The Nick Bare Podcast - 100: My HYROX Dallas Full Race Breakdown

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

In this episode, we recap my first HYROX competition in Dallas, Texas, held on November 23, 2024. Competing in the pro division with my BPN team, I share my training journey that began in June 2024 and break down the eight-round structure of HYROX races. I analyze my performance and discuss my race results. We'll talk race strategy, the importance of training-specific movements, and my excitement for future competitions. This episode offers insights into my training regimen, nutrition, and mental preparation to help you better understand and improve your own performance. Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:08 What is HYROX? 02:57 Race Breakdown and Performance Analysis 08:14 Pre-Race Experience and Preparation 16:42 Race Day: From Start to Finish 22:36 Post-Race Reflections and Learnings 34:38 Future Goals and Upcoming Races 38:41 Training Strategies and Adjustments 50:10 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow: IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

What's going on, guys, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is dedicated to a recap of Hirox Dallas, which at the time of this recording was about two weeks ago. On November 23rd, 2024, I competed in my first Hirox event in Dallas, Texas with a bunch of the BPN team. It was a great experience. I learned a lot. and I want to go over just the entire experience in my performance as a whole.

So a quick recap, what is high rocks? I started training for a high rocks competition in June of 2024, just competed, like I said, November 23rd. I dedicated a few months of training to endurance specific, but high rocks. specific workouts in preparation for this competition. What is the competition? So there are multiple divisions you can sign up for. There's open, there's pro, there's doubles, there's relays.

Open and pro is similar. You're doing the whole competition on your own. Open though is lighter weights. Pro is heavier weights. I competed in pro. doubles is when you split the work with another person, and relays is when you split the work with four people total. So my first high rocks, I did pro in Dallas,

and the competition itself is eight rounds. Now, I've covered this multiple times before, but I figured for anyone who is new, I will just quickly go over what is high rocks. It's eight rounds. Each round is a 1K run plus a functional movement. And those movements are a 1K ski, 50 meter sled push, 50 meter sled pull, 80 meter burpee broad jump, 1K row, 200 meter farmer's carry, 100 meter sandbag lunge, and then you end with 100 wall balls before you finish the race. Eight rounds.

I didn't know exactly how well I would do with it being my first competition. And we'll dive into how I did just to get into the numbers. But it was a different experience overall than what I expected. I'll just say that to get started. So there is this report that I pulled off of this software called Rocks Opt, R-O-X-O-P-T. And essentially, this report breaks down your race each single. segment and then when you do more races, it will compare your most recent race to your previous races. It'll show you where you're improving, potentially where you're declining,

how you compare to some of the top competitors in your age group, in your division, and then where you can save time and improve for your next race. So it's a pretty cool report that I pulled. My overall time was one hour, five minutes, 42 seconds, which I'll be honest, I was not super psyched about. I wanted to get really close to that, that one hour mark. Now, within that one hour, five minute, 42 second race, I spent 30 minutes, 56 seconds running, spent 35 minutes, 47 seconds running plus being in the rock zone, which I'll talk about the rock zone here in a little bit. Station time, so the functional movements,

29 minutes, 55 seconds. My runs, my 1K runs. The first one was 3 minutes, 50 seconds. The second, 332. the third, 347, the fourth, 353, the fifth, 359, the sixth, 351, the seventh, 355, and the eighth, 409. I was not happy seeing that 409, I'll be honest. And then for my functional movements, ski 343, which I felt really good with. that was solid. During my prep, I spent a lot of time on the rower. I spent a lot of time on the ski.

Sled push 232, which there is some room for improvement there. I can get more efficient on the sled push. Sled pool, four minutes, 30 seconds. There's lots of room for improvement here. Burpee, broad jump, five minutes, five seconds, lots of room for improvement. row four minutes 19 seconds Farmers carry 1 minute 26 seconds Sandbag lunge 3 minutes 3 seconds

wall balls 5 minutes 17 seconds Lots of room for improvement there So going over just some of these times right here And my thoughts overall And how I can get closer to that 60 minute mark.

There's room to improve my runtime and especially my rock zone time. But getting into the stations, ski, like I said, I was happy with. Sled push, I was happy with, but I can definitely gain some efficiency and improvement there. Sled pull and burby broad jumps. Now, in retrospect, these were two movements that I didn't. not train nearly enough during my prep for a few reasons. One, they just didn't get me very excited. I'll be honest with that. Sled pool and burby brawl jumps did not feel sexy to me. It didn't feel exciting to throw into a lot of training, so I didn't do it. And I thought that I could muscle my way

through the sled pull. I just assumed incorrectly that I could muscle my way being strong enough to do a really fast sled pull. And then Burby broad jumps, I thought that I could kind of just mentally push through and just get it done. And I lost a lot of time on those two movements. And at the end, with wall balls, I also lost a lot of time there that I could have. have done a whole lot better with improvements in technique. Now, I'll kind of break down how the race kind of went from the beginning to end and spend some time on each one of these stations and events. But I wanted to give that general overview of how I did in each one before diving in.

Now, the experience overall was incredible. And what was unique about this high rocks competition is that it's done in a expo center, a pretty tight and small expo center where over 6,000 people competed in that one day. In high rocks, Dallas, over 6,000 people between, Open, pro doubles, and relays competed. So a few days prior to the competition starting, you get your heat time, knowing exactly when you're going to compete.

And it starts early in the morning and goes late into the night. So a few days before arriving to Dallas, I found out that I was going to compete in the first pro heat at 6.50 p.m., which is pretty late, considering when I typically train. I'm usually running by 5 a.m. and then my second workout out of the day

being either a strength training session or a high-rox-focused circuit is around 3 p.m. So 6.50 p.m. was pretty late. But the experience arriving to the competition Expo Center was pretty wild. So I just want to paint a picture of what it was like.

We ended up leaving the house around 5.30 p.m. And the Expo Center was only about 15 minutes away. So I drove over with Simon in Simon's truck. And then Landry and Stephen, who are on our creative team, were in the back of the truck filming in the back seat. And we're loading the truck. weather conditions were perfect. It was beautiful, clear skies. It was a little brisk. We wore sweatshirts to the venue. And as we're driving into downtown Dallas, the sun is setting behind the city. As you're driving

through all these skyscrapers and big buildings, you're just seeing the sun peek through. And no one's saying a word in the truck. We're blaring screamo music. And Simon, truck stereo doesn't work right now. So we had this JBL Bluetooth speaker in the cup holder. And we're blaring just scream of music in this Bluetooth speaker that's just resonating the entire car. And we're sipping on a pre-workout. So in my shaker bottle, I had two scoops of G-1M Sport and a half scoop of flight.

So I wanted some stems. I wanted electrolytes. I wanted carbohydrates. And of those two scoops of G1M Sport, one was actually G1M Sport Plus, which is a new product that we've been working on for the last couple months and that we are launching late spring,

early summer of 2025. And G1M Sport Plus, the goal was to create a a version of G1M Sport, because G1M Sport is our best selling product right now, and it has been the last couple months, a version of G1M Sport that has nootropics, brain nutrients for mental energy, mental focus, as well as stimulants being caffeine. So G1M Sport plus is the same base as G1M Sport. It is 20 grams of carbohydrates and 350 milligrams of sodium per serving, per serving, per single. scoop. Those carbohydrates come from cluster dextrin, which is a very fast gastric emptying carb source. It's very easy on the stomach, very quick to digest. But on top of that,

we added caffeine, tyrosine, peak ATP, and alpha GPC. So this is like your pre-training supplement for endurance, for the endurance athlete. So you're, you're, you're, you're, you're you're only going to want to use one scoop of G1M Sport Plus before training. And then if you want more carbs, you just throw on more regular G1M Sport on top of that. And that's what I've been doing for all my morning runs the last couple months. Because I've been using G1M Sport Plus in preparation for just refining the formula as we get ready to launch it come spring, early summer, 2025. So in my shaker bottle, in Simon's truck, we were both actually sipping on one scoop of G1M Sport Plus, one scoop of G1M Sport regular, and half a scoop of flight because we wanted some more additional stems.

G1M Sport Plus has 150 milligrams of caffeine per serving. But I wanted a little extra boosty boost for this high rocks. And we're driving in the city, we're sipping on our, our, our, pre-training formula, music's blasting, sun's peeking behind the city. And it felt like I've never, I've never fought in an octagon, never done a UFC fight. But I imagine that's what rolling up to a UFC fight feels like late at night, in a city, adrenaline is just pumping, energy is high. It was an incredible feeling.

like blood's just pumping and just dialed in getting amped up jacked up and we parked and as you walk into the venue I mean you're hit with the blast of the competition going on right there because there's heats running nonstop all day when we made our way over to the warm up station and we just started warming up I got on a assault runner for little bit, got on a C2 bike for a little bit, which right now, like the C2 bike is my favorite concept two piece of equipment because you can get a great cardiovascular conditioning training session out of it, but also muscular endurance. I got on the skier for a little bit, the rower. I just wanted to break a little bit of a sweat and get the blood pumping. And I was dialed.

I was just dialed in for this competition. and about five minutes before your heat kicks off, they file your heat into this tunnel. And it was a very similar, eerie feeling like when you tow the line prior to a marathon starting, where my vision kind of just starts to tunnel in. I don't see people next to me.

I don't hear anyone around me. All the sound and noise kind of muffled and I'm just locked in for that countdown 60 seconds, 59, 59, 58, 57, 56. And you can just feel this adrenaline just pumping, pumping, pumping. It's like when you pull a rubber band back and as you pull the rubber band back further and further like a slingshot, attention builds and builds and builds. And when you finally release it, because that tension is so, tight, it just moves with full force. That's how I felt towing the line at this high rocks.

The adrenaline was, it's hard to even explain. That's why I sign up for these races. It's why I sign up for these competitions. Is that feeling in that moment? It is so addicting. And it pulls you back in. It really does. So finally, the race kicked off. And I went out fast. I went out, hard. And Dylan Scott was up front. Rich Ryan was up front. Ryan Kent was up front. These elite 15 athletes.

And my goal initially, which could have potentially hurt me, is I was going to try to hold on to those guys for as long as possible. So I had Rich in my sights for the first couple rounds, first couple stations. I was just going to try to stay on his heels and hold his pace for as long as I could. That first run I went out, three minutes, 50 seconds. It's a little bit longer just because you're coming out of the entrance of the race before you enter the actual circuit, the 1K circuit for where you run. So three minutes, 50 seconds from the first one.

Went into the ski feeling really strong. maybe went a little harder than I needed to on the ski, but I felt really good. And then coming out of it, I had a strong second run, 332, which I was hoping to be able to hold for the remainder of the race. That didn't necessarily work out,

but a few reasons why. Went into the sled push. Sled push, like I said, two minutes, 32 seconds. I felt pretty happy with this, but there's definitely a room for improvement. And then going into the sledge, sled pull after that next run. When I got to the sled pool,

I very quickly realized I did not train this event enough. Just seeing how fast the guy is next to me were pulling the sled, how efficient they were, how well they were moving it. My technique was not strong. I was not able to get as much slack out of the rope as I wanted to. I just, I really lost confidence in that station early. on seeing how far I was falling behind in comparison to the people to the right and left of me. And I knew it right away.

Like, it wasn't a matter of lack of strength, but it was a lack of technique and a lack of training in that station. So I failed myself in training there. Then I went out for that next run and my heart rate was pretty elevated at this point, which I did not expect it to be as elevated as it was, which then hurt me going to the next station, which was burpee broad jump. And like I said,

did not train burpee broad jumps nearly as well as I should have. Five minutes and five seconds is really slow. And I got passed by a bunch of people on burpee broad jumps. And this is where I started getting real pissed to myself. because I went into a pain cave really quickly. I mean, the first couple of burpee broad jumps, I realized I was about to enter the suck. 80 meters is pretty far.

So it was like a down and back. It was a 40 meter leg. You did twice. And in the first couple burpee broad jumps, my heart rate was really, really elevated. Mentally, I was just like out of it. I felt like I was on a different planet.

I couldn't hear anyone. I didn't see anyone. I could not control my effort. Like I said, my heart rate. And it was just a soup sandwich. That's the only way to describe it. Soup sandwich. Imagine taking like a can of Campbell's tomato soup

and trying to put it between two slices of bread. That's what my. perpy broad jumps was like so when i finally finished that i was like holy shit thank god that's over with went over the water station poured some water over my head just to bring me back to life and went out for that next run but because my conditioning was so strong from years of training but just like this high rock prep that i did my conditioning was so strong i think a lot of people would have expected me to just keep declining after burpee brawl jumps. But I came back to life. So I used the row to really recover. I didn't go hard on the row, four minutes, 19 seconds,

which was a lot slower than I could have gone. But I used the row as an opportunity to just gather myself in preparation for the final three stations to try to finish as strong as possible. And I was able to do that. On the row, I recovered pretty well, went back out on the run, fairly strong considering. Farmers carry one minute, 26 seconds, had no issue there, felt strong. Sandbag lunge felt super strong. Three minutes, three seconds for a 100 meter sandbag lunge. Felt very, very strong there.

I passed a lot of people, made up a lot of ground. and then by the time you get the wall balls, it's just trying to get 100 wall balls done as fast as possible. Five minutes, 17 seconds, lots of room for improvement there. So one hour, five minutes, 42 seconds, overall,

I was not happy with, I'll be honest. I expected it and I wanted to do a whole lot better. But after analyzing my race and realizing where I made mistakes, what I can improve upon, there are very clear areas that I can focus on to shave off multiple minutes. The run, yes, stations, absolutely, in the rock zone for sure. So it was my first race, right? Like, what did I learn from this entire experience? It was my first high rocks race.

And when I was leaving the expo center, the competition, I was thinking about this, it reminded me my first marathon, even my first couple of marathons, where it's hard to replicate the race. It's hard to replicate the competition conditions in training to know exactly what that race is going to feel like, to know exactly what that competition is going to feel like. I tried my best to replicate the conditions from what I knew as well as possible in training.

But when it came to competition day, when it came to the actual high rocks, it was very different than what I expected it to be. Now, talk about that a little bit. So I'm glad to have one race under my belt now. I now have the experience. I know what to do differently. I know where to improve.

I know what areas I need to get better at. And I share that to say, whether you're signing up for your first marathon or triathlon, Ultra, Iron Man, high rocks, no matter what it is, go into that first one with the realistic expectations

that you got to gain some experience. You have to get one under your belt to truly understand and even respect what is required of you from multiple different dimensions and angles to maximize your performance. And the only way I was able to improve my marathon over time was more repetition, more experience, more marathons, more refined training. You become smarter. your strategy becomes refined. Mentally, you are more prepared to adapt and become resilient for what you're about to

encounter and experience. So give yourself some grace, get the experience, get one race under your belt, before truly assessing if this is an opportunity for you to really do well. Before we go any further with this episode, I want to talk to you guys about G1M Sport. Now, G1M Sport is our best selling product at BPN right now. And I had learned the hard way when I first started endurance training that once you train fueled, you will never train fasted again. I used to think that training fasted was the most optimal and efficient way to train.

And I was wrong. Once you train fueled, you can provide your body with the nutrition and the nutrients. It requires. It needs to maximize athletic endurance performance. And that's why we created G-1M Sport. G-1-M Sport is 20 grams of carbohydrates per serving in the form of cluster dextrin, which is very fast, gastric emptying, meaning it's very easy on the stomach. It digest very quickly.

you don't get gas, bloating, or stomach discomfort, and it's 350 milligrams of sodium per serving as well. So you get the fuel and you get the hydration to maximize your endurance potential. If you're interested, there's a link in the description or on the screen if you're watching the video. You can go try G-1M Sport and truly experience the benefits of training fueled.

Now, back. to the episode. So I got one race under my belt. That was Hi Rocks Dallas. Check, done. Now let's get better. They already said, it's hard to replicate competition conditions in training. And I did some high rocks simulations here at HQ where I would have my assault runner set up and I'd have all the stations set up in our gym and I'd go back and forth between them and I thought that's what it would feel like come race day, come competition day, but it was not even close. Like not even close. And one of the reasons or multiple reasons is the way that the high rocks competition floor set up, at least in Dallas, I believe multiple hours, on the outside perimeter, that's where you run.

So for Dallas, it was two loops. Each loop was about 500 meters. So you do two, and it's 1K of running. Two loops. And then in the middle is what they call the rocks zone. And this is where you have your stations. And as soon as you finish your run, you come into the rocks zone. You then have to make your way over to the station.

So in training, I would get off the assault runner. I'd walk literally five feet over to the station. to the station, walk those five feet back to the assault runner, do my 1K run, walk five feet to the next station, so on and so forth. There was no rock zone. The rock zone, you can actually lose significant time. Because as soon as you finish that 1K run, for example, when I run over to the ski that I'm about the ski on, it might be 100, 200 meters to actually get. get there. And when I finish the ski, it's another 100 to 200 meters to get out of the rock zone to then start my next run. So you can actually lose a lot of time in that rock zone if you're not

moving very quickly. And that is what happened to me a little bit. I didn't realize I'd be spending so much time in that rock zone that contributes to your overall time. So when I was trying to calculate my paces on certain stations and my runs. When I put all that together and I had the goal internally of wanting to go as close to 60 minutes as possible, it felt very realistic. It felt very achievable. But a few things I didn't consider is one, it's hard to replicate the conditions of the competition in training for one of those reasons.

You lose a lot of time or you can lose a lot of time in the rock zone. and also when you're doing your 1K segments, you're running around people, not just in your heat, but potentially previous heats and heats after you as well. So they stack those heats, I believe it was maybe every 20 minutes. So when we were trying to go as fast as possible, in the perimeter that was set up for the racing

running part, you're running around people. You're running through people. You're not running on an assault run. You're not running on like this very clear open road or track. You are weaving in and out of people, literally. So going to the race, I thought I was going to be able to hold pretty consistently a three minute, 30 second, 1K pace. I thought that was going to be pretty easy for me to do based off my training and my

conditioning. But I realized very quickly that was not going to happen. One, because I was super taxed from some of those stations, specifically the sled pool and the burpee broad jump. And then you're running in and out of people. And my heart rate was a whole lot more elevated than I expected or anticipated it to be. And it really got jacked up and elevated after sled pull and burpee broad jump. And it had a hard time coming down until after that row where I use that as an opportunity. Those four minutes is an opportunity to recover. So I learned a lot during this first race, not just from like what I need to work on,

but also there's so much more to it than just a physical component of racing. And I should have known this from having experience in triathlon, ultra marathon. You need a very clear competition or race strategy, a game plan. And I had a loose strategy. I had a loose game plan going to High Rocks, Dallas. but it went out the window pretty early on once I got the sled pull. And a lot of that does come down to, like I said, when I started this segment here, it's really important to get the experience.

Get one race, get one competition under your belt. Because I love the physical training component of racing, of competing. And I shared this in my post race recap that I put up on Instagram. And I said, I don't become obsessed necessarily with a sport. I don't become obsessed with an event. I become obsessed with improvement. Truthfully, I'm not obsessed with the marathon. I'm not obsessed with high rocks.

I'm not obsessed with triathlon. I'm not obsessed with. necessarily even endurance training, but I am obsessed with getting better at something. And where I like to focus a lot of my time where I have passion and joy is endurance training. I want to spend these next couple of weeks and months getting better, improving,

having a game plan, having a strategy, refining, retraining, and then executing, and then after execution it is again refining retraining executing and it doesn't matter what you apply that to but if you apply that after action review and process and you implement it and you do it you will keep getting better at whatever it is you're trying to get better at that's why I'm excited for my goals in 2025, to be honest. I have some big endurance goals. My marathon goal for 2025 is Grandma's Marathon in Minnesota. It's the end of June of 2025. I'm going for a 230 marathon. It's a big ambitious goal, but I want it. And I'm going after it. And I'm going to

get a 230 marathon at some point in my life, whether it's grandmalls or after, I'm going for a 230 marathon. That is the Nick Bear bucket list goal PR for the marathon, two hours, 30 minutes. I'm going to chase that down. And the first time I'm going for it is it grandmalls in Duluth, end of June. So I'll go over, just briefly, two workouts I did this week. So Wednesdays are my

big training days during the week. Because I have my quality run in the morning, which is either a critical velocity workout on the track or a tempo workout on the road. And then that same day in the afternoon, a bigger, high rocks focused workout.

So two quality sessions in one day. The workout Jeff had me do this week in the morning with a two-mile warm-up and then all these intervals at a 5.30 minute-per-mile pace. 400, 800, 1,200, 1,200, 1,200,

1,200, 600, 6 by 400s, and then a 2,000. mile cool down. And in between each interval was about 60 seconds of rest. So that was 11 miles of work total there. And then in the afternoon was three 12-minute e-moms. So the first 12-minute e-mom, I had to do 17 calories in the first minute on ski, 17 calories in the second minute on ski, 17 calories in the second minute on row, 17 calories. And the second minute on row, 17 calories. on the third minute on the echo bike and then 18 wall balls in that fourth minute.

And you repeat that three times to get you to 12 minutes. Rest two minutes. Repeat that whole thing. But instead of 17 calories, it was 15 calories. Rest two minutes. Do another 12 minute e-mom. Same thing with 15 calories. a focus on the ski, the row, the echo bike.

Then after those three 12-minute e-moms, two minutes of rest, 15 minutes on the C2 bike, the goal was to get a heart rate to 155, try to hold that for five minutes, and reduce power and finish off a full 15 minutes on the concept two, a bike erg. So that was one day of training with two quality sessions in it.

But that's what's required to hit these goals in 2025. That with a lot of strength training and a lot of aerobic running. And one of the change that I made after Hirox Dallas is I started wearing a heart rate monitor again. And probably two years ago, I stopped wearing a heart rate monitor because I just became very aware of my effort during training. I knew if I was running too fast, I knew if I was running easy enough.

I knew if I was aerobic or not. But I decided to start wearing a heart rate monitor again. So it's just a Garmin heart rate monitor that goes across my chest for all my workouts. It sinks to my watch so that I can monitor my heart rate in real time to ensure if I go out on a morning run and it's to be easy, conversational, and aerobic, I'm making sure my heart rate stays below 145 beats per minute. And typically my average on like an aerobic easy run is anywhere from 137 to 142 beats per minute average. And then I'm also wearing that heart rate monitor so that when I go into my quality sessions, my tempo work, these these higher intensity

high rocks sessions, we're knowing what my heart rate is doing and what it can handle come race day. So when we build out strategy, we build out paces and effort, it's not just subjective, but it's reinforced with objective data coming from the trends of my training from heart rate data itself. So I'm back to wearing a heart rate monitor from. for all my workouts. So we have that data so I can ensure that when I have an easy day, I'm actually going easy. And when I have a hard day, we can track progress and see how hard it is. And this allows me to just make sure we're making progress, but also to manage recovery

and effort to, like I said, make sure I'm going easy when it's supposed to be easy. and know I'm going hard when it's supposed to be hard. So that wraps up my first high rocks. High Rocks Dallas. What I'm changing, what I'm working towards and on. Big goals, big work to be put in, and I'm ready for it. So we'll see you guys in the next episode. As always, go on more.

Take it easy. Train hard. Thank you.