LUKE WHITMORE "Professional Triathlete"
Hazelwood Olympic Distance
Since my last race report a month ago in a lot has happened. After a disappointing start to the season I quickly moved on, firstly dealing with my injury. I also mentioned I had several exciting changes in the pipe works. I am happy to announce my wife Tarryn is now 15 weeks pregnant and we are expecting our second baby in March next year (Tarryn won her age group today and was 2nd girl across the line a great effort for 15 weeks pregnant). The second change is working my new coach Kristian Manietta from Tri Specific. He has already implemented several changes to my training; I am enjoying training as much as ever and cant wait to reap the rewards from working with Kristian.
Now back to my report, after a good friends wedding on Saturday we made the trip down to Hazelwood Pondage for Latrobe Valley Tri clubs winter triathlon. This is a favourite event of mine, for its relaxed atmosphere, excellent course and the opportunity to get a good early season hitout.
Looking at the swim course, the organisers had created an escape from alcatrazess swim. Only two buoys off in the horizon and then a case of trying to hit the beach in the right spot from the last buoy, which was about a 1 km form the shore. The 1500m swim was closer to about 2.2km. I swam 28.53 about three minutes slower than my recent 1.9km (70.3) times. I excited the water in 5th two minutes down on the leaders.
I was confident of having a strong ride as my bike training has been going well. I was in second place by about 6km and was gaining on 1st. After the first lap I got a few splits from spectators of 1min to the leader, Mitch Kibby. I was confident of catching him until about 4km into the next lap my seat post dropped right down, forcing me to ride the next 8km out of the saddle back to transition. I made a quick pit stop, ran to my car grabbed my torque wrench and fixed the seat. This took a couple of minutes and I was off again. I re-caught the guys I had passed earlier who where now in 2nd and 3rd and passed them again to come off the bike in second and still record the second fastest bike split, which I was happy with.
I was a little rusty at the start of the run after riding out of saddle for 8km but felt good towards the back end to finish in 2nd, 5min behind winner Mitch Kibby. Mitch had a great race and certainly handed it to us today recording the fastest bike and run splits and second fastest swims. I would have liked to give him more of a run for his money but it wasnt to be today. A great kid who is an up and comer in our sport, I wish him luck in his first elite start in Noosa in a couple of months.
Congratulations to Latrobe Valley Tri Club on putting on a great event, I urge more Melbournites to support this event in the future.
Thankyou to my wonderful sponsors for their continued support Trek Bikes, Cecil Walker Cycles, Champion System Clothing (my new race suite was awesome today), Ryders Eyewear, Winners Bars, Nashyspix and Saucony. I look forward to another successful season working with each of you.
I now move onto my major focus for this year, which is Busselton Ironman with Shepparton 70.3 a few weeks before.