1st Worlds Team in the Books..!

Hey Everyone,

I know this race recap is long overdue but with all the Bruin Alums in town for the UCLA-USC dual meet, things got pretty hectic! If you’re wondering, the Bruin men marched into SC and came away with a WIN, earmarked by great performances in the throws (as usual), the pole vault (as usual), and the distance events (as usual)!

Now back to the matter at hand. On Saturday, I competed in my first true duathlon at the Duathlon National Championships in Oro Valley, AZ. I placed fifth in the Elite field, fourth American. Team USA takes the top four Elite finishers to Worlds (Spain in September) and I was able to grab the last spot! Couldn’t be happier about that!!

The race began with a 5k run that went out hard for the first mile and settled down into a sub-5 effort for the next mile. By the turn-around just past mile 2, the field had begun to spread out and I found myself trailing four competitors. The last ¼ mile of the 5k was straight up a tsunami-of-a-hill, and that’s where I made my move. From my ol’ running days, my high school coach, Karl Weis (shout out!), always told me to run through the hill because all the other racers were only running to the top. I took that advice to heart and charged up and over that hill into T1, passing every competitor and leading the race out on to the bike!

As mentioned before, the bike course was pretty rolling and by the start of our wave (around 10am) the wind had really begun to pick up. I held my own as best I could and wound up coming into T2 in 6th. Out on to the second run (identical to the first), I worked hard to move back into the top 5 but simply ran out of real estate for the podium. Side note – the tsunami-of-a-hill just about killed me the second time around!

I went out there, worked my butt off and owned my result! I’m really starting to round well into shape for the main part of the season. In two weeks I have 5i50 New Orleans and a few weeks later the best triathlon on the planet – ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ!

On another note, the month of May marks the start of monthly GOHHGO Giveaways!! Each month I’ll be giving away swag from my sponsors to GOHHGO fans. Check the site and my FB page, “Henry Hagenbuch Triathlete – gohhgo”, in the coming days for details!

Happy tri-ing everyone! Talk soon.

-HH