The honest thing to say first: six months is a long time, and most plans you find will promise you twelve weeks.
Twelve weeks works if you already train. From genuinely nothing, twelve weeks is how people end up with shin splints in week seven, or arrive at a start line dreading the next two hours. Twenty-four weeks is not me being cautious. It is the runway your connective tissue actually needs.
The four phases
[ BREAKDOWN ]
Twenty-four weeks, in four blocks
- Weeks 1-6: Build the habitWalking with short running intervals, plus two simple strength sessions. The goal is turning up three times a week, nothing more.
- Show up
- Weeks 7-12: Build the engineRunning intervals get longer, walking gets shorter. Strength work starts looking like race movements.
- Run further
- Weeks 13-18: Learn the raceCompromised running introduced. Station work begins properly. Your first partial simulation.
- Get specific
- Weeks 19-24: Sharpen and taperA full simulation, then refining pacing, then backing off in the last ten days.
- Get ready
Three sessions a week throughout. Not four, not five. Consistency beats volume by a distance at this stage.
Phase 1, weeks 1 to 6: show up
What you actually do: Three sessions a week. Two are walk-run: five minutes walking, then alternate one minute of gentle running with two minutes walking, for twenty minutes total. One is a simple full-body strength session, six or seven movements, nothing heavy.
What it feels like: Easier than you expected physically, harder than you expected to fit in. The battle in this phase is entirely logistical.
How you know it is working: You did three sessions in a week, three weeks running. That is the whole test. Do not measure anything else yet.
The first six weeks are not about fitness. They are about becoming a person who trains on a Tuesday. Everything else is built on that and nothing works without it.
Phase 2, weeks 7 to 12: build the engine
What you actually do: The running intervals grow. By week twelve you are aiming to run twenty to twenty-five minutes continuously at an easy pace. Strength sessions add lunges, carries and squatting patterns, which is to say the race movements, without calling them that yet.
What it feels like: This is where it starts feeling like training. It is also where most people quit, usually around week nine, when the novelty has gone and the race is still far away.
How you know it is working: You can run continuously for twenty minutes without needing to stop. Not fast. Continuously.
Phase 3, weeks 13 to 18: learn the race
What you actually do: Compromised running arrives, which means doing a station and then running on tired legs. Station work becomes specific: wall balls, lunges with load, carries, ergs. Around week seventeen or eighteen, a partial simulation, perhaps four runs and four stations.
What it feels like: Genuinely hard, and genuinely interesting. This is the phase where people start enjoying it, because it stops being generic fitness and starts being preparation for a specific thing.
How you know it is working: You can run 800 metres straight after a station without walking. That is the race-specific skill and this is where it is built.
Phase 4, weeks 19 to 24: sharpen and taper
What you actually do: A full simulation around week twenty or twenty-one. Then several weeks using what it told you: refining pacing, tidying whatever technique fell apart, deciding how you will break the wall balls. The last ten days, volume drops substantially.
What it feels like: The taper feels wrong. Everyone thinks they are losing fitness. Nobody is.
How you know it is working: You know your target pace for the first kilometre and you know your wall ball plan. Those two decisions matter more on race day than anything else you have done.
[ BREAKDOWN ]
What actually changes across the six months
Relative emphasis by phase, as a share of your training attention. Coaching judgement rather than a measured figure.
- Weeks 1-6: consistency90%Almost entirely about turning up. Fitness is a side effect.
- Weeks 7-12: aerobic base70%Running becomes the main event.
- Weeks 13-18: race skills60%Compromised running and station technique.
- Weeks 19-24: sharpening40%Less volume, more precision. The taper is training.
The three things that derail people
Going too fast in phase 1. The running intervals are supposed to feel almost embarrassingly gentle. If you are out of breath in week two, you are running too hard and you are building toward an injury rather than a race.
Adding a fourth session in phase 2. It feels like progress. It is usually the thing that produces the niggle that costs you three weeks.
Skipping the easy running for the exciting station work. Wall balls are more fun than a thirty-minute jog. The thirty-minute jog is what gets you round.
[ CHECKLIST ]
Are you actually on track?
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What finishing actually looks like
I want to set expectations properly, because the videos you have seen are not representative.
Off twenty-four weeks from nothing, most people finish somewhere around two hours, give or take. Some of the runs will be walked. The wall balls will be broken into small sets and they will take a long time. You will feel, in the middle of it, that this was a stupid idea.
And then you finish, and it will be one of the better things you have done. I have watched a lot of people cross that line and the reaction is remarkably consistent.
What counts as a good time has the fuller picture, but for a first race off this plan: finishing is the benchmark. There is no other one.
Getting the actual sessions
This page is the shape. The sessions themselves need to fit your starting point, and someone who walks a lot needs a different phase one from someone who has not exercised in five years.
The free plan maker asks where you are now and builds the twenty-four weeks around your race date. It is free, it takes three minutes, and for most people starting from zero it is genuinely all they need.
If you would rather talk it through with someone before committing six months, book a call. I would rather tell you honestly whether your date is realistic than have you find out in week fourteen.
[ FAQ ]
Frequently asked
Can a complete beginner do a HYROX?
Yes, and a large part of every field is doing exactly that. The race has no qualifying standard and no cut-off that a reasonably prepared person needs to worry about. What it asks is that you can keep moving for one to two hours.
How long does it take to go from nothing to a HYROX?
Six months is a comfortable, realistic runway if you are starting from no training at all. Three or four months is possible if you already walk a lot or played sport recently. Twelve weeks from genuinely nothing is rushed and tends to end in injury or a miserable race day.
Do I need to be able to run before I start?
No. The first six weeks of this plan are largely walking with short running intervals, which is exactly how you build to running safely. Trying to run continuously from day one is the single most common way beginners get injured.
Can I walk parts of a HYROX?
Yes. Plenty of people do, including people finishing perfectly respectable times. Walking the runs is a legitimate strategy for a first race, and it is far better than starting too fast and walking involuntarily from kilometre four.
What if I miss a week of training?
Pick up where you left off rather than trying to catch up. Missing one week across twenty-four changes nothing. Trying to cram two weeks into one is how people get hurt.
Written by
Benjamin SutherlandFounder · HYROX Elite 15 athlete
Ben races in the HYROX Elite 15, competing in Doubles with his brother Harry. Pro Doubles wins include Rotterdam and Glasgow. He coaches athletes from their first race to professional level.
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