{"id":537095,"date":"2026-03-13T05:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/537095\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T05:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:17:09","slug":"holly-henrys-hard-road-to-a-belgian-waffle-ride-podium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/537095\/","title":{"rendered":"Holly Henry’s hard road to a Belgian Waffle Ride podium"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Holly Henry rolled across the line to finish fifth in Belgian Waffle Ride Arizona<\/a>, it was the most impressive ride of the day. It wasn\u2019t just finishing on the podium with two Olympians, but in the Victoria rider\u2019s first race back in nearly three years after dealing with lingering concussion symptoms. If that return wasn\u2019t enough weight on the start line, Henry set off onto Arizona gravel less than a month tragedy struck the family. Her sister, an accomplished triathlete, was hit by impaired driver while training on the roads of in Phoenix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the hardest race I\u2019ve ever done in my life,\u201d Henry says.<\/p>\n

BWR Arizona is a hard course to start with. At 165km of doubletrack, singletrack and roads, both gravel and paved, and over 2,200m of elevation gain, it\u2019s a demanding race for everyone on the start line. With finish times over six hours, it was also the longest of Henry\u2019s career. Add in everything else happening, and it is an inspiring ride from the Victoria athlete.<\/p>\n

We caught up with Henry back at home in Victoria to find out more about the ride, everything leading up to it, and what the aspiring athlete\/coach is up to next.<\/p>\n

\"Holly<\/a>Holly Henry with Sandra Walter on her wheel. at \u201922 CX nationals, where she finished third. Photo: Nick Iwanyshyn
\nThe long road to Arizona<\/p>\n

Henry\u2019s road to the Belgian Waffle Ride starts over three years ago. After finishing a season on the road with the Instafund team, she had a hard fall while mountain biking.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recovered fairly normally, I had a really good cyclocross season for the first bit, right up to Canadian cyclocross national championships when they were in Victoria,<\/a>\u201d Henry says. Third in the elite women\u2019s race would be the highlight of any season. The glow didn\u2019t last. \u201cLiterally the week after that, I had another fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

That fall set the Victoria-based rider up for what would be a string of concussions and concussion symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kept relapsing, I don\u2019t know,\u201d Henry says, thinking back three years. \u201cI did actually race a little in 2023. I raced Redlands and Joe Martin.\u201d<\/p>\n

A crash and broken collarbone ended her run at Joe Martin. Late that summer of \u201923, Henry crashed again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the worst. It seemed like nothing but I had concussion symptoms for two, almost three years after that. I\u2019m only back to feeling normal this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry says that, while she was still able to train occasionally, the symptoms kept returning.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome days I\u2019d be fine. Some days I\u2019d feel horrible. I\u2019d go through long periods where I thought I was completely better, then I\u2019d relapse with concussion symptoms again. It was just a really long three years of dealing with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>From the front of the elite cyclocross races in 2022, to coaching cyclocross for Canada. Photo: Nick Iwanyshyn
\nA side career in coaching<\/p>\n

With her racing on a forced hold, Henry didn\u2019t just sit idle. She dove into coaching, earning a NCCP Competition Development certification, then Chartered Professional coaching designation and is working towards a Masters in high performance coaching at UBC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love working with all the athletes. Seeing their progress is so fulfilling,\u201d Henry says. \u2018We have such a good community in Victoria for young cyclists, for all cyclists, so it\u2019s pretty cool to still have been able to stay involved with it as much as I could while I wasn\u2019t able to race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry works with athletes across a wide range of ages, from early teens to rider\u2019s well into their masters careers. Her focus is on the junior and under-23 ages, a group she recently joined on a Cycling Canada cyclocross project in Europe over the Kerstperiode, an intensive stretch of high-level races over the holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone had big goals, but these athletes are trying to make it at the highest levels in the sport. And they\u2019re just so young in their careers that it\u2019s pretty cool to be a part of that period for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Henry says she\u2019s new enough to coaching that she\u2019s still trying to pinpoint exactly where she wants her career to go from here, she\u2019s focusing on growing her own coaching business<\/a> while hoping to have the chance to be involved with more national-level projects.<\/p>\n

Plotting a return to racing, disrupted by tragedy<\/p>\n

Henry\u2019s coaching business is growing and she\u2019s clearly having quite a bit of success with that side of her career. But the goal was still to return to racing. Leading into 2026, that finally seemed like a real possibility. After the Cycling Canada project, a training camp in the Canary Islands with her younger sister, Heidi, had gone well. Jumping right back road racing wasn\u2019t appealing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want be in a race where I was going to be around a bunch of people the entire time. And also I wanted to go and race as cautiously as I could,\u201d Henry explains.\u00a0\u201cI wanted to do a race that I felt would be relatively low risk. I\u2019m still quite nervous, especially being in a peloton, so gravel seemed like it would be a good intro. It\u2019s still obviously still dangerous. All cycling disciplines are. But for the most part in the race, I was by myself,\u201d Henry says, explaining the decision to take her comeback off road. \u201cI knew that I\u2019d have to ride within my own limits.<\/p>\n

Belgian Waffle Ride fit the bill. Her sister Hannah said she would support her the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was going to be in the feed zones. It was going to be a lot to take out of her day. It\u2019s such a long race and she was training for the Boston Marathon. Usually Saturdays are for her long run. So it was a big commitment for her to say she would help me out in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before that could happen, tragedy struck. Hannah was killed by a driver that later admitted being on drugs while driving. With just weeks left before BWR, Henry eventually decided to race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very, very hard decision. I didn\u2019t end up actually registering for the race until two days before,\u201d Henry shares. \u201cI wanted to do it for her. Also for my family, as well as for myself. It was a good distraction for the day. My sister, my aunt and mom were there in the feed zones all day and it gave them something to be excited for, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision meant weeks of a training in Phoenix leading up to the start. In the same area, on the same roads, that her sister had. That was, as you might expect, not an easy experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just tried to do what I could. I just kind of rode, mostly on the trails because it was a lot\u2026 it felt a lot better to be out on the trails. It was a really hard couple of weeks. But my sister, Heidi, came out with me for a little bit too, which was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Holly Henry on a very strong podium at 2026 BWR Arizona
\nThe first start line in three years<\/p>\n

Henry did make it to the start chute in Arizona. Her first in nearly three years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very scary,\u201d Henry admits. \u201cI was super nervous getting back on the start line. And yeah, it was very emotional in general because of everything that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite years away, a racer is still a racer at heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we got going I went kind of just back into race mode.\u201d<\/p>\n

An hour into the race U.S. Olympic mountain biker Haley Batten started attacking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was good, it started thinning out the group. By the time we hit the singletrack there was only 10 of left in the lead group,\u201d says Henry. \u201cI was happy with that because, again, I didn\u2019t want to be racing with a bunch of people. I was still nervous about crashing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going back into singletrack, Henry\u2019s tire started to lose pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cI buses I burped a bunch or air, so it wasn\u2019t completely flat, but close to it. I probably has eight p.s.i.,\u201d Henry says. not wanting to be caught by the chasing group behind, and able to see the lead group in front, she pushed on to the top of a substantial climb where the air was completely gone. She pumped the tire up and it held.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ended up losing way more time. I probably rode like 20k on the climb. It was just a silly mistake,\u201d Henry says. With the bike back in shape, she chased back through riders that had started to drop back from the effort of chasing Batten. Through some difficulty dealing with the heat, it was solidly above 30 Celsius in Phoenix, Henry made it to the finish. In fifth, no less. Not a bad day out for the Canadian\u2019s longest race effort ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was super happy just to finish. And very happy with fifth place as well, especially given how strong the field was and how hard of a race it was,\u201d Henry says, adding that the result didn\u2019t really sink in right away with everything else happening in the finish area.<\/p>\n

Back to the races, on and off the bike<\/p>\n

With her first race back successfully behind her, Henry is looking forward to adding more time on the bike in with her coaching. Sea Otter and BWR San Diego are on the list. As is Levi\u2019s Fondo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s 210km with 4,000m elevation gain. That\u2019s my favourite thing to do: go up hiss and ride for a long time,\u201d Henry explains.<\/p>\n

After that it\u2019s back to coaching for projects in Washington and Quebec before getting back behind bars herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cLater in the summer, I\u2019m hoping to do a few more gravel races and hopefully try qualify for UCI Gravel Worlds.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the solid start at BWR adding confidence to the evident skill, worlds could be the keynote race in an exciting return to racing. Despite those ambitions, Henry doesn\u2019t want to step back from coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to mix both. I love them both so much and I think they go well together. I can be a better coach, like I can relate really well with the athletes when I\u2019m also racing because I know what they\u2019re going through,\u201d Henry explains. \u201cAnd I can stay fit riding with them, or trying to. Some of them are really strong so I\u2019m just hanging on a lot of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Holly Henry rolled across the line to finish fifth in Belgian Waffle Ride Arizona, it was the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,256118,266340,256119,784,256120,256122,85],"class_list":["post-537095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-belgian-waffle-ride","tag-belgian-waffle-ride-arizona","tag-bwr-arizona","tag-cycling","tag-gravel-news","tag-holly-henry","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}