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to Boulder Im so glad to be there, and vice versa. Im a pretend foodie. I enjoy everything down to the detail in the restroom of a restaurant. The two really fun hobbies within that have been coffee and wine, and both Ive been fortunate to pursue to quite a high level. Im really spoiled to have an incredible espresso machine back homethe best money can buy for home use, La Marzocco GS3. Not that its exclusively mine, but I get to use it. Every morning its a little ritual and a gift. I enjoy the making as much as I enjoy the drinking, and getting to share that with other people. Thats the morning, and then youve got to have something else for the evening, so wine is secondary to that. And wine is perhaps similar to triathlon. People dont choose it for wealth reasonsa lot of the best winemakers live a very humble, very connected, very earthy life. Theyre passionatetruly passionateand they have a story. They have a purpose. I view what I do as freeing, because theres a lot of selfdiscipline and accountability and responsibility, but if I dont want to get up tomorrow, I dont have to get up tomorrow. I cherish that and I try to explore it. I try to not run the same route twice. To me that is youthful. At some point I hope Ill be wanting and willing to change that, but Im certainly not in the mind-frame of dependents or calming down nowin fact I want to accelerate and taste more. In that sense I feel like Im just beginning, just about to get traction. But I wouldnt nd it at all offensive if you called me an old soul. Id probably thank you.

Dan Hugo

BY HOLLY BENNETT

In June 2012, XTERRA athlete Dan Hugo unintentionally pounded the PROFILE pavement when a dog intersected his path as he pre-rode the course of Ironman 70.3 Mooseman, meant to be one of Hugos rare road triathlon appearances. His injuries, which included several cracked vertebrae and a shattered collarbone, left Hugo with a collection of hardware: a plate and 12 screws in his left shoulder. But one year post-accidentprior to which Hugo had an uncanny string of 12 second-place finishes the 28-year-old South African proved hes back on track and better than ever with wins at Mays BEast of the Southeast and Junes XTERRA South East Championship and a fresh perspective on life.
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The rst split-second on the tar I had a ash: This could be it. And thats enough to recalibrate, whether you want to gauge those sorts of emotions or not. It can be liberating to run that full process. If this is the end, how OK am I with that? And if youre not OK with that, what are you willing to do to get to the place of being OK? And if you are OK with walking away, what would that look like? I think these are all really good processes, and so for that, Im grateful for the crash. Im trying to be really respectful of that journey. And I get to dene it, so to me this year is a bit more about traveling and probably not taking high performance quite as aggressively as in the past. When I got back into the gym it was a focus to do a couple pushups evenI was that weak. I am still a bit weaker on the left, and the shoulders not popping in the swim stroke as much as I would like it to, but my back feels fantastic. The longer comeback is the emotional and psychological sidending your balance and your mojo and your condence. Ive been aware that thats taken a moment. One of my rst travel races this year was in the Philippines. I must have

gone at race pace past a hundred dogs that day, so I certainly managed to get over whatever fears I had. But Im certainly not any closer to dogs than I was before. When I was running in Tennessee [at the BEast of the Southeast] and I came off the bike with maybe a ve-minute lead I thought, OK, what is going to happen? I mean something has to happen, right? I know Im not going to win, so this is going to be interesting! Eventually the nish line approached and I felt a bit awkward. Shall I do it? Shall I not? I almost didnt know which step to go to on the podium because second was so engrained. As a traveling athlete, I live a double life. I almost have two identities. And I nd it very refreshing to do soto live like a swallow, like a lot of animals in nature that migrate. When I really get into life in Boulder I have a different phone number, I remember different street names, different peoples detailsand then one day I just leave and become immersed in a different life. When Im home in South Africa Im always sad to leave and when I get

NILS NILSEN

To read the full interview with Dan Hugo, visit Triathlete.com/profile/danhugo.

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