Could you tell us a bit about your background, have you always been athletic?  Or is it something you came into later in life?How did you first come across Hyrox?

I'm basically a late starter. I always grew up with football being the main thing like most kids, and played at county level. I didn't get a call, whereas a lot of friends at county level got a call up to higher levels.I then found out when I was about 40 that Ipswich Town had come knocking, but my Mum hadn’t thought it was a good thing to do, so declined. I got to Hong Kong and did a lot of dragon boat racing and then I got a fixation on trying to get a sub 40 minute 10k, but by this point, I was fat fit., I was eating all the wrong things and I was drinking too much I was doing exercise, but if you haven't got the right diet and the right mindset, it doesn't make any difference. I managed to get that sub 40 minute 10k eventually but I kind of wonder how!

In Hong Kong there were a whole bunch of things happening all at once in my personal life. I was working in finance and it was all highly pressured but then Spartan came along for the first time and I went along to the race. I did the 10k race and was immediately hooked; it was a real test and you needed to be functionally fit. At the same time, I changed my diet completely and actually got divorced as well. I got made redundant from my finance job, cartwheeled out the office and decided to retrain as a personal trainer. 

For the next couple of years I was a personal trainer and I started training specifically for Spartan. It was great; I went around Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong with Spartan and there  were races throughout most of the year.. I ended up racing in Malaysia and came  third overall across all age groups and won my age group. I then went to the World Championships in Iceland and the Ultra world Championships. 

When we came back to the UK I had a little daughter by then, I carried on with Spartan and became UK champion two years in a row and podiumed in the Europeans. When I found out about Hyrox in Glasgow, I started training for it in September and the race was the following March. It was just way more physically accessible and something my family would be interested in coming to watch. 

What was your first race like?

Hyrox is highly organised, it was just so intoxicating when you compete in your first race. It was amazing and there were really specific areas to work on. The marketing and the branding is fantastic but the fact they've got the same format each time means you can have records and you can measure yourself from one race to the next, and there is always something to work on.

Before you did that first race in Glasgow, did you know that you were going to be at the sharp end of the race pushing for podium places and records?

No, I hadn't got a clue. When I first started doing wall balls, my neck and shoulders were killing me and it’s really hard, but the variety of movements teaches you a full range of motion. You're not doing half wall squats. It's full range of motion and you have to have the right technique. I'm not a natural runner but I have tried to improve over the years and so I knew I would be able to run and do the stations but I hadn't got a clue what carried over from Spartan, other than the endurance side of things.

You hold four world records (date of recording 06/02/2025). When did you break your first record?

The second race I ever did in Malaga, I broke the Open World record and I held that for a whole season until I broke it myself in Glasgow the following year and then Guy Portlock went and broke it early this season. So I had a little thing in my head to try and break all four records. 

Previously in Glasgow 2024. I did two races in the day and it was the Open and the Pro and I broke both in the same day.. One week later, Guy races in Germany and he breaks the Pro record. I put in loads of training in the off season trying to get over injuries first of all as well as get faster, get stronger. Amsterdam was then the first race apart from the World Championships in Manchester that I had done fresh. I hadn't done an Open race before.

I thought, if I want to try, let's see if you can get some decent times by just doing one race a day, not two or three. So, I got a 1:04 which was two odd minutes inside Guy’s World record and something like a 4 minute PB for me in Pro. 

Is there a single record or race you are most proud of?

The best race and the best record was with Danny in the doubles at London. We were in the same wave as Hunter and George Heaton, plus Ciaran and Tony were in there as well and London has such a great atmosphere. This was the first time we'd race the doubles, we only really discussed tactics a couple of hours before and it went superb. I expected to see Hunter and those guys at the start and then they’d be gone and we wouldn’t see them the rest of the race. But, we got to the row and I'm fist bumping Hunter which was cool! By the time we got to the wall balls the atmosphere was electric and I was doing wall balls next to Hunter. Obviously they were ahead of us but it was still probably 15-20 wall balls together and we smashed that record. The record was something like 59 minutes; we got 55 minutes. So way beyond what we thought. And doing singles is one thing and getting over the line and seeing your time is a fantastic feeling to have. But it’s actually doing it with a partner, working together and executing a plan well on the day, plus the atmosphere, which is really phenomenal. That was easily the best event.

How much more is in the tank for you? What's your plan now?

I don't know? I’ve got to get faster. That's the problem. I want to break 60 minutes, which has always been a target for me; I got 60:16 seconds in Manchester. There's things to work on;  burpees for one, running pace is another. I've got a decent running pace, but I need to get faster. And it's trying to do that and then with having moved to Costa Rica, it's trying to adapt to the climate. You haven't got the equipment here, Running is a lot more difficult in the heat and humidity.

So many people are coming into Hyrox right now. Do you think we’ve seen the best and if not which disciplines do you think they will come from?

No, the best are yet to come, the best are going to come from those starting with Hyrox. There's guys like Luke Enis in Scotland who's under Graeme Hallidays’ wing and trains at his gym and I've trained with him a few times. There's nothing on him really, but he runs really well and he gets through a Pro race with  fantastic times. Ross Walker as well - these young guys are getting to a lot of the races and they're doing really, really well he future of the sport is huge; I can see it going as an Olympic sport.

What would get you through those really brutal final moments of race when it gets really tough?

You just have to be relentless and drive yourself. And then the other thing is Team LSR. LSR is Lazara, Santia and Ruby, my wife and my two daughters. You got this purpose you're doing it for and a lot of the time they come to the races. A little extension of that, a great strategy, kind of giving the game away, but I heard this on one of the podcasts. Most of the struggle with wall balls is mental state. First of all, let's get to 50, I can do that. Every 10 after that is for a member of the family. My mom and my dad who are no longer here, and Lazara, then Santia and Ruby. You don't ever want to let any of those down. So, you have to carry on, and then I made it for the first time unbroken. Other that that I try to just smile - you need to enjoy it.

If there was someone who has never done Hyrox before, and they're looking to compete in it, what snippets of advice would you give them for training and looking to go into their first Hyrox event?

It's about conditioning; you've got to build that engine. It's about strength conditioning and cardio conditioning. But underpinning all that, you have to have mobility, and the people that I've trained, the first thing I get them to do is incorporate a morning mobility routine. Most of these are exercises that are the kind of rehab exercises I've had to do for calves, hamstring issues, hip flexors etc. But when you do these exercises, it has two effects. It's going to make you more mobile; you'll be able to squat better and you’ll be able to lunge better. It's also going to help your running because you're lengthening your muscles and you're preventing the injuries that so many people have now.

The second point really: overtraining. You don't have to train every day of the week. When you do a workout, you should give it your all, but also have rest days. And normally when I tell people the amount that I train, they ask, is that right?

I had this guy on a consultancy call, I said to him, "Right, so I'm training four days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, as that was when Santi was at nursery. I do a run and I do a gym session on those days. And then Sunday, I do a longer run or bike or something. "But what about Tuesday and Thursday? What do you do then?” I said nothing. I walk around, but I'm not busy doing exercise. Nothing. It gives the body a chance to recover.

I think the first time you go out there it's all about enjoying the atmosphere and taking it in. Don’t build expectations of time performance. Just get yourself trained, get prepared. Go and enjoy it. Then you've done your first one, you've got your benchmark. You'll have so much information in your head about how that felt. I've done 20 races now and I'm  still learning. Every race you learn something, there is always something to fix and then the wheels fall off on something else. It’s never ending!