Nashville’s Sydney Wells Stops Splitting Her Week Between CrossFit and Hyrox

• Nashville-based Sydney Wells, a 2023 CrossFit Games athlete, has made Hyrox her main sport after a trial run of splitting her week between the two.
• She races Women’s Pro Doubles with partner Lauren Griffith, and the pair has won in Las Vegas, New York, and Washington, DC.
• Her training now centers on about three hours of cardio a day, six days a week, with three harder days that blend running and strength work.

A Sprinter’s Engine Finds a New Race

Sydney Wells tried the balanced approach first. Three days a week went to CrossFit, and the other days went to Hyrox. The plan lasted until she admitted that neither sport was getting her full attention. She told Rox Lyfe she wanted to go all in, and that she did not want Hyrox to be a side quest. That decision, made after a conversation with the team at PRVN, changed her training week, her coach, and her race schedule.

Wells lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and she brings an unusual mix of skills to the sport. She has a gymnastics background, ran the 400 meters and the 4 x 400 meter relay at the University of Missouri, and reached the CrossFit Games in 2023. Her fastest 400 meters was 53 seconds. Her twin sister, Brooke, also competes in CrossFit and Hyrox, and Sydney names her as an influence. In September 2025 the sisters finished second in Pro Doubles at the first Hyrox Boston, according to Morning Chalk Up.

A Hyrox race is simple to describe and hard to pace. Athletes run eight kilometers, split into eight one-kilometer runs, and complete a different station after each run. The stations are the SkiErg, sled push, sled pull, burpee broad jumps, rowing, farmers carry, sandbag lunges, and wall balls. Divisions include Open, Pro, Doubles, Doubles Mixed, Relay, and age groups, and the format is the same in every city, so a time in Nashville compares with a time in Boston.

What a Hyrox Week Looks Like for a Full-Time Competitor

Wells trains under Cole Learn, a Hyrox racer himself. The bulk of her week looks quiet from the outside. She spends around three hours a day on cardio, six days a week, and most of it stays easy and controlled. That includes time on the machines she will face on race day. Three days a week turn harder, with faster running paired with strength work.

Saturday shows the pattern. She starts with a morning threshold run, which is a sustained effort near the pace an athlete could hold for about an hour. Later in the day she returns for work on the BikeErg. Some sessions pair running with stations, such as rowing and sandbag lunges, so her legs learn to move fast after heavy work.

The shift away from CrossFit changed the type of hard effort she does. In CrossFit preparation she repeated all-out machine pieces again and again. Hyrox asks for less of that. A race lasts about an hour for the best athletes, and the real test is how well a runner can keep a steady pace between stations without fading in the second half.

Her strengths show up in the stations that borrow from CrossFit. She feels comfortable with lunges, the SkiErg, and rowing. The farmers carry is where she wants work. Carrying kettlebells felt awkward to her, and she plans to give it more practice. Every Hyrox athlete finds a station like that, and the best way to find yours is to try the movements before race day.

Racing Doubles With Lauren Griffith

Wells and Griffith race Women’s Pro Doubles, where two athletes share the work. They run every kilometer together and split the station work between them. Their wins in Las Vegas, New York, and Washington, DC, include a 56:00 finish in the capital. For comparison, a Berlin racer who wrote about her first Hyrox for Women’s Health finished a doubles race in 1:06 and was told the average women’s doubles time was 1:28, with sub-hour finishes counted as elite.

Doubles carries its own challenge. When Griffith carries, Wells still has to keep moving, so there is little time to recover. That leaves each partner with a mix of work and short rest that a solo racer never feels. Wells says she and Griffith chat just before the start, and she avoids new treatments or unfamiliar routines on race day. She keeps her routine close to her normal life in Nashville. Her reasoning is plain: she does better when she does not put a lot of pressure on herself.

What Her Move Offers Newcomers

Wells is one of many CrossFit competitors who have moved toward Hyrox in the past two seasons. Hyrox returns to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center from October 8 to 11, 2026, its second visit to the city. The first Boston weekend in September 2025 drew more than 12,000 competitors, and organizers have said US participation grew more than 300 percent year over year before the 2025 to 2026 season, according to reporting from Hoodline and RoxLyfe.

For a first-timer, the lesson from Wells is practical. You do not need a CrossFit Games résumé to start. The format has no qualifying times, and the loads change by division. A newcomer can borrow the structure of her week at a smaller scale: easy aerobic work for the bulk of the week, one or two sessions that pair running with stations, and a few reps on the movement that feels worst. If you have a Saturday long run, add a short block on a rower or bike afterward and see how your legs respond.

Her interview lists no specific next race. What she has made clear is the direction. A woman who reached the CrossFit Games now trains six days a week for an eight-kilometer race, and she says she performs best when she keeps the pressure low.