Hyrox training in Manchester,
built around your race.

Where to train in Manchester

20 gyms and sports centres sit within a few miles of the centre of Manchester. That is enough to choose on what the floor actually holds rather than on which is nearest.

Closest to the centre you have The Gym, V1BE and énergie Fitness, the nearest of them about 0.1 km out. Ring before you join and ask two questions: is there floor space to push a sled, and can you throw a ball at a wall. Those answers decide more than any membership tier.

YMCA and The Yoga Lounge are listed as sports centres rather than gyms. Multi-use sites are usually where the floor space is, which tends to be where the sled and carry work ends up happening.

The Gym, énergie Fitness and YMCA have sites here, so an existing membership may already cover you. If you are joining from scratch, a rolling monthly contract is worth the few extra pounds while you work out which sessions you actually turn up for.

Where to run around Manchester

You are well served for measured running around Manchester. 8 parkrun courses sit within reach: Peel parkrun, Philips Park parkrun and Alexandra parkrun, Moss Side are the closest three, Peel parkrun being about 2.2 km out. Use one as your fixed benchmark and run it in the same conditions each time, or the number tells you nothing.

They spread from roughly 2 km out to 7 km, so pick one as the benchmark rather than running whichever is convenient — a different course is a different number.

Racing from Manchester

Manchester hosts a race, which is a bigger advantage than most people use. You can walk the venue, you will train alongside people on the same start list, and you have no travel to plan on the morning.

Having both a race and 8 measured 5 km courses on the doorstep is the combination that makes a season easy to plan: benchmark locally through the build, then race without travelling.