After Wildflower May 1 I had five days of vacation with my family in California. It was nice to spend time with the family - we stayed in Santa Monica and visited Disneyland, Santa Monica Pier and Hollywood Boulevard.

We suffered a bit from jetlag after the long journey home, but is quickly got better after a rough first night with wide awake kids. On Thursday I had a good 4 hour bike ride with the national team and former pro cyclist Rolf Sorensen who I am coaching to compete at the Challenge Copenhagen Ironman in August. Is had been raining hard in Denmark the past day so we suffered numerous punctures do to all the dirt and rubble that was washed out onto the streets and bike lanes.

5th at Wildflower

May 1 I competed at the famous Wildflower long course triathlon on the half ironman distance in the hilly terrain of central California. I finished 5th.

I had a good swim where I led the whole way. About 200 metres before transition Michael Raelert (the later winner) and one other athlete came up on my side, but since I had been leading the entire way I wouldn’t accept that and pushed the pace so I could exit the water in first position. I had a couple of seconds into transition and collected the swim prime of USD 200. I again swam in my new Axis suit from Blue Seventy which is really good and actually seems better than the ones I have had in the past.

Raelert was on a level on his own the rest of the day and took off on the bike. I biked with Graves, Andersson, Llanos, Martin Jensen and Joe Gambles until I got a staggering penalty after about 30 km. I apparently was too much in a straight line behind the guy in front of me even though I held the appropriate distance and therefore didn't draft. It is difficult to enforce this rule on a course like this with curvy roads and lots of hills and I lost contact with the guys on the bike that I wanted to bike with by this two minute penalty. Fortunately I could bike the rest of the way with an athlete who had a good tempo, but I lost contact with the favorites, which was a bit demoralizing.

On the run I was in pursuit and I did not feel too good the first half of the run where there were a lot of hills. Fellow Dane Martin Jensen was in front of me and I suddenly spotted him going up a hill, so I could hold my pace and slowly reel him in. I passed him at about at about 12-14 km but he hung on for some time 10-15 meters behind me. Then I speeded up a bit on one of the hills and he could not hold my pace. At the finish I was about two minutes from Llanos in bronze position. Raelert was unstoppable but I posted the second fastest run of the day behind him. It is of course difficult to speculate in my possibilities if I hadn't got that staggering penalty but I felt that I would be able to compete for the bronze without the penalty. 

Martin ended up in 6th about a minute behind me. He also got a two minute penalty (for littering) so he might have beaten me if not for that. He had his chance to beat me but I'm sure that he will have his major break through this year as he can perform on a much higher level than he did at Wildflower.

Llanos has now beat me twice this year (Abu Dhabi and Wildflower), so I am eager to compete with him again in Roth (July 18) where I am certain I will get the best of him.

Problems with my back/pelvis area during Wildflower

I have suffered from back and pelvis problems at both 70.3 California and at Wildflower which especially caused pain and problems during the bike legs. After Wildflower I had a bike fitting session with one of the experts at Specialized Bikes - the same person that has done fitting with Fabian Cancellara and Alberto Contador.

Both he and Dr. Andy Pruitt (who fitted me in Copenhagen a few weeks back) thinks that the reason I am compensating when I am on the bike because min left Femur is 1 cm longer than the right one. This means that the distance between the back of the buttock and my knee is a little longer on the left side.

If my pedaling has been like this all those years it is no wonder that I have had all those problems. We decided that the cleat on my left shoe should be moved back a little so it compensates for the difference in the length of the Femurs and that I therefore will be able to bike with the pelvis in a more neutral position.

Tomorrow I will have a scan to measure the length of the Femurs to see if there is a difference. It will be exciting to see and I hope that the solution with moving the cleat will be possible as this it easy to fix. My physio Bjorn and I still think that it could “just” be a matter of tightness in the pelvic area and that it gives me problems after long flights especially. So when I am competing after long flights I will need to bring Bjorn to get treatments before the race to get everything loosened up.

Those problems have bothered me a lot in the two races in California and it hurt and I felt restricted on the bike and the run. It surely has an effect on the power on the bike. I will also be able to run better without these problems. On the hilly parts of the run in Wildflower it was hurting a lot while the last flatter part with a more even surface suited me better and I wasn't as restricted. It would be nice to find a more permanent solution to the problems, though.

Specialized team together for two days

The Specialized long course triathlon team was gathered two whole days (with training) after Wildflower.

It was really nice to spend time with the team and it was an interesting few days. We were guided through the products as well so we know them the best possible way.

We have some good people working with us and Bobby Behan who is in charge of the team is a really good guy; Emphatic, appreciative, always in a good mood and with a positive mind and is a key figure to this team. The athletes are other than me: Chris 'Macca' McCormack (winner Ironman Hawaii 2007), Philip Graves, Jordan Rapp, Ben Hoffmann, Jimmy Archer, Conrad Stoltz and Melanie McQuaid, Kristin Peterson and Desiree Ficker on the women side.

Specialized are very serious and there is a very nice atmosphere at the headquarters. You can really feel that they live and breathe for cycling and sports, there is a lot of innovation in the air and the interesting people working here are both experts and eager to listen to the athletes.

Back in training

On Wednesday I had a very good tempo run. I ran down to 3:10/km pace and I have had difficulties running that speed the last couple of months, when I had the back/pelvis problems. Now waits some weeks of basic base training with more focus on the length of the sessions than intensity.

Best,

Rasmus Henning