Jamie Whyte overcame tough windy conditions to come away as winner of the ironman distance Challenge Wanaka race.
This is his personal account of how the day panned out...
I couldn’t have asked for the race to go any better at Challenge Wanaka. In just my second ironman distance race I had a breakthrough result and the perfect race.
There were some strong international triathletes competing that have multiple ironman titles to their names, and on a challenging course it was bound to be a tough day. I was at the front for the whole day – all nine hours in brutally windy conditions.
With the wind already blowing strong first thing in the morning, Lake Wanaka had a significant chop for the 3.8km swim. I wanted to put some pressure on the other pro men in the swim and went out pretty hard establishing a lead bunch of three. I came home strong in the swim and lead out of the water which was a great way to start the day.
I was quickly joined on the bike by the other two members of that lead swim group - Courtney Ogden and Joshua Rix both from Australia. Rix was riding hard early on which saw Ogden slip off the pace after 10km. So the two of us got down to work and started opening up a significant lead on the chasing group behind.
By the time we reached Cromwell (at 105km) we had built up a seven minute lead. However Cromwell was also the end of the line for the massive tail wind we had. As we turned the corner to head back to Wanaka we were confronted by a howling head wind. The wind was so strong it even swept Belinda Harper, the leading female in the race at that stage, clean off her bike!
I could sense Rix’s big effort early on was starting to catch up with him and was not riding strongly anymore. Some splits to the chase bunch showed that they were beginning to come back to us, so it was time to move away solo and attempt to hold the advantage we built up. It was an incredibly hard final 60km solo into that head wind. I was focused on my power output as my speed was not making for good reading. I led the race into T2 with a four minute advantage.
The run wasn’t pretty but I was able to hold the gap back to the guys chasing. I thought I would have to run at least three hours to hang onto the lead, but the conditions had been so hard on the bike and remained very hard for running, that no one seemed to be running at a fast pace. With 2km to go I got my final split – six minutes! I was able to ease up and enjoy the finish chute in downtown Wanaka.
It was a very special day with my family there to greet me at the finish line. They were very proud of my effort to say the least! Unfortunately Fiona, my fiancée, could not make the race with her sister’s wedding on the same day.
I am in ironman recovery mode now. Looking forward to a few weeks of relaxing. It has been a great three weeks down in Central Otago, looking forward to doing it all again next year!
Jamie
