ROXJAYA WARRIORS by Dina Rosdiana

Race week

Nothing new. The week before a race is for eating what your body already knows, slightly more of it, and salting it. Training volume drops, so the carbohydrate you eat actually gets stored.

• Carbohydrate up, not calories up. From three days out, make rice, noodles, potatoes, oats or bread the biggest thing on the plate at each meal. Ease back on fried food and heavy fat — they slow digestion and you'll feel it at 6 a.m. Sunday.
• Salt your food. Living in Jakarta you already sweat a lot; race week is when you want your body topped up, not catching up. Extra salt on meals and an electrolyte drink with one training session a day.
• Fibre down from two days out. Swap big salads and raw vegetables for cooked vegetables and white rice. Less gut volume, less risk on race morning.
• Alcohol off. Even one drink the night before costs you sleep quality and hydration you can't get back.

Dina's cue

"Boring food, big sleep." If race week is exciting on the plate, you've got it the wrong way round.

The night before

Eat early — 6 to 7 p.m. — and eat normal. A plate of rice or pasta with a palm-sized portion of chicken or fish and a little cooked vegetable is perfect. The famous "carb load" pasta mountain the night before mostly loads your stomach; the storing happened in the three days before.

• 6–7 p.m.Dinner: carb-based, low fat, familiar
• 500 mlElectrolyte drink through the evening
• Small snackBanana or toast if you're up late

Lay your race kit and your race food out on the table before bed — gel, salt, pickle juice, bottle — so morning is autopilot.

Race morning

Work backwards from your start time. Everything here has been practised on a hard training morning at least twice — you're not trying anything for the first time when it counts.

• −3 hMain meal: 80–120 g carbohydrate, little fat/fibre. Rice or oats with honey, white toast and jam, a bagel with banana. Coffee if you always have coffee.
• −2 h to −1 hSip 500 ml electrolyte drink. Stop drinking big volumes an hour out.
• −40 minTop-up: banana, rice cake with honey, or half a sports drink. 20–30 g carbohydrate.
• −15 minSmall sip of water; optional caffeine gel or shot if you've trained with it.

If you're an early heat (7–8 a.m.), the −3 h meal becomes a 4 a.m. alarm. Eat it, go back to bed for 90 minutes. It matters more than the sleep you lose.

Dina's cue

"Race-morning stomach is a real thing." Liquid carbs — sports drink, diluted juice — count when solids won't go down.

During the race

You don't need to eat much, if anything — but the halls are cold, dry and you're sweating buckets, so drink you do need.

• Under ~75 minutes: a proper breakfast is enough. Water or electrolyte sips at the row and after the farmers carry.
• 80 minutes and beyond: one gel or 20–30 g of fast carbohydrate around halfway — after the burpee broad jumps or in the Roxzone before the row is the easiest place to get it down. A second one at the farmers carry if you're heading past 100 minutes.
• Doubles: you rest while your partner works — take your sips then, not while you're running.
• Pin it, don't hold it. Gels in a race belt or the waistband, never in your hand — you'll need both for the sled rope.

Cramps

Hyrox cramps hit in the lunges, the wall balls and run seven, and they're mostly fatigue plus sweat loss rather than "low potassium". Prevention is race-week salt and a proper electrolyte drink in the two hours before. The fix when one starts:

• Pickle juice or a mustard sachet. A 30–50 ml shot. It's not the salt — the sharp taste fires a nerve reflex that switches the cramping muscle off within about a minute. Dina carries a small bottle in her race belt; a lot of experienced racers do.
• Change the pattern, don't stop. Shorten the lunge step, shallow the wall-ball squat for five reps, walk ten steps of the run. Standing still and stretching makes the next minute worse.
• Then a mouthful of electrolyte. Not a whole bottle — you'll hear it on the next run.

Dina's cue

"If you cramp in every race, it's your training, not your bananas." More volume at race intensity is what makes the muscle stop panicking.

Afterwards

Within an hour: 500 ml of something with salt and carbohydrate, then a real meal with 30–40 g protein and plenty of carbohydrate. Rice, eggs and sambal is a perfectly good recovery meal. The photo, the medal and the coffee can all wait twenty minutes.

If you're racing doubles or relay the next day, this hour is the whole difference between a good second race and a slow one.

Racing abroad

Many Jakarta athletes race Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong. Two nutrition rules for travel races:

• Bring your breakfast. Oats, honey, a banana, rice cakes and your electrolyte powder fit in a hand-luggage bag. The hotel breakfast doesn't open at 4 a.m. and the convenience store might not have what you tested.
• Eat the local food after, not before. Street food the night before a race is the most common travel-race mistake there is. Saturday night is for the pasta you know; the night market is your reward on Sunday.