So-So at MIT

Hey everyone!

I completed my first tri of the 2011 season earlier this morning and I have a mixed review about my performance.

I finished 24th out of a star-studded field (C. Lieto, M. Reed, B. Docherty, M. Charbot, Cam Dye, K. Leto, B. Collins, etc.), in a time of 1:53.xx. The results are still preliminary but I wanted to get the word out as quick as possible. I KILLED the swim, hitting the exit stairs in 18:41 – easily the fastest swim of my career! Even though there was a bit of a current, I still came out of the water less than 2:30 back from the leaders, which was a huge improvement from where I stood last season.

The bike is where I tanked. There was a fair amount of wind out on the course and I’m just not yet comfortable on my TT. Stupidly, today was only my second ride on my TT since last August (ridiculous mechanical issues out of my control, but still no excuse)! I split 1hr-flat on the bike and came into T2 around 30th (Pro field close to 40 guys). Out onto the run, I felt good initially but started to wane in the wind in the latter half of the 10k. Surprisingly, I split a 31:30ish which was one of the top run splits on the day. It was surprising because I didn’t feel too good on the latter half and I probably ran the last two miles at about 80% since I was kind of in no man’s land.

As usual, I try to look at the positive side of things. Despite battling a shoulder injury/annoyance for the last two months, my swim went GREAT. Clearly the 6 extra long-course workouts per week have helped A LOT! Pleased about that! Additionally, my run performance was above my expectation simply because I’ve been running more miles than normal (in prep for CA 70.3) and with virtually no speed work. To be able to split 5:07s on the type of training I’ve been doing lately speaks VOLUMES about my run fitness!

In all, a mediocre result but some good factors and important focus points (BIKE) came out of today and I’m generally pleased with where I’m at this early in the season, particularly in retrospect to the big dogs! Up next will be Oceanside 70.3 in two weeks, then ITU Mazatlan the following weekend (ouch).

A big weekend for a number of reasons – ’11 Season opener, Persian New Year, and LA Marathon...did I miss anything? Hope everyone had a great weekend! Be sure to check back in in the coming couple of weeks for additional blog posts and a new and improved gohhgo.com which will feature some swag giveaways from my awesome sponsors and an opportunity to purchase their product direct from gohhgo.com!

Talk soon!

-HH

I'm Taking My Talents to South Beach..!

Hey Everyone! I hope this past off-season has served you as well as it has served me!

I'm currently flying to Miami for my season opener, the Miami International Triathlon (MIT), and I'm excited for 2011! During the off-season, I decided to mix things up in a couple of ways. First, I felt that my overall nutrition could be better. Working with New Performance Nutrition, I was able to shed about 8 pounds during the off-season, which in turn has allowed me to train and compete at a much higher level.

Secondly, while my first tri is MIT, my off-season training has been focused towards Cali 70.3 on April 2. I decided to pursue Oceanside for two reasons. One, I've never raced a 70.3 and I wanted to see what that distance was all about! And two, my coach and I figured it would be a great way to build a base for the remainder of the season. By training longer and creating a stronger foundation, this will in turn carry me through the season, only having to further focus on speed-work and maintaining my new-found fitness.

What would a season be without goals? 2011 Goals:
- Live in the Top 10
- Qualify for the 5i50 Hy-Vee Champs
- ITU Points
- Podium or Bust!
- Key Races: EFA, 5i50 NYC, Nautica Malibu, LA Tri

This weekend's race will be a great measuring stick for my early season fitness and it will also give me an opportunity to pinpoint specific parts of my training upon which I can improve. It's looking to be picture-perfect in MIA so LET'S GET INTO IT!

Check back Sunday-ish for a full post-race report.

Thanks for checking in. Talk soon!

-HH

A New Year!

I’ve been staring at my screen for the last 15 minutes trying to figure out what my first 2011 blog post is going to include. Do I talk about 2010 – my first year as a pro-triathlete; getting married; goals I may or may not have achieved? Or do I talk about 2011 – my goals for this year; continuing my pro-athletic career; being an ideal husband, a B-school candidate?


If I’m treating this post as one for reflection, it’s only appropriate to dawn on the past… but only for a brief moment, for I’m always looking forward and preparing myself for what’s to come!!

2010 was an incredible year for numerous reasons! Rather than giving you all an insanely long recap, I’m thinking a list will more than suffice:
- Turned pro – lifelong goal achieved!
- Competed in five different countries – GoHHGo goes global!
- First top 10 finish as a pro at Nautica NYC – lucky number 7th!
- Established relations with great sponsors -- Thank You All!
- MARRIAGE – Yes please!
- World Series Champions? – That’s right, my S.F. Giants baby!

Needless to say, 2010 was a memorable year, one for the ages, and one in which to build upon.

Looking forward to 2011, I’ve focused my energy towards improving the swim and the bike and have made some great strides during the off-season. Like in anything, you need passion to invoke genuine motivation in order to truly succeed. With that being said, I mixed things up in two big ways during the off-season! First, I joined the SQAC masters program (while still keeping UCLA) which gives me 7 more pools at which to train and a whole lot of talent in lane 1 to chase after! Second, to supplement my usual bike training I added a season of cyclocross! For those of you who are unfamiliar with ‘cross, google it, try it, love it – its awesome!


As far as the 2011 season, I’m starting things off in February with the Kaiser Permanente ½ marathon in San Francisco. I’m going to follow that up with my first career ½ Ironman somewhere in March or early April. All of this will be great base-building for the main tri season to begin in the second half of April. Two halfs (one run, one Ironman), a number of ITU races, some new 5i50s, Life Times, Duathlon Nat’l Champs, and a partridge in a pair tree!!

I’m very excited about 2011, which is why I couldn’t wait more than 2 days into the New Year to blog about it! Check out www.gohhgo.com soon for an updated schedule of races in addition to a few new features on the site! I hope everyone had a great 2010 holiday season and are ready to start off 2011 with a bang!!!

Talk soon!

-HH

Stick a fork in it, 2010 is finished!

My inaugural season as a pro-triathlete finished last Sunday in Nautica Malibu's Classic relay!

Just the day before, I had ventured to Pacific Grove, CA (Monterrey) to compete in Tri Cal's Pacific Grove triathlon. In a rare, local draft-legal race, I placed 14th in a time of 2:04:57. The swim leg was easily the most interesting piece of any triathlon I have ever come across. Referred to as the "kelp crawl", Pacific Grove's swim was so cluttered with live kelp, that at some points I could literally stand on it and have 75% of my body out of the water! This made it increasingly difficult for the lead swimmers to get away from the mediocre swimmers (me), hence the draft-legal pro race.

With that being said, I had a great swim, and fought my way into a pack of 4 or 5, just under 3 minutes down from the leaders. Upon exiting the swim, two mishaps would occur - one within my control and one not. In the midst of ripping my wetsuit off, my timing chip got stuck and cost me 10 vital seconds (in my control). After having worked my ass off to bridge the gap up to 4 other riders, off the back of the pack, I bent down to put my feet in my shoes, looked up and saw that a 25 yard gap had formed between the pack and the rider in front of me! The rider in front of me subsequently pulled out due to an asma attack (out of my control). Having already spent most of my energy to bridge that initial gap, I couldn't catch them because the wind was too punishing. So punishing in fact, at one point I was going downhill into a head wind at 8mph! Those two or three riders who escaped my grasp, finished the bike course over 4 minutes ahead of me, which was good enough for 7 places!

As soon as I was finished, Nousha and I raced back down to Malibu in time for the Nautica Malibu classic relay, the following day. Teamed up with my Dad and close UCLA bud, Austin Ramos, we took down every single relay team! This event was particularly significant, because one year prior, my father had undergone a full knee replacement and this race marked a one year full circle! Seeing as how I pale in comparison to Austin, as a runner, I swam, my Dad biked and Austin ran.

I wound up having the 8th fastest swim split, my Dad the 12th fastest bike split, and like a true anchor leg, Austin split the fastest run of the day. Together we finished atop the podium stand in a time of 1:22:32, four minutes faster than any other relay team!

And with that explanation point, my 2010 season comes to an end. My off-season base training will begin in October and I'm really looking forward to my 2011 season!

Keep on swimming, biking and running! Talk soon!

-HH

Not a Bad Result for a Bad Day

This past weekend was the inaugural Tri-Cal SF triathlon at Alcatraz. While most associate a triathlon in San Francisco with Escape from Alcatraz, Tri-Cal was determined to make a statement with their own version of “escaping from Alcatraz”, and that they did!

I along with about 1,000 other competitors, braved a slightly shorter, but equally as tough 1.2 mile swim; a long 40k bike (as opposed to 30); and an agonizing 7 mile run – which included the deepest sand I’ve ever run through.

Race weekend called for incredibly windy conditions, those of which stirred up a 4 – 5 foot swell in the bay the day before the race, 57 degree water temps, and a 7am start (an hour earlier than EFA).

We dove off the side of the Hornblower Yacht and I immediately found myself in a dog fight. Another difference from the original Alcatraz triathlon (EFA), was that as opposed to starting 1 minute before the hoards of age-groupers, they jumped off 15 seconds behind us which meant they were breathing down our necks!

I exited the water just inside the top-30 and headed out onto the bike sopping wet and freezing! I had noticed prior to the race that a lot of competitors were sporting arm warmers. While at the time I deemed that to be completely unnecessary, once out onto the bike, I realized I was dead wrong! The day before the race, I had spent three hours at a local bike shop trying to figure out what was wrong with my bar-end shifters and why while riding my bike, it wouldn’t stay in the gear that I had chosen, particularly while going up a hill! To no avail, we were NOT able to fix the problem so the next best solution was to switch out the Campy shifter with a Shimano fluid one and ride the race without one or two gears available to use. Nonetheless I worked my way through the course and came into T2, around 20th.

For the first 3 miles of the run, my feet might as well have been two frozen blocks of ice, because I couldn’t feel anything! I guess the cold wind exposure during the extra 10k on the bike really had a major impact on whether I could feel/use my extremities at such a vital time like this. I didn’t know if my toes were in the right places, or if I had rocks in my shoes or what, but I soon found myself offering my feet some verbal motivation such as, “come on feet, WAKE UP!” or “let’s get GOIN feet!”

The issues I was having with my frozen feet soon materialized in my upper Achilles tendons as sharp, tightening pains, which made it death defying to run down hill. I thought to myself, “maybe this is how the numbness is working its way out of my system...it can’t go down any further so it might as well go up.” I eventually found that finish line, having passed about 6 guys on the run and finished 13th in a time of 2:24:50.

Despite all the confounding variables, it was NOT a bad result. And despite being the toughest race of my career, I thoroughly enjoyed it! But that makes sense because as triathletes, we are supposed to take on whatever comes our way and some how defeat that obstacle(s). It is simply why we have found a competition that fuses three sports into one!

Up next will be Tri Cal’s Pacific Grove on the 11th of September, the last race of my 2010 season!

Hope everyone is swimming, biking and running! Talk soon.

-HH

Race Results: http://raceresults.eternaltiming.com/index.cfm/20100829_San_Francisco_Triathlon_at_Alcatraz.htm?Fuseaction=Results&Class=Long+Course+Professional~MElite

Last ITU of '10 Season!

I returned earlier this week from my final ITU race of the season, in Kelowna, British Columbia. It also happened to be the Canadian National Championships so the start list was chock-full of worthy competitors!

Race morning was cold, windy and wet, as the rain had fallen upon us and the water temps were hovering around the wetsuit cut-off of 68 degrees. It was a 2-lap lake swim, followed by a 6-lap bike with a TOUGH hill, and then a pancake-flat 4 lap run. Like my last race in New York, I was determined to crush the swim, regardless of whether it might compromise the rest of my race. And that I did!

During the first lap, I was hanging onto a few swimmers’ feet but eventually lost them by about 10-15 yards headed into the second lap. We exited the water, ran around a beached cone and dove back in. At this point, I knew the other racers’ heart rates were through the roof, LIKE MINE, and it was merely a matter of who could dig deeper and fight through that pain! Halfway through the second lap, I not only found those pairs of feet but I swam right past them and didn’t stop! I exited the water in 48th (out of 64), my best swim result to date!

Out onto the bike, I was ready to eat up the road ahead of me when it was quickly put on hold during my mount out of T1 – one of my bike shoes had flown off my pedal and I had to stop, turn around and retrieve it! Once I was headed in the right direction and with all the equipment in the right place, my group of 5 riders and I started eating up the stragglers! Soon our pack had grown to 15 and we were making up ground, despite the unrelenting sub-par weather conditions! I came into T2 in 41st and was ready to unleash the beast on the run!

As I mentioned, the run was pancake-flat and quite scenic, as most of the run was along the water’s edge. Being a weaker swimmer on the ITU level, when I get to the run portion of a race such as this, nothing but desperation drives me to the finish. It is an almost panic-like style of running, because I have such a deficit to make up. Whatever you want to call it, it worked for me, because I crossed the tape after having passed 14 guys en route to a 27th place finish (7th American) in a time of 2:03:19.

Despite not having reached my top-20 goal, I was pretty pleased with my performance for a couple of reasons. One, being the Canadian Nat’l Championships, this race drew quite the quality field which I faired pretty well against. Two, even though I’m still pretty far back in the swim, this result showed that I’ve been making some serious progress in the water and it’s a good predictor of things to come, especially after my upcoming off season where I plan to swim 400,000 yards in 3 months! And lastly, this race was coming off of a two week sinus cold of which has materialized in my lungs and I’m still working it out of my system to date! Points or no points, it was a great experience and I look forward to ITU ’11!!

Race results can be found here: http://www.triathlon.org/results/results/2010_kelowna_itu_triathlon_premium_pan_american_cup/4934/

Up next will be my final two races of the season – Tri Cal’s inaugural Alcatraz triathlon this weekend (Aug. 29), followed by Tri Cal Pacific Grove on the 11th of September. And last but not least, a fun relay at the Nautica Malibu Tri on the 12th of September!

Hope everyone’s racing season is going well. Keep up the good work and thanks again for all the support, it is simply invaluable!

Talk soon!

-HH

A Solid Training Day!

Today’s training schedule:
6:30am Ocean Speed Circuit swim (4 – 500yd loops, ea. w/150yd run in btwn.)
10:30am Moderately paced 7.5 mile run (at 5:43 pace)
5:20pm 35 mile bike ride, which included a little over 7 miles of Bike Hill Repeats (BHR)

Today’s swim was freakishly cold, arguably the coldest of the season. One reason why we LA triathletes plunge into the Pacific Ocean at the crack of dawn on various days of the week, is because the water temps are quite manageable, normally ranging from 65-72 degrees. As a result, EVERYONE was completely taken by surprise, particularly those that tend to brave these swims sans a wetsuit! Despite the bone-chilling temps, it turned out to be a great swim workout and a beautiful early morning at the Santa Monica beach.


After a second breakfast, I hit the roads for my 7-8 mile run with the total intention to cruise. Normally I define “cruising” to be a 6:00-6:15 mile pace. For some reason today, my “cruising” pace was upped to 5:43s and I have no real explanation for it other than the fact that I was wearing a new pair of K-Swiss Keahou IIs that I had yet to try. Nonetheless, it was a great feeling run and I was pleasantly surprised!

I had lunch, ran a few errands, wrote a few emails and was ready for my BHRs. I headed North on PCH to Temescual Canyon where my BHRs commenced. After a well executed 7.5 mile workout on the hill, where I focused on my circular petal strokes, I was finished with my day and ready to head home.


Looking back on the day, I feel great, felt great, and I remind myself that its days like these I need in my training regimen in order to help me get to where I need to go. I hope everyone’s training is up to par!

More training updates to come in the next couple of weeks! Thanks for checking in!

Talk soon.

-HH