Passion For Performance

In this episode, Jeff and Pete pull apart what has been a solid year in the quest for chasing what for some is the Holy Grail - racing the Ironman World Championships on the big island of Hawaii in Kailua-Kona. 

We pull apart a race year so far that has had a close call in Port Macquarie Ironman, a "winter" race in Townsville at the World Triathlon Multisport Champs and most recently a successful qualification for 70.3 Worlds achieved at Western Sydney. 

In this episode we speak with Harry Wiles who has just returned from his second European racing block. We chat about the journey of getting around Europe, finding races and chasing prizemoney. This year Harry did 5 races including a 14 day block with 3 races in it.

Chasing Kona is back and in a big way ! In this latest episode Jeff grills HPT's 5 Kona qualifiers, Darren Alchin, Paul Linton, James Knight, Edward Quartly and James Martin on what their secret sauce was for their well deserved achievements of qualifying to race Ironman World Champs on the Big Island this October. 

There are no more passionate athletes in our squad than Sammy and Josh. We sat down and had a chat across a broad range of topics including what their original sporting history was, doing their first Ironman last year, a 6 month European trip and their triathlon "super fan" status. We also delve into the topic of gender equity in sport as well as do some predictions for this year's Kona race. 

Welcome to a chat with long time HPT athlete Thomas Leuchten. 

Tom is a passionate endurance athlete and has a rich history cramming a lot of change into his life. He grew up in Germany and Turkey then moved to England and finally settled in Australia.  Listen in to hear about his huge career change, moving across the world and back again to study, riding the Paris-Roubaix Challenge event, mountaineering in Germany and his latest experience dealing with the trauma of a catastrophic shoulder injury which has ruled him out of 70.3 Worlds in December. This one has it all. 

This chat starts as we go back to where it all started for Ben and JD. We then take the adventure racing journey with them that lead to them toeing the line side by side and successfully racing the Coast to Coast. 

Jeff and Pete start our 2024 series by taking stock, answering the following questions. 

• What is Chasing Kona 
• What has happened since we last spoke? 
• What's coming up 

Topics include Whoop bands, Form goggles, food diaries, black swans, white swans, crash replacement policies, upcoming races and future guests. 

This episode we sit down with Harry Wiles and have a coach / athlete chat discussing how 2023 went and what were the main challenges of his first year competing in the Pro ranks. 

Harry has an interesting history as an athlete. At 16 years of age he took cycling on and raced for the next 8 years competing with good success at the development team level. He then made a major switch and went to CrossFit. After a couple of years though he took on triathlon where after 3 or so years competing as an age group athlete he took the step up to race in the Professional category. 

Dan Atkins is the Head Coach of the AusTriathlon Performance Centre on the Gold Coast of Australia. Dan has done it all....from development squads to the Olympics. he has taken his career from being a swim coach where he learnt the skills of engaging, communicating and coaching with a large squad, up to a point now where he is coaching some of Australia's best short course triathletes competing on the world stage.

We had an engaging conversation about our experiences in triathlon coaching and discussed the evolution of the sport, the importance of personal wellness and work-life balance, and the challenges faced by high-performance coaches. Through what was at times a vulnerable chat, we emphasized the need for ongoing personal development, the value of networking, and the importance of recognizing when someone is struggling and offering support.

Steve Mackay is back to talk about Aerodynamics. He covers the theory and its surprising history in cycling and triathlon. With such highly individual and unusual outcomes, Steve concludes that the only way to know what is aerodynamic for the individual is to test it. Which is exactly what we will be doing for the next episide of Chasing Kona.