I Only Ever Ran as Punishment. Now I Have Three HYROX Races on the Books.
EPISODE 01 / JORDYN COBB
Jordyn Cobb joined ISI® Elite Training Sandy Springs two years ago, and she wants to be clear about something before this story goes any further. She was not secretly fast, and growing up, the only running she ever did was a lap assigned as punishment.
Now she's finished three HYROX races, with three more on the calendar for this year.
She is still slightly confused about how that happened.
It started because she didn't want to be rude
Kendra Fuentes, the franchise partner at ISI® Elite Training Sandy Springs, and a few members decided to start a run club. Jordyn's internal response was immediate and unenthusiastic.
"I was like, have fun with that."
-JORDYN COBB
She went anyway, because she was an ambassador and showing support felt like the decent thing to do, and her plan was one run club, one time, never again.
She ran a 5K that day, and shortly after, she got talked into training for a half marathon. Then somebody mentioned HYROX, which she had never heard of, and nobody handed her a five year plan. Each step just looked survivable from where she was standing, which is how most people end up doing things they would have refused outright.
So what is HYROX, actually
HYROX is a fitness race, and the format is the same in every city in the world, which is the entire point, because it means your result in one race can be compared to your result in another.
You run one kilometer, a little over half a mile, then complete a workout station, then run another kilometer, then another station. You do that eight times, so eight runs and eight stations, and the clock does not stop.
The stations are the kind of work that is simple to describe and miserable to finish: a ski erg, a sled push, a sled pull, burpee broad jumps, a rowing machine, a farmers carry, sandbag lunges, and wall balls to close it out. You can enter solo, as a doubles team, or as a relay.
Here is the part that surprises people: almost nobody's limiting factor is the thing they expect.
What training for HYROX looks like at ISI®
Two days a week at Sandy Springs are dedicated to HYROX work, and Jordyn is quick to say it is not eight rounds of race simulation on repeat. Some days it is a thirty to forty minute block, and the only question is how much you can get done inside it.
The coaching gets more interesting than that, because instead of grinding the exact race movements over and over, the sessions attack them sideways.
"It's not just doing a wall ball. You might do thrusters that day. And for burpee broad jumps, you might do burpee box jumps instead. Just different ways to work on the station without getting plain."
-JORDYN COBB
That is the difference between a class that happens to be hard and a session that is built to make you better at something specific.
The part that changed wasn't her legs
Ask Jordyn what HYROX gave her physically and she will tell you the truth: it has been genuinely exciting to watch her own capability move. She never expected to run eight kilometers inside a race, much less try to do it fast, and she remembers hearing the weight going onto the sled and thinking there was no way.
Then the times started dropping, and it stopped feeling as impossible. Still hard, just no longer impossible.
But that is not the answer she leads with.
"Probably in my head a lot more than physically, honestly."
-JORDYN COBB
The mental work is the actual event, and she describes hitting the halfway point, usually somewhere around the burpee broad jumps, as the moment the math flips from how much is left to how much is already done: light at the end of the tunnel. She likes doubles for exactly this reason, because when your own voice runs out, you can borrow your partner's for a while.
The Sundays she would have skipped
Everyone has a version of this day, and Jordyn's is a Sunday, so the only reason she makes it out the door is that other people are expecting her.
"If it wasn't for the people that I know are going to be there, I would probably be able to cancel and be like, whoops, my bad. But I know that people are counting on me to show up. And if I don't, I'll hear it."
-JORDYN COBB
She has never once regretted going, and she leaves happier, somehow with more energy than she walked in with, which is not how any of us expect that transaction to work.
The gym has also stopped being just the gym: dinner after, lunch, some of the women started rock climbing, and there are running groups now that nobody at ISI® organized. Training moved into the rest of her week without asking permission.
Why she keeps going
Jordyn's favorite thing to watch is not a fast finish, but a first timer walking through the door, someone who has never trained before, with the whole turf glad they came. She likes being there at the end of that session when it lands on them that they can do this.
Her own reason is plainer than you would expect.
"It's a blessing to move our bodies. Some people can't, and we also don't know if I'll be able to move mine tomorrow. I keep showing up because I'm able to right now."
-JORDYN COBB
Start where Jordyn started
She didn't begin with a race, but by showing up. Find your closest ISI® Elite Training and book a session.