You’ve probably heard this before if you’re a long-time listener of Race Brain:

  • Several hosts claim that Milwaukee is the “home of hybrid racing,” likely because that’s where they and their friends live
  • I don’t like it when people make up stats without backing it up with data

Let’s see who is right.

WHICH ATHLETES WERE INCLUDED

I looked at every single HYROX Pro and DEKA FIT result by athletes from the US, Canada, and Mexico.  If you don’t live in North America, haven’t raced within the past 2 years, or haven’t run a race with Pro weights, then you weren’t included in the dataset.  A lot of athletes have run both a HYROX and a DEKA FIT, so I only included them once to avoid duplicates.

Cut-Off Times

I needed to choose a time cut-off to define what a “fast” athlete is, so only those with a Pro PR at least 1 standard deviation above the average were included.  In simpler terms, if your PR is faster than about 2 out of every 3 athletes in the Pro division, then you were classified as a “fast” athlete.  After rounding to the nearest whole minute, here were the HYROX time cut-off times to be included in the dataset:

Using similar logic, the cut-off time for each DEKA distance is:

  • FIT = 33:30 for men and 38:00 for women
  • MILE = 19:30 for men and 21:00 for women
  • STRONG = 12:15 for men and 14:00 for women

In total, 533 athletes met the HYROX and/or DEKA FIT criteria described above:

  • HYROX only = 84 women and 205 men
  • DEKA only = 82 women and 65 men
  • Both HYROX and DEKA = 37 women and 45 men

Determining Metro Areas

Fortunately, a lot of people list where they live in race results or on Instagram, so I was able to find hometowns for 518 of these 533 athletes (over 97%).  From there, I assigned each athlete to the closest metropolitan or micropolitan area.  I reached out to several people who live in many of these areas to help with this process.  Basically, if it takes you over an hour or so to drive without traffic and meet someone to do a workout together, I split you into separate metro areas.

Let’s look at Rich Ryan and me, for instance.  Rich lives in Arvada, a suburb of Denver, while I live over an hour south in Colorado Springs.  We both live in Colorado, but I split us up into different metro areas since local residents would categorize them differently.

Similarly, there are other metro areas (like Los Angeles) that take well over 2 hours to drive across, so I split those into smaller regions (Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside, and Santa Barbara).

TIERS OF ATHLETES

This article has only looked at the top-third of times in the Pro division so far, but If we’re trying to determine where the best-of-the-best hybrid athletes live, we should break down the results even further.  After all, Lauren Weeks and Hunter McIntyre have run 15+ minutes faster than other athletes on this list, so there’s a wide variety of ability levels even at the top of the sport.  I won’t go into the math, but here are the time cut-offs for each tier:

The table below summarizes the metro areas home to the most athletes in each tier.  I’ll include maps later in this article showing all metro areas in North America with at least 1 athlete who meets A-, B-, or C-tier criteria.

 A-Tier

Seven metro areas have at least 2 male/female athletes who have gone sub-59/65 for HYROX or met A-tier criteria for at least one of the 3 DEKA distances:

  • Austin (3) – Carolyn Watkins, Robin Persegol, Vivian Tafuto
  • Denver (3) – Isaac Sanderson, Kris Rugloski, Rich Ryan
  • New York City (3) – Alandra Greenlee, Jack Driscoll, Katherine Fahsbender
  • Boise (2) – Greyson Kilgore, Katie Duke
  • Los Angeles (2) – Anass Zouhry, Hunter McIntyre
  • Milwaukee (2) – Dawson Miller, Marcus Wallace
  • New Haven (2) – Amy Bevilacqua, Kevin Gregory

B-Tier

Chicago (9) has the most male/female athletes who have gone sub-64/69 at HYROX or met B-tier criteria for at least one of the 3 DEKA distances.  Denver (7), Washington, DC (7), and Austin (7), and Toronto (6) were the other cities with at least 6 athletes meeting this criteria.  Currently, 32 metro areas have multiple athletes meeting B-tier criteria.

Here are the metro areas with the highest number of athletes if you combine the total athletes who have met A-tier and B-tier time cut-offs:

  • 10 – Austin, Denver, Chicago
  • 8 – Washington, DC
  • 7 – New York City, Toronto
  • 6 – Milwaukee

C-Tier

One trend I noticed is that many metro areas with a lot of athletes with C-tier times are the same areas where HYROX or DEKA FIT has held an event.  These brands tend to go to the same 8-10 cities year-after-year in North America.

If we look at the top-10 metro areas with the most C-tier athletes, HYROX has held an event in 8 of them within the past 2 years.  Coincidence?

  • 18 – New York City
  • 11 – Dallas
  • 10 – Nashville, Philadelphia
  • 9 – Houston, Miami, Washington DC
  • 8 – Chicago, Los Angeles, Orange County

My guess is that there are a lot of talented athletes who only go to their local event rather than flying to a race.  Many of them probably return to their hometown race the following year(s), which often leads to a significant PR now that they’re more familiar with how the race will feel.

MAPS

HYROX and DEKA Combined

Finally, this is the map you were waiting for.  All athletes who have met A-, B-, or C-tier criteria are included.  The larger the circle, the more high-performing HYROX and/or DEKA athletes live in a certain location.

 HYROX Only

As seen in the map below, high-performing HYROX athletes tend to live in the same large cities where HYROX events have been held.  In fact, 8 of the 10 metro areas with the largest presence of high-performing HYROX athletes have hosted a HYROX event in the past year.

 

DEKA Only

Unlike HYROX, high-performing DEKA athletes are spread throughout the country rather than being concentrated in large cities.  This is consistent with DEKA’s affiliate program, which focuses on local gym events throughout the year for 2 of the distances DEKA offers (MILE and STRONG). 

CONCLUSION

Initially, I thought the winner would be either Denver or Washington, DC based on a lot of interactions I’ve had with athletes through the years.  However, the numbers don’t lie.  I’ve got to admit, despite being the largest city in the US, I didn’t expect the New York City metro area to have (by far) the most high-performing hybrid racing athletes.  Chicago has hosted several world-class HYROX races through the years, so it’s no surprise that they ranked close to the top of the list.  Despite having only a fraction of NYC’s population, metro areas like Austin, Denver, and Washington, DC are home to some of the largest number of high-performing hybrid racing athletes.

Bottom line:  it’s time for Matt to stop calling Milwaukee “the home of hybrid racing.”  That title belongs to New York City.