The Complete Pre-Race Nutrition Guide- How to fuel your HYROX (Pre Race)
Written By A Sport Nutritionist, Hannah (MSc Sport Nutrition, BSc Sport Science)
By the end of this blog, you'll have a better understanding of how to fuel your next HYROX — including what to eat the night before, on race morning and in the final hours before your start.
Why Are Carbohydrates Important for HYROX?
Firstly, you need to understandwhycarbohydrates (CHO) are important for HYROX. Carbohydrates are brokendown into glucose and stored as glycogen in your muscles and liver. When you do exercise (such as HYROX), your body converts the glycogen to glucose for energy. Carbs are the most readily available form of energy. You get little amount of energy from protein in comparison and whilst your body can convert fats for fuel, the process is lengthier and so not as readily available. Therefore, a lot of this blog will discuss carbohydrates.
How Much Carbohydrate Do You Need Pre-Race?
“THE PRE-RACE CARB RECOMMENDATION
Consume 1–4g of carbohydrate per kg of bodyweight 1–4 hours before exercise.
70kg athlete = 70–280g carbohydrate”
This is the textbook recommendation, but it is important we use ourselves as research participants to figure out what works best for us. 4g/kg can be too much for some.
Example- 70kg athlete
70kg × 1g = 70g
70kg × 4g = 280g
Recommended range: 70–280g
“But Hannah… 1–4g is quite a difference. Should I aim for 1g or 4g/kg?”
It’s a good point. There is hugevariation from person to person as to what works for them. If you haven’t had time to trial your carb intake in training and you find that your current intake is more towards the 2g rather than 4g/kg of bodyweight then my advice is to stick with what you currently do. Don’t change anything for race day.
However, if you have time to experiment before your race then do so. I would recommend tracking your current pre workout intake on a food tracking app and look at what you currently eat for CHO prior to training. See where you sit in that recommendation and then play around with it in training to figure what works best for you.
What To Eat On Race Day
🕐 3–4 HOURS BEFORE HYROX
Choose a substantial, carbohydrate-rich, familiar meal that you can comfortably digest before racing.
🥣 Porridge + banana + honey
🍞 Toast + jam and/or honey
🍌 Toast + banana + honey
🍚 Chicken + rice
🕐 1–2 HOURS BEFORE HYROX
A Smaller Carb Top-Up- as you get closer to the start, choose smaller portions of carbohydrate that are lower in fat and fibre and easy for you to digest.
Bagel + jam
Banana
Rice cakes
Squares bar
🕐 30–60 MINUTES BEFORE HYROX
Your Final Carb Top-Up- this should be a small carbohydrate top-up rather than another meal.
“Let’s Summarise That Section.
3–4 HOURS → MEAL
↓
1–2 HOURS → SMALLER CARB TOP-UP
↓
30–60 MINUTES → FINAL CARB TOP-UP
”
Your start time changes your fuelling strategy
How you might alter your food intake around different start times?
If you can't stomach a full breakfast due to an early start wave, you don't have to force one down. However, this is where your meal the night before becomes particularly important.
🌙 THE NIGHT BEFORE HYROX
What Should You Eat The Night Before?
“Think: Top Up Carbs — Not Stuff Your Face With Carbs.”
Night before- consume a high carb dinner. More important than if you have a later race as it gives you chance to get stores topped up for early morning. Where you might usually have pasta, also add in bread (as an example). Try to avoid eating too close to bedtime to give you time to digest it and also not cause sleep disturbance.
🏁 Example: 8AM HYROX Start
With an early start, your evening meal becomes particularly important because you have less opportunity to consume carbohydrate on race morning.
NOTE- these are examples only — your individual timings will depend on what you have practised in training
Night before
🍝 High-carbohydrate dinner
6:00am
🥣 Light breakfast
7:00–7:15am
🍌 Carb top-up snack
🏁 Example: 2PM HYROX Start
NOTE- these are examples only — your individual timings will depend on what you have practised in training
Night before
🍝 Carbohydrate-rich dinner
8–9am
🥣 Breakfast
10–11am
🍌 Carbohydrate snack
11:15am–12:15pm
🍚 Optional small top-up
1pm
🍌 Optional pre-race fuelling
2pm
🏁 RACE
A later start gives you more opportunity to fuel throughout the morning. If you have an even later start time then adjust your meal timings accordingly as per the advice already supplied to you in this blog.
HYROX HYDRATION
“💧 Goal: Arrive at the start line well hydrated — not carrying a litre of water in your stomach”
You want to be on the start line well hydrated. Drink regularly and use both thirst and urine colour as indicators as to how hydrated you are. If your wee is clear then you are hydrated. If it is yellow then drink more. Avoid drinking excessive amounts of fluid immediately before the start, as this can leave you feeling uncomfortable and may result in unnecessary toilet trips.
Regardless of wave start time, you should always hydrate as soon as you wake up and keep hydrated up to racing. Don’t overdo it.
Should You Carb Load Before HYROX?
Yes — but you don't necessarily need to approach HYROX carbohydrate loading in the same way you would eg for a marathon. This is because the HYROX race doesn’t last as long and as such (and if you followed my advice within this blog and kept your carb stores high pre race), you won’t need to carb load. Also, if you are doing a taper week into race day, you’ll be training less volume and so you’ll likely have increased carb stores due to having not used them in training. Therefore, you don’t need to carb load in a traditional sense. You should however, keep carb intake high from 2-3 days prior to racing. As mentioned, no need to ‘stuff your face’. Simply add more carb sources into your diet. See below.
A Word On Caffeine Before HYROX
“☕ Race Day Rule: If you haven’t tested your caffeine strategy in training, don’t suddenly introduce a large dose on race day.”
Caffeine is a stimulant and can have performance enhancing benefits to it such as; reduced RPE, increased alertness and many performance aspects. However, results vary person to person.
If you are someone who’s sensitive to caffeine and you haven’t been consuming it prior to your training then don’t just change this for race day.
Be wary of energy drinks as well as they can contain much higher caffeine content than your average coffee.
What Have We Covered?
✅ Why carbohydrates are important for HYROX
✅ How much carbohydrate to consume before racing
✅ What to eat 3–4 hours before HYROX
✅ What to eat 1–2 hours before HYROX
✅ How to fuel around different start times
✅ What to eat the night before
✅ HYROX hydration
✅ Whether you need to carb load
✅ Caffeine before HYROX
“🟡 The Burgon Fitness Golden Rule
DON’T EXPERIMENT ON RACE DAY.”
Your HYROX race should be the final test of a nutrition strategy you've already practised during training.
PRACTISE.
TRAIN.
EVALUATE.
ADJUST.
CONFIRM YOUR STRATEGY.
RACE.
Want More Free HYROX Education?
This blog was created in response to questions from members of my FREE HYROX/Hybrid 26/27 WhatsApp Group.
It's completely free to join. You'll receive:
✓ At least 1 educational piece every week
✓ Weekly Q&A
✓ HYROX & hybrid training advice
✓ A community of HYROX/hybrid athletes
No catches. Just FREE education.
🎁 FREE NUTRITION ANALYSIS
The first 2 people to message me "NUTRITION ANALYSIS" will receive a FREE analysis of their current pre-training nutrition.
I'll review what you're currently eating before training and provide recommendations to improve it.
There's one condition: you need to tell me the recommended carbohydrate intake 1–4 hours before exercise. Text me your answer.
The answer is somewhere in this blog… 👀
And don't just scroll straight to the bottom for the freebie… that's a bit cheeky, isn't it? 😂
Finally, I hope you found this blog useful. Please do let me know if you did and feel free to ask any follow up questions. Give me a text to discuss.
Thank you for reading my blog.
