LUKE WHITMORE "Professional Triathlete"
2010 Shepparton Half Ironman - 7th
Reflecting on my efforts from Sunday, I am confronted with mixed feelings that I could only describe as bitter sweet. I was very happy with a personal best performance, but would have dearly loved to break that 4 hour barrier. I finished the day in 7th position in a time of 4.01 and missed collecting the fastest run split by 1 sec to the super sharp Matty White who took out his first win at the Shepparton Half.
On jumping into the Kialla Lake and beginning a warm-up I immediately felt ordinary, this continued through to the start of the swim and as a consequence I was dropped by the lead pack very early. A sharp contrast to the swim I had two weeks earlier in Port Macquarie. Out on the bike course I was not feeling much better. I struggled through a slow first 30km lap, quickly losing sight of Mitch Anderson who started the bike just in front of me. It was to be a solo ride for me once again. I slowly worked my way into the race after a tough start and was able to increase my pace over the second two laps. By the end of the bike I was well and truly out of the hunt for a top five position and was purely focused on beating the four hour barrier, which has been a personal goal of mine for a couple of years now. Looking at the race clock I would have to run sub 1.15 to do so.
I managed to hold the pace required for the first 14km and started the last 7km lap with a tad over 25minutes to reach my goal. Unfortunately I started to fatigue and I slowly lost more and more time over the last five kms finishing with a 1.16 and change. I was super happy to see Matty White take a well deserved win pushed all the way by Josh Rix and even happier to see good mate Paul Attard take his first Half Ironman podium finishing in third position.
I now look forward to heading to Canberra in four weeks time for the last race of Australian Half Ironman series and hope to put together a more consistent performance than Sunday. Sundays result does put me in the lead of National Half Ironman series points (which I discovered yesterday) and as long as I finish inside the top ten in Canberra I will win the series. Being the only athlete to compete in and finish inside the top 10 in 4 out of the 6 races. Well I guess as they say you have to be in it to win it.
A big thanks to all the support from the many friends who made the trip to support or race. This is one of my favourite races simply because of the number of mates racing and supporting. I love the fact it takes 3 hours just to check in on Saturday by the time you stop and have a chat to everyone you bump into down there.
