4 Part Series: The Road to DuaWorlds

Hey Everyone!

Over the last three weeks or so, I have completely dropped the ball on keeping you all up to date on my training and racing. Many apologies! I am currently in a training block in preparation for the Duathlon World Championships on Sept. 25 in Gijon, Spain. As a result, I have lessened my swimming to 2 or 3 times per week and have mainly focused on fine-tuning my run and bike. The biking has consisted of some quality workouts, tempo efforts and various group rides. The running has consisted of numerous BRICKs, tempo runs, and a bunch of road races. During this time, I have kept a log or a journal if you will of my workouts and races. Why I didn't do this on my blog evades me..! In the following entries, please disregard the dates, for they are inaccurate since these sessions may or may not have occurred a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

The Road to DuaWorlds, Part 1

Yesterday I went to do my ride with fellow triathletes, Sean Jefferson and Omar Nour on PCH starting out at the parking lot at Malibu Canyon and PCH. What I thought was plenty of time to arrive (supposed to meet at 3pm, left house at 2:15) clearly wasn't as I spent the next hour in bumper to bumper traffic!

Sean and Omar were traveling back from Oceanside having swum in an open water race and they too were caught in the Saturday afternoon traffic though about a 1/2 mile ahead of me coincidentally enough. The traffic was so bad - multiple car accidents coupled with beautiful beach weather - we decided to pull over and park at the 22000 "block" of PCH, about 1 mile South of La Salsa.

We rode north from there and I was anticipating a moderate 2-hour ride with wattage in the mid-2's and cadence above 90. Oh was I wrong. They wanted to do a pace-line workout that their coach had given them which entailed: 20min warmup - 3 x (20min pace-line @ 300+ watts, 10min recover) - 20min cool down. While they didn't want to ride that hard and we therefore all agreed NOT to ride that hard, we rode that hard, and then some! The warmup turned into 30 minutes, the wind began to howl, and I definitely did not bring enough nutrition for a ride like this! To add insult to injury, we finished our final 20min pace-line heading South, just North of Zuma beach, which meant our cool down was a lot longer than 20min and not flat by any means! At the very least, we had the wind at our backs which was a big plus. To give you an idea of the intensity of this wind, heading North in our pace-line we averaged 18-20mph. Heading South in our pace-line we averaged 29-31mph!!

Needless to say, my legs were shot by the time we got back to the cars, a good 2 1/2 hours and 45 miles later! As a result, I had an early dinner and hit the pillow at 9ish in prep for my 4:30 wake up time to head out to Ventura for the first of 5 road races in what I like to call The Road to Duathlon Worlds.

The 5k race started at 7:15 but I had to register the morning of, which meant I needed to be there by 6am in order to beat the line of other 'registration slackers'. As expected, the race wasn't anything special and the field consisted of a few hundred moms and grandmas. By my speculation, the course was a little long and absolutely terrible footing. The first 2k was two loops around a landfill which was used as the parking lot. I stumbled twice and quasi-rolled ankles twice but to no avail pressed on and hit the tape at 15:27 - 4:57s (by my watch).

I'm feeling pretty good right now, despite yesterday's painful ride. I also ran the race in trainers. For the first time in a while I felt good getting out there and naturally pushing myself to try and keep pace with the bike leader. Quite a nostalgic feeling dating back to my Cate School days.

I will post the other parts of this series over the next couple of days. I don't want to flood the internet with such good stuff..I want to space it out..! Ha!

Thanks for checking in, talk soon!

-HH

GoHHGo August Giveaway!

Hey Everyone!

GoHHGo Giveaways are back this month! We’ve seen giveaways from K-Swiss and Zico and clearly the bar has been set! As such, I’ve promised not to disappoint and this month’s GoHHGo Giveaway comes from one of my original, most supportive sponsors!

Heralded as arguably the world’s premier high performance wetsuit manufacturer, Xterra Wetsuits has ponied up one of their very own suits for one lucky GoHHGo fan!!

For your chance to win a Vector Pro Full wetsuit, answer me this:

*What year did Xterra bust onto the scene, making their AWESOME wetsuits and where are they headquartered?*

As usual GoHHGo facebook fans with correct answers will be entered in the drawing twice. If you’re not a fan, become one! Check it out at Henry Hagenbuch Triathlete – GoHHGo!

Let’s get into it! Talk soon!

-HH

I Weathered the Storm, Literally

This past weekend, my tri-job took me to the lovely island of Manhattan for the 5i50 Nautica NYC Triathlon. I came in still trying to regain my fitness from my AWESOMELY BAD bike crash two months ago. Rather than sit at home and continue to mope about my lost fitness, I figured the best way to get it back would be to toe-the-line with the best and leave it all out on the course!

The week leading up to the race, I had anticipated the weather to be a factor because there were a slew of thunderstorms expected to hit the New York area over race weekend. Sure enough, race morning we were caught waiting in the rain at 6am to get the green light to jump into the “pristine” waters of the Hudson. The onslaught of rain and wind called for a tough, choppy swim and I exited roughly 17th out of the water. I was able to pull back two guys in the ½ mile run up to transition and headed out onto the bike in 15th.

The bike course was out-and-back on the Westside highway - a deceptively tough, rolling course - that met us with a tail-wind on the way down and an unrelenting headwind on the way back. My intention for this race was to really press the bike because that was where this race could be won or lost.

As such, I worked those rollers hard and came into T2 in 13th. There was a group of several riders a few minutes ahead that I was trying to reel in but based on their remarkably similar bike splits, it was thus difficult for me to take-on one or two riders, let alone 4 or 7!! I thought this was a non-draft race! Oh well…

Out onto the run, I was able to reel in a struggling Andrew Yoder and that was unfortunately it for me! My run legs eluded me on this day, which happily shed some light on where my fitness is at in its current state – just a few miles short… I crossed the line in 12th – 1:58:30.

Despite finishing outside of the top 10, and even with CERTAIN variables working against me, I’m not at all discouraged by my first complete race back. Lastly, I’d like to give a BIG shout out to all the New Yorkers who may or may not had even known there was a triathlon going on but nonetheless cheered us on as we ran against traffic in Central Park! Some of the best spectator support I’ve seen in a long time!!

Just a few more races left in 2011 and it will all culminate at the Duathlon World Champs in Gijon, Spain on September 25. But first, an ITU race in Kelowna, BC and then the Nautica Malibu Tri!

Thanks for checking in. Talk soon!

-HH

**I want to express my sincere condolences for the families of the two people who tragically died during the swim of the NYC Tri. This lifestyle we lead is often times precarious and daunting and it is one of the total downfalls of this sport when we lose a fellow triathlete.**

Treasure Hunt at SF ITU!

Hey Everyone!

I arrived in my hometown of San Francisco yesterday evening ready to take on the stacked field at TriCal’s Treasure Island ITU Race. This year it’s part of the USAT Elite Race series – a series of draft legal ITU races with larger-than-normal prize purses.

This will be my first race back since my bike crash back in May. It’s bittersweet, because while I’m elated to get back out there, my fitness isn’t where it was prior to that accident. I missed about 40 days of training and I’ve worked hard as of late to get as much of it back. What I would say, it’s not that I’ve lost too much time in each discipline (probably 2-3 seconds per 100 in the pool and that equivalent in the bike and run), but it’s really about how I feel. The time difference isn’t much but it hurts a lot more! Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to getting those competitive juices flowing again!

This course is unique. It’s situated on Treasure Island (the island in the middle of the Bay Bridge) and it consists of a two lap swim, a 6 lap bike, and a 3 lap run. What’s unique is the bike course. Each lap consists of at least a dozen 90 degree turns on what I consider to be pretty precarious road conditions. The Elite race, due particularly to it being a draft-legal race, tends to see a higher-than-normal number of bike crashes. Whether or not bike crashes happen tomorrow, it’s such a competitive field that there will be enough action going on to satisfy anyone!

If you’re in the bay area and are interested in seeing a fun, competitive race, come out to Treasure Island tomorrow Saturday, July 9 around noon and watch a number of Olympic hopefuls mix it up! Let’s get into it!

Hope to see you out there. Thanks for checking in. Talk soon!

-HH

..And the Zico GoHHGo Giveaway goes to..!

After much deliberation from the GoHHGo panel of hardworking judges.. (they clearly need some Zico)

the winners are, BRANDON and NIKKI!!!

Brandon exclaimed, “Zico Pomberry is the Bomb! I use it after cycling.”

Nikki exclaimed, “Piña Tropicale is my fav. My favorite way to replenish is to throw a bottle in my freezer pre-run or pre-ride so when I’m done, it’s super cold! Living in Arizona, I need all the help I can get to cool down in this crazy summer heat!”

Congratulations!! Please come forward and claim your prize by emailing me your contact info at gohhgo1@gmail.com.

Check back soon for yet another GoHHGo Giveaway!!

Happy tri-ing, talk soon.

-HH

How Do You Zico?

Hey Everyone!

Last month’s inaugural GoHHGo Giveaway received a great amount of participation and we saw LA Tri Clubber, Roy Silver, run away with a brand new pair of Kwicky Blade Lights!!

Let’s keep this party rolling! The June GoHHGo Giveaway is a CASE of the critically acclaimed ZICO CHOCOLATE FLAVORED COCONUT WATER for not one but TWO lucky GoHHGo fans!!! Examiner.com recently exclaimed, chocolate and coconut “a match made in heaven”.

This month, I’ll make it easy for all of you – simply tell me your favorite Zico flavor and how you like to replenish and your name will be entered in the drawing for a case! Like last month, if you become a fan of my page, Henry Hagenbuch Triathlete – GoHHGo, then your name will be entered twice!

Good luck and live the Zico way - naturally powered!!

-HH

3 DNS' and Counting..

Hey Everyone!

Been a little while since my last blog post…I didn’t anticipate the gap between posts to be this great, but I also didn’t anticipate missing three triathlons because of my lingering injuries from my bike crash on May Fifth!

When I went down on my bike going about 25-30mph downhill, my left arm was extended outward and I came down on that shoulder. Immediately after the fall, I knew I had hurt my shoulder and I had a feeling in my upper back as if someone was digging their knuckles into me. Despite some serious pain, a torn-up kit, and a broken aero-bar, I had to ride on for another couple of hilly miles (at every hill, I got off and walked) in order to get to a place where my wife could pick me up. There was no way I would have been able to navigate her to my crash site and there was no way I would have been able to ride home (another 6 miles through Los Angeles?!).

A long story short…I sustained a couple of cracked ribs high-up under my left armpit which sends reverberating shock waves of pain down through my chest any time I use that left side. I also have a badly strained rotator cuff and possibly a few micro-tears. ROAD RASH ANYONE?! Up until last week my training has consisted of a ginger breast stroke, ZERO running, and low-medium effort on the bike trainer. I did ride part of the mountain stage in the Tour of California, which was fine going up because we were averaging probably 7mph, but terrible going back down!!

Due to my fall, I have missed three races in the heart of my season, including my favorite, Escape From Alcatraz. As someone who LOVES a good competition, it has been very difficult to watch these races go by. The unfortunate part about ribs is it takes TIME to heal and nothing else – whether they’re cracked, broken or bruised. I have two races at the end of this month that I’m hoping to be ready for, but as of now, NOT ready at all!

If I learned anything from my experience, it’s that helmets seriously save lives! I broke my helmet in several places that day and had I not been wearing it, I wouldn’t be blogging right now! WEAR YOUR HELMET!

Thanks for checking in and hopefully I’ll see you all out there SOON!

I’ll be posting the June GoHHGo Giveaway in a little while so get excited!!!

-HH