With just a week to go until the Hyrox North American Championships, some may have overlooked Hyrox Stuttgart, but that would have been a mistake as we had hugely impressive performances in both the Men’s Pro and Women’s Pro Competition!
The winner on the Men’s side, Beau Wills, set a massive PB and joined the sub-60 club with a time of 59 minutes and 32 seconds. The winner on the Women’s side, Mirjam Von Rohr, also set a PB – recording the 4th fastest Hyrox time ever with all time records on three separate stations too!
We were keen to speak with Beau and Mirjam about the race and how they’re feeling after such impressive performances!
Mirjam von Rohr
Mirjam is one of the youngest competitors regularly appearing in top-level Hyrox competition. Despite her age, she is one of the most dominant. Last year, Mirjam won the Hyrox European Championships and holds the Hyrox World Record in her age group. She also took 1st place for Switzerland in the CrossFit Open. The time she set this weekend in Stuttgart, of 1 hour and 2 minutes, is the 4th fastest Hyrox time ever. Mirjam is known as being a station specialist, if you want to see something really impressive, here’s Mirjam doing 1000 wall balls in under 40 minutes! That said, her marathon time is pretty impressive too!
Here’s our chat with Mirjam:
How were you feeling going into the race?
I was very relaxed once I reached the start, but my travel to the event was not the best.
I checked in only around 30 minutes before the start of the race!
I then got in a very short warm-up.
Any observations about the race?
I felt very good from the first lap. I said to myself, ‘today is your day for a new best time!’
It was a fun race and I smiled a lot. I am happy with the workouts especially. In the row, lunges and wallballs I set the fastest overall times in Hyrox history!
The burpees in this event were particularly hard for me. My legs were tired going into them and then the run after the burpees was very hard and slow. But, after the farmers carry, my legs recovered a bit and I was able to run faster.
At the second from last run, I looked at my watch and saw I could definitively set a Personal Best time, which was my goal.
In this event I have shown that is possible for anyone to set a very good time: even if you are not the best runner, but a strong athlete – for example. This is Hyrox and every athlete is unique and can make their own race.
How does it feel to win such a big event in Europe?
I’m very happy 😀
What’s the plan for the future?
Setting a new World Record, faster than Mikaela Norman’s, was not quite possible today, but perhaps in a few months?
Beau Wills
Like the Pro Women’s winner, Mirjam, Beau has a solid CrossFit background and is impressive to watch on the stations. Beau is known as a high-level coach, owning a CrossFit/Hyrox Affiliated Gym and being one of the Hyrox coaches on the LEVLs App. He had a hugely impressive performance at Hyrox London towards the end of last year where he took second place in an exciting race featuring James Kelly and Tim Wenisch (two athletes also in the sub-60 club). This race lands him the 11th fastest time of the season and as one to watch going into the second half of the season.
Here’s our chat with Beau:
How was your training going into this event? Anything you changed that led to the result and cracking that 60 minute barrier?
Training leading up to the event was going well. I managed to get everything done that I wanted too, even with a big trip/holiday back home to New Zealand for 3 weeks over Christmas.
It’s looked pretty much the same all year with a focus on running since I come from a CrossFit background.
I’d say I have had a little more structure in my running work the last 6 weeks thanks to some help from Tom Hogan.
How does it feel to win such a big event in Europe?
The biggest goal for me was to get that sub-60 time that could be competitive for an Elite 15 spot.
But of course I’m hyper competitive so it was a very nice bonus getting on top of the podium.
It was a really tough battle the entire race with Dieter and Sebastian.
Any observations about the race?
As always everyone starts crazy fast, the people in contention are usually moving to the front around the sled pull, if they’re not already there.
This was the case in [this race] and it was the same 3 in front for the remainder.
I tried to stick to the paces I new I could stay in control with and not let others pull me in.
This is my 6th Pro race now so I was confident with my strategy.
What’s the plan now?
I think this was confirmation that my training is working so I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing.
My time might not be safe for the Elite 15 so I plan to race at least 1 more time this season to see if I can bring it down before the World Championships.
Huge congratulations to both Mirjam and Beau, we can’t wait to see what they do for the rest of the season!