack and losing touch. In the build up we’d agreed to start the runs slow and grow into them.
But now everyone else was flying and we were running alone. There was definitely an urge to speed up, to deviate from the plan because everyone else appeared to be fitter and more knowledgeable than us.
We stuck to our pace.
Fast forward to run 4, we’re having to weave through bodies that look like they’re standing still. The pairs that had shot out of the blocks were not having a good time of it, and still had the best part of 5km to run, as well as the remaining workouts.
It’s easy to look around you and see job titles, promotions and see nothing but success stories on LinkedIn or at work. It’s easy to feel like you’re not doing enough, earning enough, senior enough…to trick yourself into thinking everyone else knows something you don’t and that you're falling behind.
Forget everyone else.
You know what you should be doing, to get you where you want to be.
Take what serves you from other people’s experience and knowledge…and remember LinkedIn is just Instagram for the world of work.
Run your race
Keep moving forwards, you're smashing it.
Kommentare