Before you read on
- When you race
- 17–21 March 2027
- How many nights to book
- 3 nights
- Who this race suits
- Ten minutes from the airport, fifteen from one of the great European cities.
- Nearest airport to the venue
- Adolfo Suarez Madrid-Barajas (MAD), About 10 min on Metro line 8, with no change
- Cost for the weekend
- EUR 697 (USD 808) per person, Flights and race entry.
On this page
Should you race here?
Ten minutes from the airport, fifteen from the Prado, on the highest plateau in Europe.
Reasons to
- Metro line 8 runs from Barajas to the venue in ten minutes with no change.
- Bright and dry: 16.3°C (61°F) and 25mm of rain across four days.
- The Prado, the Reina Sofia and Retiro park are all twenty to twenty-five minutes down the same line.
- The race weekend crosses the equinox, so the daylight is back after a winter of racing in the dark.
Reasons not to
- Rooms by the venue average about EUR 184, which is business-district pricing for a fairground district.
- 6.2°C (43°F) at dawn, which is colder than people expect from Spain.
- Spanish eating hours. Kitchens open at eight thirty and the city arrives at ten.
Conditions on the day
Fitness Park HYROX Madrid runs March 17th, 2027 to March 21st, 2027 at IFEMA Madrid. Here is what that specific window is like on the ground.
The catch
Bright and dry, cold at dawn
16°C (61°F) by day, 6°C (43°F) at night
Madrid in late March
- The March average reaches 16.3°C (61°F) by day and falls to 6.2°C (43°F) at night.
- That is a ten degree swing, and at 650 metres on a dry plateau the mornings are sharper than the number suggests.
- Only 25mm of rain falls across four days, and humidity is 55%.
- Daylight runs 07:18 to 19:26, just past the equinox and over twelve hours.
- Daylight
- Dark
- Bar height is temperature
What racing here is like
Your race is here
IFEMA Madrid
March 17th, 2027
Fitness Park HYROX Madrid
- Everything below describes this building first, and the other for comparison
The venue at a glance
- Address
- Avenida del Partenon 5, Feria de Madrid
- Nearest station
- Feria de Madrid, Metro line 8, opposite the south entrance (at the venue)
- Parking
- Prepaid parking at IFEMA is EUR 15 a day.
- From the nearest hotel
- 5 to 15 min from Hotels around IFEMA
- Altitude
- 650m above sea level, low enough to make no difference to your race.
- Bag drop
- Hyrox has not published the bag drop arrangement for Madrid.
- Supporters
- Hyrox has not published spectator ticketing for Madrid.
Madrid has moved building, moved season, and grown from a single day into the best part of a week. Where you race, and when, changes the day more than most people expect.
IFEMA Madrid, your race is in this building
Twelve halls on the northern edge of the city between the centre and the airport, with its own metro station opposite the south entrance.
Known for. ARCO, FITUR and the Mad Cool and Mobile World shows, and for being one of the largest fairgrounds in Europe.
The building. Opened on this site in 1991 as Madrid built its exhibition business out towards Barajas, and extended repeatedly since.
Race day and start times
The thing that shapes your travel is not the race date. It is when you find out what time you are racing on it.
Hyrox links individual start times on the event page about three days before the race. A provisional schedule goes up earlier.
What to bring
At IFEMA, and only on the day you compete. Registration opens 90 minutes before the first wave of your division.
You do not bring a chip. You collect the ankle strap at check-in, wear it for the race, and hand it back after the line.
What your wristband does not cover
You are given a wristband at check-in. Hyrox has not published what the Madrid one admits you to. Check-in is open only on the day you race, so do not assume it covers a second day.
Getting there on the morning
Metro line 8 to Feria de Madrid, which stops opposite the south entrance. Trains run from six, which covers every wave.
What you need to book
Before you book
Book flights and the last night around the provisional schedule, not around a wave you have not been given.
If Hyrox cancels or postpones the event, its terms do not cover your flights or your room. Check the cancellation deadline on both before you pay for either.
Flying into the city
There is no second airport worth considering, because everything comes through Barajas.
Search flights to MadridBy train
Check train times and faresSomewhere to stay
The closest beds go first, and those are the ones that matter on race morning.
Compare hotels near the venueSomething to do with the rest of the weekend
Most people fly in for one race and see nothing. The day before is dead time if you do not plan it.
Tours and tickets in MadridSomewhere to put your bag
Flying out the same evening? This is the difference between a good afternoon and hauling a kit bag around a city.
Left luggage in MadridYour entry
Sold by Hyrox, one ticket per division per day. We earn nothing from this link and include it because you need it.
Official Hyrox entriesEstimate weekend cost
| Item | Local currency | USD |
|---|---|---|
| Three nights Nights near the venue | EUR 552 | $639 |
| Travel, airport and around the city | EUR 35 | $41 |
| Eating, three days | EUR 110 | $128 |
| One athlete plus one supporter | EUR 697 | $808 |
Getting to Madrid
Madrid-Barajas is about ten minutes from the venue on Metro line 8, with no change.
Metro line 8 from Barajas
Ten minutes from the airport to Feria de Madrid with no change, for four and a half to five euros including the airport supplement.
The same line into the city
Line 8 continues from the venue to Nuevos Ministerios in about fifteen minutes, where it meets most of the rest of the network.
Entry requirements
Quick tip
There is an airport supplement of three euros on top of the single fare. A day ticket at EUR 10.30 includes it.
Getting to the venue
IFEMA is on the northern edge with business hotels around it. The centre is fifteen minutes away on line 8 and is where you should be.
Line 8 is the whole story here. It runs from the airport to Feria de Madrid in about ten minutes and on into the city in another fifteen, so the venue sits between the two things you need. There is an airport supplement on the fare but none on the city leg.
Where to stay
IFEMA is on the northern edge of the city between the centre and the airport. Line 8 connects all three, and the centre is fifteen minutes away.
Open in Google Maps · Get directions
1. Hotels around IFEMA
Business hotels built for the fairs, averaging about EUR 184 a night. Closest to the hall and empty in the evening.
2. Hotels in Salamanca and Chamberi
Grand nineteenth-century blocks, markets and good restaurants. On line 8 or a change away, and quieter than the middle.
3. Hotels in Sol, Malasana and La Latina
The old city, the museums and the tapas. Twenty minutes out and the reason to come to Madrid.
Nothing large is in IFEMA that week and March sits between the big fairs, so central rooms are at ordinary rates rather than fair-week ones.
Neighbourhoods worth the commute
Madrid is dense in the middle and spread out at the edges, and IFEMA is at an edge. Line 8 runs from it into the centre.
| Area | To the venue | Why | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| The IFEMA district | 5 to 15 min on foot | Fairground hotels and office parks between the city and the airport. Convenient, and there is nothing here. | |
| Salamanca | about 15 min by metro | A nineteenth-century grid of broad streets, the smartest shopping in Spain and a serious market hall at Mercado de la Paz. | |
| Chamberi | about 18 min by metro | Residential, well fed and almost without visitors, with the best neighbourhood restaurants in the city. | |
| Malasana | about 20 min by metro | The district that started the movida in the 1980s, now vintage shops, small bars and the youngest crowd. | |
| La Latina | about 22 min by metro | Medieval streets south of the palace, with the Rastro market on Sunday and tapas bars on every corner. |
Eating before and after
The night before a race is not the night for the best meal of your trip, which is harder discipline than it sounds in a city this good at food.
The IFEMA hotels
Fairground hotels serve early, which in Spain is the useful thing about them. Five minutes from the hall and nothing to recommend them otherwise.
Salamanca or Chamberi
Fifteen to eighteen minutes on the metro, with restaurants that will take an eight thirty booking and do you a plate of rice or fish.
Madrid eats late, eats standing up, and does a stew in March that was built for this altitude.
Cocido madrileno
Chickpeas, meat and vegetables simmered for hours and served in three courses from the same pot. About fifteen euros, and the dish Madrid winter was built around.
Tapas in Chamberi
A residential district twenty minutes out where the bars serve locals rather than visitors, at about four euros a plate. Better and cheaper than the centre.
Race day supplies
The practical failures that spoil a race weekend are almost never the training. They are forgetting the gels, or carrying a kit bag around a city for six hours.
Pack list
- A warm layer for the morning. It is 6.2°C (43°F) at dawn at 650 metres, which is colder than a Spanish March sounds.
- Lip balm. At 55% humidity on a high plateau the air is drier than most of Europe.
- Little waterproofing. Twenty-five millimetres across four days is almost nothing.
Quick tips
- Buy the EUR 10.30 day ticket. It covers the airport supplement, which a single does not.
- Book dinner for eight thirty. Nobody will mind, and ten o'clock is too late the night before.
The IFEMA district has little beyond the hotels. Nuevos Ministerios, fifteen minutes down line 8, has everything.
The last race in Madrid
IFEMA is a recent addition to the Hyrox calendar, so there is little previous form here to pass on.
What happened
The last edition, in short.
- Feria de Madrid on Metro line 8 is opposite the south entrance, and the same line reaches the airport in ten minutes.
- The site runs to twelve halls, so check your hall number before you choose an entrance.
What it means for you
How your race differs from that one.
- March in Madrid is dry and bright but cold at dawn: the overnight average is 6.2°C (43°F).
- Spanish kitchens open at eight thirty and fill at ten, late for the night before a race.
What else is on that weekend
The start of the Madrid spring, and nothing competing for the halls.
| What | When | Where | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| The spring equinox | 20 March | Everywhere | The race weekend crosses it. Twelve hours of daylight and climbing, after a winter calendar that mostly raced in the dark. |
| Real Madrid and Atletico | Check the fixture lists | The Bernabeu and the Metropolitano | The Metropolitano is three stops from IFEMA on line 7 and the Bernabeu is on line 10. A home game moves 60,000 people. |
| El Rastro | Every Sunday morning | La Latina | The city's flea market runs from nine until three every Sunday, and the tapas bars around it fill afterwards. |
| Nothing booked into IFEMA | 17 to 21 March | The fairground | No fair is scheduled across the race days, so the halls and the metro station belong to the race. |
What to see
Written for someone racing tomorrow, not a tourist with a week. Each entry says how far it is, because some of these are worth a longer trip and some are not.
The Prado
Velazquez, Goya and Bosch in one building, including Las Meninas and the black paintings. One of the two or three best collections in the world and free in the last two hours.
The Reina Sofia
Guernica, in a room of its own, with the preparatory sketches around it. Also free in the evenings, and ten minutes from the Prado.
Retiro park
A royal garden of 125 hectares in the middle of the city, with a boating lake and a glasshouse. Free, flat and the best run in Madrid.
The Royal Palace
The largest functioning royal palace in Europe by floor area, with 3,400 rooms, of which you see about fifty. The changing of the guard is on Wednesdays.
What to do
El Rastro, on Sunday
A flea market that has run in La Latina since the sixteenth century, nine until three every Sunday, and the tapas crawl that follows it.
A tapas crawl
Standing at a bar, one plate, one drink, move on. La Latina and Chamberi do it best, and it is the only sensible way to eat late in this city.
Toledo, for the day
Half an hour by AVE from Atocha to a walled city on a rock, with El Greco's house and a cathedral that took 250 years. The best day trip in Spain.
The Guadarrama
An hour north by train, two-thousand-metre mountains with snow on them in March. The reason Madrid's air is dry and its nights are cold.
Raced here? Tell us about it.
Anything you wish you had known. It goes into this guide for the next person, and most of them have never done a Hyrox.
Things people find useful
- How early you really needed to arrive
- What caught you out
- What the hall was like inside
- Where your supporters watched from
- Anything good you did in the city
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Last updated November 7th, 2026.