What Should You Eat in the 24 Hours Before a HYROX Race?
You can train perfectly for 12 weeks and still have a terrible race if you get your fueling wrong.
HYROX is demanding. You're running 8 km while repeatedly asking your body to produce high-intensity efforts across sleds, burpees, lunges, ergs and wall balls.
The goal of the final 24 hours is simple:
Fill the tank. Hydrate. Keep your gut happy. And don't experiment.
1. THE 24 HOURS BEFORE: CARBS ARE YOUR FRIEND
Your body stores carbohydrate primarily as glycogen in your muscles and liver. During a high-intensity event like HYROX, carbohydrate is one of your most important fuel sources.
This is NOT the day to drastically cut your food because you want to “feel light.”
A practical target for the day before your race is:
6–8 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight
For example:
60 kg athlete → 360–480 g carbs
70 kg athlete → 420–560 g carbs
75 kg athlete → 450–600 g carbs
80 kg athlete → 480–640 g carbs
90 kg athlete → 540–720 g carbs
You don't need to obsess over hitting the exact gram.
The idea is to make carbohydrates the priority throughout the day and arrive at the start line with your glycogen stores well stocked.
Good options
Rice, pasta, bread, bagels, potatoes, oats, cereal, pancakes, bananas, fruit, juice, honey, jam and other familiar carbohydrate-rich foods can all work.
Choose foods you already know your stomach handles well.
2. DON'T TURN YOUR CARB LOAD INTO A FOOD CHALLENGE
450–600+ grams of carbohydrate can sound like an enormous amount of food.
That's why your food choices matter.
You don't necessarily want to get all those carbohydrates from huge bowls of high-fiber food.
As you approach the race, favour easily digestible carbohydrate sources and consider reducing foods that are very high in:
Fiber
Fat
Grease/oil
Heavy sauces
Spice
Higher intakes of fat and fibre are associated with greater risk of gastrointestinal problems during endurance exercise.
Most importantly:
Race weekend is NOT the time to experiment.
That exciting new restaurant can wait.
Your stomach doesn't care that it has 4.8 stars on Google.
3. HYDRATION STARTS THE DAY BEFORE
Don't wait until race morning to suddenly start drinking litres of water.
Hydrate consistently throughout the previous day.
Water plus appropriate sodium/electrolytes can be useful, particularly if you're racing somewhere hot, you're a heavy sweater, or you lose a lot of salt through sweat.
Sodium helps maintain extracellular fluid balance and can improve fluid retention.
But more isn't automatically better.
The goal is to arrive hydrated, not waterlogged.
As you get closer to the race, avoid suddenly drinking huge quantities of fluid because you realised you “forgot to hydrate.”
Highly concentrated carbohydrate drinks can also slow gastric emptying and increase the likelihood of gastrointestinal discomfort.
Do most of the work earlier and sip fluids normally as race time approaches.
4. RACE-DAY MEAL: AROUND 3 HOURS BEFORE
This isn't the morning to suddenly become creative with breakfast.
Eat something you've eaten successfully before training.
Your meal should primarily contain carbohydrates, with relatively low amounts of fat and fibre.
A broad sports-nutrition guideline for pre-exercise carbohydrate is approximately:
1–4 g carbohydrate/kg body weight, 1–4 hours before exercise.
You don't have to force yourself towards the top end.
For a HYROX race roughly 3 hours away, choose an amount you know you can comfortably digest.
Examples:
Toast/bagel + banana + honey
Oats + banana + honey
Rice + eggs
Pancakes + banana/honey
Cereal + milk, if you tolerate dairy well
Your exact meal matters less than one important rule:
Eat what you've already tested in training.
5. 30–60 MINUTES BEFORE THE RACE
Now we're topping up rather than eating another meal.
This is where simple carbohydrates can be useful.
For example:
Banana 🍌
Provides easily accessible carbohydrate and is generally easy to digest.
Dates
Compact source of carbohydrate. They're useful when you don't feel like eating a large volume of food.
Honey 🍯
Primarily simple carbohydrate, making it an easy way to get a small amount of carbohydrate without eating much solid food.
A small amount of salt / sodium
Potentially useful particularly for athletes who sweat heavily or are racing in hot conditions.
But don't suddenly start eating spoonfuls of salt before your race.
Your sodium strategy should ideally be something you've already practised.
6. WHAT ABOUT AN ENERGY GEL?
For many athletes, a gel shortly before the start is a convenient way to top up carbohydrate availability.
My practical strategy:
1 gel approximately 10–20 minutes before the race
Take it with some water unless the product is specifically designed to be consumed without it.
But there's one important condition:
NEVER TRY A NEW GEL ON RACE DAY.
Different gels contain different carbohydrate mixtures, concentrations and sometimes caffeine.
Test your race gel during HYROX simulations or hard training sessions first.
Train your gut just like you train your sled push.
7. SHOULD YOU TAKE A GEL DURING HYROX?
It depends.
A HYROX race for many athletes lasts somewhere around 60–100+ minutes, so carbohydrate during the event can potentially be useful, particularly for athletes racing toward the longer end of that range.
General sports-nutrition recommendations for exercise lasting longer than approximately an hour commonly suggest around 30–60 g carbohydrate per hour.
But HYROX isn't a half marathon.
Stopping repeatedly to fuel can also be inconvenient.
A practical approach for someone who has tested gels during training could be:
Gel #1 → 10–20 min before the start
Gel #2 → somewhere around the middle/latter part of the race, if needed and tolerated
For example, around the row/farmer's carry section can work practically for some athletes.
But don't blindly follow this.
If you're finishing close to an hour and you've eaten properly beforehand, your requirements can be very different from someone racing for 90–120 minutes.
8. DON'T CHUG YOUR DRINK RIGHT BEFORE THE START
There's no universal rule saying:
“Stop electrolytes exactly one hour before HYROX.”
Electrolytes themselves aren't the enemy.
What you want to avoid is reaching the final hour under-hydrated and then trying to fix everything by chugging a huge bottle.
Large fluid volumes and highly concentrated carbohydrate drinks can sit uncomfortably in the stomach, and high-intensity exercise itself can slow gastric emptying.
Hydrate early. Sip closer to the race.
Don't spend your first kilometre feeling like you're carrying an aquarium in your stomach.
9. WHAT SHOULD YOU AVOID?
In the final 24 hours — and especially closer to race time — be careful with:
❌ Foods you've never eaten before
❌ Very fatty/fried meals
❌ Excessively high-fibre meals
❌ Huge meals close to the race
❌ Excess alcohol
❌ Over-hydrating immediately before racing
❌ New gels, supplements or pre-workouts
❌ Suddenly increasing caffeine beyond what you're accustomed to
The rule is incredibly simple:
Nothing new on race day.
YOUR SIMPLE HYROX FUELLING TIMELINE
24 HOURS BEFORE
Prioritise carbohydrates: approximately 6–8 g/kg across the day.
Hydrate consistently.
Keep food familiar.
~3 HOURS BEFORE
Eat your normal, carbohydrate-focused pre-training breakfast/meal.
Keep fat and fibre relatively low.
30–60 MINUTES BEFORE
Optional small carbohydrate top-up:
Banana / dates / honey / another familiar simple-carb source.
Continue sipping fluids according to thirst.
10–20 MINUTES BEFORE
Optional energy gel + water, if you've practised it.
DURING HYROX
Water as needed.
For longer race durations, consider another tested carbohydrate source/gel during the race.
THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE
Your race-day nutrition strategy shouldn't actually be a race-day strategy.
It should be a strategy you've already rehearsed during training.
Test your breakfast.
Test your hydration.
Test your gels.
Test the timing.
Find out what your stomach tolerates before race day.
You've spent weeks building the engine.
Don't arrive at the start line without fuel in the tank.
