Wow, where do I start.
What an amazing weekend competing at HYROX in Glasgow.
Star of the show being the man stood right next to me, Dan Smith.
For those of you who have been part of the community for a while, you’ll have seen me posting about my client Dan before.
Dad of 3 with a busy career, who has been through a phenomenal transformation both physically and mentally during his time here at R5.
A year ago, we set our eyes on fitness racing, specifically HYROX. A massive jump up in physical performance for us both.
We competed twice in the solo events but always had the intention of doing a doubles race together.
This past weekend in Glasgow, we got chance to share the stage and really push each other to the limit. It’s hard to express in words just how tough these races are. But let’s just say they’re extremely humbling at times!
As Dan’s coach, knowing where he was when he walked through the doors at R5, to where he is today, that was my biggest win of the weekend.
Since the race finished, I’ve re-visited every moment in Dan’s journey to this point and admittedly I’ve got a little emotional.
I’ve spent over a decade invested in seeing other people succeed and helping them become the best versions of themselves. Which means something different to everyone I’ve coached, but to Dan, it’s always been about pushing the boundaries even further.
Yesterday was by far his biggest test so far and before the race began I gave Dan a little pep talk.
I started by telling him how unbelievably proud I was. How my biggest win was just having him by my side. But I also told him…
"Today, I’m really going to test you. I’m going to push you harder than you have ever been pushed before. This won’t be like any personal training session we’ve done before and there’ll be moments when you question every decision that brought you to this moment. But this is what the last 2 years of work have all been leading to and if you can stay by side, together, we’re going to achieve something that neither of us thought was ever imaginable”.
He nodded, looked extremely nervous lol and we headed over to the starting pen.
Running is a massive component of this race (50% to be exact) and this is where our ability levels differed slightly.
Dan’s worked tirelessly to be as good as anyone at the exercises and there’s no question our abilities are similar here.
But Dan’s biggest task was simple, could he keep up with me on the running.
Truthfully, I was sceptical. To achieve the time we had in mind, it would require Dan to knock over 13 minutes off his current personal best in the solo’s.
That’s over 90 seconds on every single run and exercise. An almost impossible task when you’re looking at fine margins of improvement each time you compete at these events.
I set a tough pace as we left the starting pen but was really impressed with how Dan kept up.
The first signs of Dan flagging began after the burpee broad jumps, three exercises and three runs in.
Unbeknown to me, sickness had set in and he was already scouting the room for the nearest bin. I took of the slack off our running pace and we began communicating more about strategy for the next few exercises.
We changed tactic slightly and I decided to dive straight into the exercises first to give Dan a well needed rest bite post run.
But as we got towards the latter half of the race, this took its toll on me and I began seriously flagging. Legs had gone, room was spinning and my pace slowed right down. But I knew I had to keep setting the pace for Dan.
On our final run, after completing slightly more of the walking lunges, I didn’t have any more push in me. I’d entered autopilot mode and wasn’t far off being well and truly done.
But Dan then did something I wasn’t expecting.
As my vision began to blur and thoughts of the dreaded 100 wall ball finish polluted my mind, like a knight in shining amour, the client stepped up and took the reigns as coach.
Dan overtook me, told me to push harder and proceeded to set a pace that I now had to keep up with. He flew into our final exercise, grabbed the wall ball and didn’t f**k about in getting some reps posted.
It was a truly beautiful moment, a massive lifeline for me at the time and is definitely my fondest memory from the weekend (little teary thinking about it).
The original target was to complete it in sub 1 hour 10 minutes. As I said, an almost impossible task given the amount of improvement that would require for Dan.
Our official finishing time was 1 hour 5 minutes 36 seconds. Not in my wildest dreams did I think this was achievable, but it tells you all you need to know about what we put into that final push.
I’m not sure exactly how I want to end this post. I think my head might still be spinning from that final push lol.
But what I will say is, the immense admiration I have for Dan, for turning his life around, for taking back control of his health and fitness, for finding a shared passion in HYROX, is something I thought couldn’t be topped.
I stand proudly corrected.
Our next event is London in 6 weeks time. Another mens doubles. But this time, we test out the pro event.
Back to the drawing board!
Ryan
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