HCP #89 - JK race review, HYROX Washington DC preview, CrossFit Open 2026

**Anthony** (0:10)
This is episode 89 of the Hybrid Coaching Podcast. In this episode, JK and I talked about his race in Taipei the past weekend. Then we followed up with a little discussion on Washington DC coming up this coming weekend, the first regional of the season. And then we talked a little bit about the CrossFit Open and 26.1 and what we think 26.2 might be. Let's make Hybrid Fitness work for you.
How's it going today, JK?

**JK** (0:50)
I'm well, thank you, Mr. Peressini. Now, I think Zoom has changed their speaker, or that was a lady this time. I'm pretty sure it's been a guy in the background. Anyway, sorry.

**Anthony** (1:07)
Oh, the thing that says recording in progress?

**JK** (1:11)
Your voice is being recorded. That was like a different voice.

**Anthony** (1:17)
Anyway, maybe it's in the settings.

**JK** (1:21)
Have you changed AI? Ladies on me, have you?

**Anthony** (1:27)
No, I haven't touched any of the settings. It's always been a lady for me, so I'm wondering if it's on your side. Did you change your settings?

**JK** (1:34)
Maybe it is. But anyway, I'm well, thank you, Anthony. It's, what is it, Thursday, Thursday morning, my time, Wednesday, midday for you.
Jimmy, you're gearing up for this weekend coming, the DC major, mate. How's things with you?

**Anthony** (1:55)
Yeah, it's good. I am, yes, gearing up. It's a lot of work the week before the majors for me because I got to get a lot done before I fly out, especially ones that I'm going to.
It's a regional, so it's basically a major, but only for one-third of the Earth, which is the Americas.

**JK** (2:17)
This is the first regional out of the three, so I'm excited to watch it.

**Anthony** (2:28)
Yeah, I'm excited to see how it goes. Before we get into that, because I do have a couple of notes on it that we can talk about later.
Today, guys, we're going to talk, first off, about how your race in Taipei went, because you just went there. I wanted to get a little bit of insight to everyone for how you raced. Then we'll go a little bit about DC. We're not going to spend too much time on DC. I think there's a lot of other areas that cover that, but I would like to give people their due there.
I'll give you guys a little bit of update about my neck nerve thing. I did have somebody write a comment in and ask, thinking they had a similar issue. I'll give an update to that. Then we didn't talk about it last time, but the CrossFit Open is happening right now. I want to talk about that a little bit. Then one topic, I don't know if we'll get to it today, but I decided since we had questions about it and I had other people asking me, I want to do a podcast about VO2max. Because we obviously talk a lot about training threshold. How does VO2max fall into that? Because that's the stat that everybody's like, well, what's your VO2? They ask and they think it's a measure of fitness and everything. So it's going to give probably not a comprehensive view, but I want to give what mine and what I want to know what your comprehension of VO2max is, and is it useful what we use it for, and just opinion about how it's used in fitness and in performance. Yeah, sure.

**JK** (4:14)
Yeah, absolutely. That's funny because I don't think we've well, we've discussed it probably lightly, Anthony, but not in depth. So if you don't get around to it today, I'm excited to chat about it.

**Anthony** (4:26)
And yeah, we might touch on it today, but it's probably a full episode in itself, which means that it's probably going to be the next one. Yeah, sure.

**JK** (4:35)
Yeah, definitely.

**Anthony** (4:36)
And maybe we can even title it the way that we title the threshold ones. How to use VO2max and Hybrid Fitness Training or something.

**JK** (4:47)
Yeah.

**Anthony** (4:48)
Or VO2max training for HYROX. But we'll leave that more structured, but we'll give a brief overview of it maybe at the end of this episode.

**JK** (4:58)
Yeah, that sounds good to me.

**Anthony** (5:01)
So I want to start with Taipei.
You went and ran Taipei this weekend with Matt Slee. You guys did it because you needed to get a time in to qualify you for the APAC regional in Brisbane. That's in about five or six weeks, right? So I think what's important here is that you guys went and ran that. You guys had a great time. We'll talk about that. You also decided the following day to follow it up with that doubles open race. And I'm wondering when we'll talk about why you did that. I just want your perspective on why you did the doubles open race because it had to have been something personal or something just for you guys because it served no... it doesn't get you points. It doesn't get you like a time for anything. Like there was no elite reason to do it for the elite racing. So I want to point out why elite athletes would want to run an open race or would want to run a different division. So let's start with your pro doubles race, though. How'd that go?