Will Clarke's Blog by Will_Clarke

Hello everyone and I hope you all had a lovely romantic Valentine’s Day! I personally couldn't open my door in the morning…but only because I forgot my key! I've got a little more to talk about for my blog this week. It's been quite action packed! I just recently got back from a short trip down to Victoria. I was in Geelong racing in the Australian Championships, and the funny thing is that there were no Aussies on the podium this year! I'm really happy because I managed to come home in second place, which is a great start to the year for me. It's not a win, but it was a VERY close fought race with a good friend and world ranked athlete Laurent Vidal from France, so I know I'm in good company.

I executed my race perfectly which I can't say often and I could tell that for this time of year, for a first hit out, it's looking really good for the year ahead. We were staying a bit out of town in a village called Clifton Springs where we rented a house with ocean views. It was cheaper and also much more chilled out then being around the venue all the time, so it made for a great weekend! How about this though. Lance Armstrong is back! He raced in a long distance race in Panama against a pretty strong professional field. Lance is 41 and used to be a triathlete before he turned professional at cycling.

He's now taken up the sport during his retirement to raise awareness and money for his foundation and probably more likely to satisfy his competitive tendencies. At the weekend he was close to winning on his first outing! What an incredible athlete he is. He's still competitive and it's so amazing to see one of my heroes racing in our sport and still doing an incredible job! He came out of the swim about 30 seconds behind the leaders before putting 5 minutes gap into everyone on the bike. His run wasn’t quite fast enough to hold off Bevan Docherty who has won medals at the last two Olympics. I'm buzzing to see him race this year and we'll probably see him improve as well!

On a sour note, I was really saddened this week and pretty depressed to hear that one of our club members here on the Gold Coast was killed by an out of control car. He was riding back from a bike race that we all do every week over here, before getting knocked down at some traffic lights. He was 26 years old and it was the second such incident that I've heard of in the area this week. He wasn't actually even riding at the time and it just made me realise it can happen to anyone.

Here in Australia it's becoming more and more dangerous for cyclists. Especially with celebrities like Shane Warne kicking off on T,witter after he’d had his own battle with someone. Please everyone be careful when you are cycling. Obey the rules of the road and be as safe as you can. We're so vulnerable! Likewise, when driving please be patient and watch out for us!