Women
The pro women kicked things off first at 11:00am local time. The big showdown was between defending HYROX World Champion, Lauren Weeks, from the US, and multiple HYROX podium finisher, Mikaela Norman, from Sweden. The last time these two women raced head-to-head was at the 2023 North American Championships in Chicago back in February. Mikaela ran 1:02:04 while Lauren ran a 1:03:44, a difference of 1 minute, 40 seconds.
Despite Mikaela’s head-to-head win, Lauren was still the favorite coming into this race. Mikaela wasn’t able to compete at the 2023 World Championships in May because of a heart condition. She’s obviously recovered to the point of competing again, but no one was really sure what kind of shape Mikaela was in. And Lauren has been putting up impressive performances left and right. We knew she was fitter than the 1:03:44 time she put up earlier this year.
Lauren jumped out to an early lead, like she always does, and never relinquished it. Mikaela stayed within a minute of Lauren for almost the entire race, and ended up finishing a minute and 8 seconds behind Lauren to secure second place. Third place was Jess Towl, a local athlete from the UAE, finishing almost 7 full minutes after Mikaela 🤯. Lauren & Mikaela are two of the best HYROX athletes in the women’s field, and they proved that again today with their dominating performances.
Lauren Weeks finished with a time of 59:27, a new PR for her. She improved her previous best time of 59:51 by 24 seconds. On the women’s side, sub-60 has only happened 3 times, and 2 of them were from Lauren. The other, of course, being Meg Jacoby’s world record time of 58:58. It’s only a matter of time before Lauren joins Meg in the sub-59 club.
Mikaela Norman finished with a time of 1:00:35, which is also a new PR for her, and an impressive performance in its own right.
Jess Towl’s 1:07:18, while far behind Lauren & Mikaela’s times, still puts her in 24th place in this year’s elite women rankings. She’s only about 90 seconds away from snagging a spot in the Elite 15 for this year’s HYROX World Championship in Nice, France in June.
Men
On the men’s side, there wasn’t much of a content. Ryan Kent flew over from Colorado, USA to throw down with a large contingent of European athletes, but no other big names were in attendance. Ryan ran away with it in a time of 59:00, almost 3 and a half minutes ahead of second place finisher Jordan Bryant from the UK. Michael Logue rounded out the podium with a time of 1:04:21.
Ryan did look a bit shaky on the wall balls, but he told us coming into this race that he wasn’t in prime HYROX shape. They actually offered to fly him out to race, and with a pretty easy $2,500 on the line, why wouldn’t you say yes? He wanted to make sure he put up a time that would qualify him for the Elite 15, but without a stacked field lined up next to him, you know he didn’t push it.
I’m sure Ryan will be in peak HYROX shape when it counts come June.
Something up with the lunges?
During the watch along with Hybrid Fitness Media, Anthony Perissini, Lauren Week’s husband, noted that both Lauren & Mikaela were actually ahead of world record pace when they entered the sandbag lunges. However, they were a good bit behind the pace when they finished. He mentioned something similar in the men’s race with Ryan Kent’s pace before and after the lunges.
Unless an athlete blows up on this section, it’s typically one where we see times pretty consistent from race to race. While the sleds often vary, it’s pretty easy to measure 100m on the floor, and make sure the sandbag weighs 30kg for men and 20kg for women.
The top 3 athletes could’ve just had a slower lunge split than they typically do. I pulled the data from the last few races from Lauren, Mikaela, and Ryan, and the numbers don’t suggest anything slower with Dubai’s lunge station.
It’s also very possible that both world record holders, Hunter McIntyre and Meg Jacoby, are just really good at lunges. If they put up blazing times on this station when they set the records, even a good split for Lauren, Mikaela, or Ryan would put them behind the record coming out of the lunges.
Mikaela’s previous sandbag lunge splits were:
- 3:15
- 3:29
- 3:19 (Dubai)
Lauren’s previous sandbag lunge splits were:
- 3:39
- 3:36
- 3:28 (Dubai)
Ryan’s previous sandbag lunge splits were:
- 3:46
- 3:46
- 3:31
- 3:26 (Dubai)
