SINGAPORE 70.3 7 SEPTEMBER 08

I arrived home on Monday evening and have been catching up on sleep since. I am starting to find my feet and looking back on my whole trip I am pretty happy with how things turned out and what I learnt from the different races and training. I thought by now I would have stopped using the experience excuse, but I have found myself in a position where the lessons I am learning are the most important to date and once these are under control the limit of what can be achieved will be raised to a whole new extent... I think.

Training in Portland was awesome. I did most of my training with Chris Boudreaux and Andrew Lafrenz who were awesome training partners and all round nice guys. When I had enough energy and felt fresh enough I went running with my bro and his team, I am sure they just ran fast because they didn't want a triathlete running with them. When I wasn't training I was either sleeping, eating, lying on the couch in a comatose state or relaxing on the massage table of Michael Bilyeu.

Last stop for me was the Singapore 70.3, I mean ITU, woops no I actually mean 70.3 with a little bit of drafting going on. It is hard for me to get my head around how this race was marshalled. It was the largest prize money 70.3 race outside of world champs and it seemed the drafting rules didn't apply. With the field stacked with Aussies including 3 times ITU world Champion Peter Robinson and 2004 Olympic representative Simon Thomson I really wanted to make the bike ride hard which soon proved to be what it was for me but not so much for everyone else behind. As my legs where almost about blown from trying to break away I realised that I was a marked man and this was not going to happen. So I tried to let my legs recover a bit before the run cause I was going to need it.

The guys headed out like it was a 10km ITU race and at 1km into the 21km run there were 5 Australians ahead of me. This was either going to be a long day for me or for them if they blew up. I just found my rhythm and ticked along. It was hot and humid and pace was going to be the deciding factor in the second half. I slowly ran through the field and soon I was 50meters behind the leader Simon Thomson and holding even. At about half way he slowed and I caught up. we ran together for the next 7km and when he surged with 3km to go, my tank was empty and could not match him.

I crossed the line in 2nd place, 15sec behind.

I now head down to the snow for 3 days with Kelly and her family which I have been looking forward to. Then it is back to the drawing board to make a few changes and plan to get ready for half ironman world championships in November in Florida.

Thanks for all the support and encouragement

Kind regards

Terenzo

VINEMAN 70.3 HALF IRONMAN 20JULY2008

Two weeks into solid training and my first race of this block is done and dusted.Today was the Vineman 70.3 (half Ironman) in Sonoma country, just north of San Francisco near Napa valley where all the great vineyards are, hence the name Vineman.
It was probably one of the strongest half Ironman races of the year with most of the big names. The swim was straight forward, up and down a river, then a large bunch formed on the bike which was not the best as the course had a lot of small climbs and corners and there was a big yoyo effect through the group, I suppose all the accelerations did pay off as a few people started struggling near the end. I got off the bike in 4th about 3 minutes off the leader but managed to string out a 20 second lead over Craig Alexander, one of my main competitors but he pulled that back within the first 2km, which was a huge shock to me as I thought I was moving fast.His pace didn't slow, but I managed to hang in there, struggling at times. We caught the leader Steve Larsen about half way through the run and Craig slowed up a bit, I thought I would test his legs and keep the pace going, I gained a small lead and it kept growing, I didn't know what was going on, was he playing with me or had his legs gone. I wasn't going to hang around to find out so I kept pushing along. With 1mile to go someone yelled that I was on for a course record, I was already giving it my all so all I could dowas try and hold on a bit longer. I crossed the line in 3.49.30 about 30 seconds under the record and got a large 3L bottle of La Crema wine, who knows what I am going to do with that.
So all in all not a bad day at the office. In fact the last few days have been great, I have been staying with Chris Legh at this great home stay in Santa Rosa, the Devore's, where tradition says their house has a great curse where someone who stays their will be victorious. Well let's hope they don't wash the sheets!!! Okay that sounds dirty, but you know what I mean.Quick turn around today, already back on my way to the airport to head down to San Diego for a day before going back to Portland to work on my recovery before getting back into some serious miles. My brother and I purchased a nice small car so I should have a bit more independence and save some $ on gas.Next stop for me is TimberMan 70.3 in a month so will check in again soon.RegardsTerenzo

OUCH!!!! 16 June 2008

I'll keep this one short and brief.Stop 3, Kansas 70.3 (half Ironman), similar temperatures to last week, hot and humid, but not quite as bad. I knew this race was going to be a tough one, 3rd in a row. And that is what if felt like, bloody hard. The swim was okay, Simon lessing pushed the pace early on and surprisingly a small bunch hung around. Onto the bike with 4 other guys including Lessing and Craig Alexander, winner and runner up at the 2006 half Ironman world champs and I had nothing in the tank, soon I found myself riding solo about 1 minute behind. I wanted to stop, I couldn't find any rhythm and had no power, I told myself things would change as the race unfolded, when the blood started moving to my sore muscles, but it felt like things were getting worse from 30-40km and I was starting to get worried. Then all of a sudden after one of the turn rounds something snapped and I was back to my normal self. I made up the deficit and then put 1minute on Craig and TJ Tollenson, what was going on?Onto the run and I knew I was going to have to pull something special out to hold off Alexander, I pushed the first couple miles which I ended up paying for the next 10miles, woops. I could feel my calves and quads on the verge of cramping but nothing bad enough to stop my stride. I crossed the line with a 3 minute lead. I am glad I don't have another race next week. Well, I didn't quite get the clean sweep, but I am happy with how the form is looking, especially off no base training.Three races in three states that I have never been to, and all with great memories, not only of the races but of the whole experience, from people to scenery. I now fly back home tonight, don't know what I was thinking when I booked that flight. Think I must have been looking forward to getting home to my new TEMPURA bed that arrived as I was leaving for the airport 3 weeks ago. Should make for a speedy recovery!CheersTerenzo

EAGLEMAN 10 June 2008

Okay, so the signs are out there. If I didn't love doing this sport so much and love it when people try and make my life a living hell I would probably retire and get some high powered job so that everyone was afraid of me. I mean honestly, first not making the O game team and now getting a 4 minute drafting penalty in the first 1km of the bike because someone else came in front of me and slowed down. If we were racing at the world champs last year he would have got the penalty. But besides that, ruining someone’s race before it has even begun is not on, at least give the race a couple miles for everyone to settle into their positions and if you are going to give a penalty for something so pathetic, so early on, just make it a stop and go penalty! Okay so enough of me bitching. Now I had to decide whether I kept going or just pulled out of the race and focus on the half Ironman in Kansas the following weekend, I decided to keep going, I have not pulled out of races in the past and I wasn't going to start now. After all, this trip is all about learning new stuff. I eventually cooled back down and settled into my rhythm, with a penalty you have to stop at the first penalty tent on the course to do your time, in this case it was at 22miles or about 35km. It so happened that I ended up riding at the front of the bunch the whole way there, people are not allowed to draft and have to sit 10meters behind the cyclist in front, but there is definitely an advantage when riding behind someone, even at that distance especially when there are 5 guys in front of you.So after my 4 minutes hanging out in a tent on the side of the road, I had drunk a bottle of Gatorade as it was a stinking hot day and was only going to get hotter, like 40+ degrees Celsius, I was back on the bike, probably riding a bit too hard, but determined to make up time and I would have if the second bunch hadn't caught the front guys and pulled them along. Anyway, off the bike about 4 minutes down on the quick runners, Paul Amey, being one of them, one of the quickest runners in the sport. All I could do was find a pace that I could hold, if I went out too hard in this heat things could have got nasty. Slowly I picked my way through 6 of the 7 guys who were in front of me but just could not close the gap on Amey. I finished 2minutes 30seconds down, not a bad result given the situation, (you do the maths), all I can say is it would have been a great battle if things were how they should have been.Straight to the medical tent for me where I received 2 IV drips to help re-Hydrate. I finished the race at 10.30, and I was still hanging around outside a couple hours later when there where still people heading out on the run and it was a whole lot hotter then, I take my hat off to those guys. I had a great home stay in Maryland, a beautiful house right on the water and Luke Finlay the owner was a great host.Now I am just settling in Kansas, ready to scout the course and recover this week. My legs felt fully recovered after my Idaho effort so much the same routine from here to get the legs back in shape.Sorry again for the long drawn out report, what can I say, I like to keep you guys informed. Next time I think I will do it in bullet point form and see how that goes. Will probably be a hell of a lot easier to write with my 2 thumbs on my crapberry.Have a good weekRegardsTerenzo

1 down 2 to go 3 June 2008

Who would have thought traveling could be so stressful!!! What a mission. Getting to the airport, checking in with someone who is determined to make your day miserable, flights being changed and no where to stay at my destination... Well, if that's not character building then what is?
I think recently I have had to learn to deal with these types of situations, I have had to learn not to let things out of my control wear me down.
Anyways, back to the race. I woke up, forgot to hit my snooze button and realized an hour later, woops. For this particular race we had two transitions, the swim to bike, which was 20min drive away, and we had to hike up a 1km hill, usually the pros get preferential treatment and dropped off right at the start, not this time. I was actually a little worried because my quads were throbbing the previous night from having to walk down this monstrosity.
So the swim was cold, icy cold and instead of cutting it short I think it was slightly long, and did I mention it was cold? I was out the water first with a small group of guys and headed off for the bike which had a handful of notable climbs and a heap of wind. Chris Lieto came flying past me at about 20km, I had decided to race my own race and control myself so I let him go, I was expecting to loose about 3 minutes on him, but by the time I got off the bike I was nearly 5 minutes down, oh bugger. I had thought my new bike position was good, but with such a deficit I think I will have to look at it again.
Off onto the run and I had to find a quicker rhythm than what I was planning if I wanted to make up time on Chris. By the end of the first lap (10.5km) I had closed the gap to just over 2 minutes, then I got a bit carried away and started running quicker, I wanted to be sure I could catch him, I ended closing the gap in 4km, poor guy seemed to be hurting, well I suppose that's what you get when you ride like Lance Armstrong. I finished with about a 2 minute lead, my first win in the 70.3 series and with it being the inaugural race here in Boise it was really special.
Chris Lieto finished 2nd, with Joe Gambles and Leon Griffin from Aussie 3rd and 4th and Jordan Rapp, fellow training partner up in Victoria finishing off the top 5.
Next stop Cambridge, Maryland this weekend, I think my legs should be back by then.
Well back on track and still early days, so thanks for sticking by me.
Chat soon
Regards
Terenzo

Boise 70.3 1 June 2008

http://www.insidetri.com/article/71387/bozzone-tackles-boise-703

3 IN 1 28 May 2008

Where in the hell do I come up with these subject headings? You can see I write too many of these updates, am going to start running out of material.
Okay, so off to the US again for three Half Ironman races in this one trip...
First stop Boise, Idaho for a race this weekend, then Cambridge, Maryland and lastly Kansas. It should make for an enjoyable trip, living on the road and out of a suitcase for three weeks.
After Wildflower 3 weeks ago I had a quick stop in Portland, Oregon to scout out the training terrain and visit my little brother. It was great to see him and get a better understanding for this University life stuff, it is no wonder he is always tired when I speak to him, it doesn’t matter what day it is I can always call him before I go to sleep, about 5 hours time difference and he is still up either studying about half the nights or out partying the other half. All in all the training is good, the running tracks are the best in the world and I get to run with fast guys – like crazy fast guys, 3 guys on the team are low 28min 10km runners. The cycling seems to be good but I think I will need a tour guide for the first couple weeks and the swimming, well not too sure about that. Couldn’t seem to find any descent pools let alone swimming squads, but hey they have a big river there, will just need to make sure I don’t start off down stream… I am planning on spending most of the second half of the year up there training in the sun.
Well back to this trip – so I was lacking a bit of strength at Wildflower which should have changed by now as I have managed to get a good couple weeks of solid training done back here at home, but 3 halves in a row is a bit crazy, but definitely doable. I was fortunate enough to get a bit of time in a wind tunnel to play around with my set up thanks to Tri NZ – my girl friend calls it the constellation prize for not going to Beijing. We came up with some exciting stuff, some of which will be tried in these next few races.
The plan for the year is to kick butt at the Half Ironman World Champs in November and everything up until then is focused on learning more about this distance of racing and figuring out where my limits are and how far I can push the boundaries before I pop, like I did at Wildflower. That is not me making excuses for average races up until then, I don’t get on the start line to place at the bottom of the podium, for me it is all or nothing.
Thanks
Terenzo

WILDFLOWER....... No Comment 4 May 2008

I guess you need more than two weeks strength training to race a tough half Ironman!!! But at the end of the day I shouldn't really use that as my excuse. I knew where my fitness was and if I raced inside my zone I am sure the second half of the race may have unfolded differently. The swim was great, I relaxed the first half of the 1.9km swim and with 500m to go I went to the front and pushed the pace to get a bit of a gap on the weaker swimmers. It worked well and I picked up the swim prime exciting the water first. The first part of the bike is very tactical and I kept pushing the pace even though my heart rate was a few beats higher than what I wanted. But I got a good lead and as my pace settled so did my heart rate. At about 10km into the 90km bike Bjorn Anderson the fastest biker around over this distance caught up, I thought the pace he was riding was comfortable for me so I tried to stick with him for a while. Then all of a sudden my legs started to die, I was only a quarter through the bike, this was not good. My pace started dropping and continued this trend trough the race, I could see on my power meter the numbers drop, about 100 watts difference from start to finish. Not good at all. I was really paying for my mistake, the same mistake I have made a couple times, you think I would learn from mistakes. I like doing and learning things the slow, hard way it seems. Not for any longer.Off onto the run in 6th position, I tried to let my race start again. I found a steady rythem and for the first 5km I was moving well. But my legs were still deteriorating and I was struggling to keep going. Blisters that had formed and bleed out due to the high proportion of the run course being on soft surfaces and every muscle from my hips down just wanted to rest. I could see a couple of competitors up the road and every time I tried to pull them in I died a little more. I was passed by Chris Liegh but caught Bjorn in the final stretches so finished in 6th spot. All in all the atmosphere was great, just like I remembered. The great support from the spectators and volunteers and the racing environment is a lot friendlier than the ITU Olympic distance stuff. Whenever a competitor passed me yesterday they either smiled at me to keep going or told me to keep it up. Even Chris "Macca" who ended up winning said when he passed me near the end of the bike "stick with us, you are the fastest runner here, you will be able to make up time." I am fortunate to be able to do a sport that I love for a living and to be around great competitors and supporters who make my life enjoyable. Even at moments like these I can reflect on what I do have in my life and I find myself smiling. That's not to say I am happy with my performance, in fact the complete opposite is how I feel, but I will not dwell on that for too long, instead I am going to fix what went wrong and make sure next time I am more prepared. Yesterday was not my day, I put myself in a position for a great day as doing average is not what I reach to achieve, but a bit more control would have gone down a treat. I was also fortunate to have my little brother Dino down from University at Portland, Oregon looking after me. We are know back in San Francisco to watch a couple of his team mates run a 10km invitational race at Stanford tonight, then we head back up to Portland to figure out if the surrounds are perfect for me to train and get ready for the northern hemisphere summer of competition.Next stop for me is the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in 5 weeks which will be a good day for me to have a perfect race.I hope that everyone is well, I will keep in touch to let you know how everything unfolds.RegardsTerenzo

XTERRA NEW ZEALAND CHAMPIONSHIPS 14 APRIL 2008

What was I thinking entering an off road triathlon. A 1000m swim in the Blue lake in Rotorua, then a 26km Mountain Bike around the Redwood forest and to finish off an 11km run. Well that was how I spent last weekend

The afternoon before the race I thought I would go and check out some of the course and see what I was getting myself into. I didn’t want to ride the whole thing mountain bike so I just did the first 30minutes, well that was no fun – it was all up hill. Then I wanted to get back to my car… the short way, I found a straight line down the mountain on the National Downhill MTB trail, woops, I shouldn’t have done that. I couldn’t stop praying for it finish, I think I almost wore the brake pads down on my bike completely. So this little outing really was a blow to the confidence, I arrive confident and went to sleep that night thinking oh well, I did just come down here for fun.

Race day was beautiful. The sun was up and had warmed the cool air by the time our race started. Off on the swim and my competitiveness took over, pushing my way to the front and trying to keep the pace up as I knew I would have to put some time on the better Mountain bikers. First out of the water and off onto the bike… uphill right from the word go. To summarize the bike, the “uphill” was no fun, but I didn’t loose any time to the skilled bikers and the “Downhill” was exciting but I got time drilled out of me. Thankfully for my Specialized Epic mountain bike I managed to keep my deficit to a minimum.

I was off the bike 3min 40sec down on the leader and second and third were also well ahead, so I found my rhythm and pushed the pace. I now know why they call it an off road tri. Side stepping through the bush, would pay its dividend on the second lap where I experienced cramp so bad I had to stop and stretch it out. That was when I lost back the lead I had caught up on the first lap, so back in second and hobbling along, trying to prevent the cramp from returning, every stride I thought my race was over. I tried to change how my foot was contacting the ground, which seemed to work, and then laid the hammer back down.

Finally I got to the finish in first place, my first Xterra. Second place, Mark Leishman was only 20seconds back and had really made me work for the victory. I couldn’t believe what a great event it was, after racing around the world I was surprised to see an event in the middle of the forest on such an international level. Everything was run so smoothly, from the tricky parts deep in the forest to what would normally be chaotic transition zones. And the media covered the event well.

Well, what is next for me? After the huge upset in not making the Olympic team I have decided to focus this year on more of the non drafting races. I will be racing the Half ironman at Wildflower in 2 weeks and then be returning Back to San Francisco in the beginning of June for the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. My main goal for the year is going to be the 70.3 (half ironman) world championship in November in Clearwater and I am still undecided on the Xterra world champs…hehe

New Plymouth 9 April 2008

I win.. just by starting the race.

OH SHIT 4 April 2008

I don’t really know how to start this email and I don’t think there is any easy way to inform you that the selectors made there decision last night and decided not to select me. it was a huge shock to me as I was sure the cards I had played would guarantee me selection. But hey, I suppose “selectors discretion” means just that… I really should have sent them an Easter egg. Too late now.
I know there has been a media release stating this, I would have really like to let you all know from me before the media, but I had quite a tough night. So sorry if you have heard from other sources before me.
As everyone knows this has been my life’s Dream and Goal. The past year has been solely based around making this team and representing New Zealand with Pride. This was a huge blow to me as I had done everything possible.
I am a strong believer of Fate – everything happens for a reason, and although right now that reason is far from clear to me, I know I am going to continue striving my best with new determination to be the best Triathlete the world has seen.
I know that everyone supported me to be the best I can be and no question about it, I have been striving in that direction my whole life. I am disappointed that I am not on the team as it would have been a great journey for us all. The support you given me over the years has made me what and who I am and I regards all of you as a part of my team.
Not too sure what the next steps are for me leading into the future but you can be sure that I still love this sport and with this set back I am going to come back to reach new heights.
Thanks everyone for everything and sorry this outcome has not been in our favour.
I look forward to catching up with everyone in the near future
Kind regards
Terenzo

Mooloolaba "THE BALANCE" 1 April 2008

Well, race one of the season is done and dusted. Not nearly the result I was looking for but a solid performance, the whole race went to plan… except for the outcome.
The day was hot and there was a slight wind, the field was stacked with several World Champions and Olympic medalists and the course was one similar to that of the course in Beijing. I had to finish in the top 5 for automatic selection. This is how my day unfolded.
It was a beach start with a short run into the small surf which suited me and I managed to get out past the breakers near the front. There was of course the usual pushing and pulling throughout the swim, but I can pretty much guarantee that whoever got too close to me wont be doing that again, I stood my ground. You can never really tell where in the field you are until you are out cause all the kicking and splashing makes it look like you there are twice as many people in front of you. but when I got out of the water I was in the top 10, goal one accomplished. I thought this was going to be a deciding factor as on this course a small bunch of 10-15 usually stay away, that was not the situation today. I think the whole field came together on the bike and there where definitely some decent crashes as I heard bikes getting pilled on top of each other multiple times.
Coming into the second transition I managed to get onto Marko Albert’s (from Estonia) wheel and received a good drag down the final kilometer of the bike. Soon it was off onto the run. I knew this was going to be hard as I was starting to feel my legs tighten up near the end of the bike, but I kept thinking positively and going through everything in my head. The first kilometer was crazy fast and up hill and it seemed we didn’t slow down for the whole of the first lap (2.5km) actually it seemed that the leaders didn’t slow down at all throughout the 10km. However that was not how my race was going to unfold. The start of the second lap I felt as if I had been hit by a train, I kept loosing the group in front of me and catching back up down the hills, but when the third lap rolled around my legs where even heavier, guys I can usually run with where running away from me, I don’t know how I even got to the finish. At the end I had managed to hold off Shane Reed, the other kiwi who was going for that spot. I finished 14th. Not a bad effort but I am far from happy with my performance, my running training had been going great but without the fire in my legs for the second half it made for a tough day. So the next big obstacle is how I am going to manage swimming well and running well on the same day, it always seems to be one way or the other.
Because I didn’t make the top 5, there is no automatic selection, instead the selectors will announce the team next weekend after the New Plymouth World Cup, so fingers crossed.
Right now I am doing everything in my power to recover faster and get ready for next weekend, it is going to be a different outcome.
Will be in touch
Regards
Terenzo

Mooloolaba 25 March 2008

HI all,
I hope that you had a good Easter. I am having withdrawals from the lack of Chocolate in my body. I guess I will have to make it up after this weekend.
I just wanted to write a quick note before I head off to Mooloolaba for our final Olympic Selection race this weekend. I have been looking forward to this race for some time now and can’t wait to let it all out this weekend. The criteria for the final New Zealand spot is that we have to be the first New Zealander home and in the top 5, which is a pretty tough task with the international field expected for the race. If we fail to reach this criteria then it is all up to the selectors.
My preparation has gone well and I am happy with my form leading into the race. I have had some pretty hard workouts with some tough guys like Adrian Blincoe – New Zealanders fastest 5km runner who will be competing in the games for Athletics as well as a couple other friends, Tom Mayo and Paul Angland who I have been able to rely on 100% to come out and push me along giving his everything for every workout. So thanks guys.
If you would like, you can follow the race this weekend on www.triathlon.org – they should have live video coverage of the race. Our race starts at 1:40pm Sunday Australian time, which is 4:40pm in New Zealand, and 8:40pm Saturday evening Pacific Time in the States. So tune in if you can.
Also apologies for terenzo.com being down the last month, I should have a new and improved site up and running in a couple weeks time.
Thanks everyone for you support, will touch base after the race
Kind regards
Terenzo

CLEARWATER Half Ironman World Championship 11 November 2007

What a day!!!
Well, I arrived here in Clearwater, Florida on Monday evening. Surprisingly it was no where near as hot as it was last year. They where having a cold front which made it almost unbearable to be outside if you weren’t sheltered from the wind and in the sun… okay maybe not unbearable compared to most other places around the world at this time of year but it wasn’t what I was expecting. All those weeks of training with lots of layers of clothes on was going to prove to be unnecessary. My time included: checking out the course, fine tuning my bike, ice baths every night and massages from my two private therapists – mum and dad and by the end of the week my legs had mostly recovered from my race in Mexico. I had a few other commitments, but my most favorite was the Question and Answer night that Specialized held at one of the local bike shops to help the launch of their new Time Trial Bike, what a machine. I got to hang out with Peter Reid, one of Ironman greats which was awesome and everyone who came to the shop were great to talk to.
Race day quickly approached and before I knew it I was ready on the start line waiting for the gun. I had a great run into the water and was out in front for about 200m that was some unknown territory for me, I am never that far up in the swim. Then Andy Potts, one of the top swimmers in triathlon came past and I tried to stay on his feet… hard work especially with the current we had, we soon found ourselves 50m off course swimming in the totally wrong direction. Once we fixed up I sat in the group and Andy put a bit of a gap on us. By the end of the swim, expecting Mr. Potts to come out 1 minute ahead I found him right in font of me, the guy had gone off course again, poor guy.
Onto the bike, the pace was fast for the first few kilometers then we started settling in, that was until Bjorn Anderson and David Thomson, absolute machines on the bike, came rolling past. I thought this would be my time to put a gap on the rest of the field. So I rode up with them and put the hammer down to get away. It worked and soon we were cruising at about 50km/hr on the flat and I felt great, this was going to be my day. With the half ironman races there is no drafting on the bike so everyone has to keep a 10meter gap between the person in front and nobody wants to risk a 4 minute penalty so we end up leaving almost 20m just to be safe. Everything was going well, until about mile 40 (65km) into the bike, I started feeling my hips slowly cramp up, my quads blow. I had pushed the envelope a bit hard a bit early and I was going to pay. I made the stupidest mistake ever, I didn’t race my race, I knew my limits, but I still pushed them to ride with the leaders aiming for that extra edge. The last 20km of the bike I really tried to up my Carbohydrate intake, I slowed my pace right down and hoped my legs would come back.
I finished the bike with an average speed of about 44km/hr but only a 90sec lead over the main group which consisted of Craig Alexander, Andy Potts, Andrew Johns and a handful of others All I had to do was have a strong run and I may be able to hang on. So I set out the fastest pace I could hold but my legs were fried. I tried to keep focused but I was so tired, I must have been inches away from lying on the side of the road and passing out. Every stride was a struggle and by the end of the first lap the group was starting to pass me. I wish I could say that I only lost 90seconds on the 2nd lap as well but I dropped even further than before. I knew it was bad when girls on the first lap of their run where passing me and I could do nothing to hold on. I wasn’t going to pull out so I just chugged to the finish. Finishing in 9th place. A position that is still respectful, 9th in the World, but I was far from happy, I am still far from happy. I did the run in the same time I ran last year, but last year I had only run a couple times in the months leading up to the race due to an injury.
I messed this race up, I was ready and having a great day but I made a little mistake that I paid for big time. I have definitely learnt my lesson, it doesn’t matter how you feel you still have to race within yourself to a certain extent. At least for now while I am still young and not as strong as my older competitors.
Overall I have learnt and monitored some interesting information that will help me tremendously in the future to be a consistent champion.
This is the end of the season for me, so a few weeks off to recharge then back into it to get ready for Mooloolaba, our final selection race for the Olympics.
Thanks for all your support over the year, it has helped hugely. Good luck for the rest of 2007
Kind regards


MEXICO CANCUN ITU WORLD CUP November 2007

Firstly sorry for all the emails about the wrong race time. If anyone managed to catch any of the race I hope the coverage was okay.
I came to Cancun to get an in depth idea of how and what exactly I would need to do to race at the top of the game. I was aiming to nail the swim and get out with the front bunch, something that is proving to be of utmost importance to those who want to be in contention for the placings. Then I wanted to cruise the bike and have a good run.
Well this is roughly how it went: wearing number 10 I managed to get a good start position which was going to be pretty important as it was a beach start and the positions to the far right were optimal as you could wade about 20m further than those to the left. The start went well, I settled in behind the likes of Whitfield, Docherty, Gemmell and co. and felt I was off to a good swim, but slowly I got pushed back and by the time we cut around the first buoy a group from the left must have slipped past because before I knew it I was in the shit fight with leg grabbers and body slammers, everyone wanting to take the pole position around the turns. The swim was a lot different than any of use are used to, we had to run and duck dive about 100m at the start and a 100m at the finish and another 100m or so between the laps. Who thought duck diving could take that much breath out of you!!! To make matters worse there was a howling onshore wind which chopped up the water and made it impossible to find any rhythm.
The swim finished and I was out the water in about 20th position I ran hard and fast into transition, passed a couple people, had to pick up my helmet that had been blown off my bike and was soon off on my bike. I don’t know why but I managed to be the first person NOT to make the front bunch, great! There was a small group of us that worked pretty hard to bridge the gap but the front guys had the hammer down and soon we were swallowed up by the group behind us. I don’t know what they were thinking because as they caught up they stopped working, why? There were still 20 odd guys up the road. There were a small few who tried to push the pace but nothing lasted longer than 1km, I could see the front bunch coming out of every U-Turn with more and more time and by the end of the bike they had over 3 minutes on us.
Off onto the run and tried to find a fast rhythm, it lasted a couple kilometers then I started to suffer, pushing the pedals too hard on the bike was paying its dividend. I ran as best I could given the circumstances and how I felt and managed to maintain my position to the finish. 24th!
I am definitely not happy with the outcome, all I needed was to be 5 seconds quicker onto the bike and the race would have had an entirely different outcome. But no use talking about it know, its all about the then and there when I need to put it on the line.
Next weekend, the last race of my season, 70.3 (Half Ironman) World Championships, although it is a half ironman not an Olympic distance race I will be going out there to learn as much as I can that will help me when Mooloolaba, which is just around the corner, rolls around.
I will let you know how and when you can follow the race closer to the time.
Have a great week
Kind regards


AUCKLAND: 1 November

Hi all,
I am just about to leave New Zealand for my last two races of the season. First stop is this weekend in Cancun for an ITU World Cup, it seems the field is pretty stacked with a lot of the guys ranked in the top 20 competing to finish the year with maximum points. This is the same distance race that I will be competing in for our last Olympic spot so it is a good opportunity for me to figure out places I need to work on and how I can race at the front with the likes of Gomez and company for that number one position at the games. My coach Jon Ackland and I have come up with some great ideas and testing to see how they have worked will really be interesting.
The race is this Sunday at 10am Cancun time (Eastern Time) which is Monday morning, 4am in New Zealand. Anyone interested in following the race can do so on www.triathlon.org not too sure what if they will have live video but there will be some information up.
From Cancun I head up to Florida for the Half Ironnman World Champs, a race where I finished 6th Last year with no run training so will hopefully be a different outcome this time round.
Training has been going really well the last few weeks so not much trouble there, but coming from our Spring where the temperature is still below 20’C to Cancun and Florida where they are hitting 28-30’C with 90+% humidity will be a real deciding factor
I will let you know how things unfold after this weekend
Kind regards and thanks for the support


Beijing World Cup: 16 September 2007


Well well well…
Yesterday I had the Beijing World Cup on what is the Olympic course, a race that I have been planning for all year. For the New Zealand Team this race had a lot of importance placed on it as it was our first Selection race. After having a great day in Hamburg at the World Championships 2 weeks ago I really believed that I was going to be in for a good day. Leading into the race I felt like I felt the week before Hamburg, I was ready. Our selection criteria was first 3 kiwis in the top 5.
The race started in smoggy Changping, a small city on the outskirts of Beijing. I had the premium position, next to Andy Potts, the fastest guy in the water. For the first couple hundred meters I knew this was my day, Andy was swimming great towing my along and then the guy on my other side decided to roughen it up a bit and swam over top of me. It didn’t matter too much as I thought I was swimming alright until I got out the water and I was a little down, about 35th. I smashed it through transition and was right on Kris Gemmel’s wheel. We were mowing down the leaders. Just as we were about to close the gap a fellow competitor from my birth country South Africa stood up and changed gear, his chain slipped and he swept across the road catching my front wheel and pushing me over. By the time I got out of my pedals and started going again I was well behind the pace, I put my head down thinking that the leaders would slow down in a couple laps, yeah right, they just got faster. Paul Tichelar and myself road the whole 40km on our own, not giving up for 1 second, but by the time we got onto the run I was over 90seconds back. Oh well, I wasn’t going to pull out now so I cruised the run, caught a couple straggles from the lead bunch and that was my day.
It just really sucks how you put months of preparation into performing on 1 day and when something totally out of your control happens there is nothing you can do. Bevan and Kris ran into 3rd and 4th respectively, so I would have had to have had a great race to squeeze into the team. Now it comes down to Mooloolaba world cup in March where the rest of us will fight for that remaining spot.
From here I head down to Melbourne for 4 days holiday with Kelly and then it is back to the drawing board to get ready for the 70.3 World Champs in November in Florida.
Look forward to catching up with everyone over the next few weeks.
Regards


GERMANY: 2 September 2007


Wow what a day, a well overdue result,
The day started with everyone crossing their fingers hoping that the rain would hold off. It seemed to have worked, because the course seemed to stay dry until after the race when the heavens opened…
Well that’s all that I wrote traveling from Hamburg to Japan, I thought I would be able to finish writing it on my blackberry on our 5hr bus ride but as my luck would have it, no phone reception and my outlook has died on my computer (due to changes made by XTRA my ISP). So here I am doing it the hard way (writing while connected to the internet) well, not really the hardest way, but not the easiest way either.
To finish off on race day, the gun went off at 3pm, there where 81 starters and I knew I was going to have to have a great start to avoid the kicking and punching. The big decision before the race was where to start. You had Gomez and Whitfield to the far right and Potts to the left. The first turn buoy was dead in the middle. I decided to go slightly to the left to have the outside line around the buoys to hopefully avoid a few fists. It seemed to have worked well, it was still pretty rough but I knew I was near the front and still in contention.
Out of the swim I was about 20th, 20seconds behind the leaders, I nailed the transition and pushed the start of the bike to get on the wheels in front of me, probably a bit of a waste of time because the whole field ended up coming together at the end of the first lap. The course was 8 laps and there were about 9 corners per lap making for a tactical race. I tried to position myself well in the bunch to avoid heavy accelerations out of the corners but it seemed everyone had that idea, you literally had to push your way through to keep your position. The bike rolled around pretty quick and soon we were onto the run.
I left at a comfortable pace and a small bunch formed just in front of me, my legs were feeling good so I decided to run with them. This was the first time I was running with the leaders and feeling comfortable. All that training in Victoria had seemed to pay off. The first lap went by and we were half way onto the 2nd lap when there was a sudden change in pace that I couldn’t react to fast enough and found myself running in no mans land with no one to pace off. At that stage I went through a real slump and thought my race was over. I really focused on my technique and trying to stay on top of it and it seemed to work, by the end of that lap I had found my legs and was making my way back up. With the last kilometer of the race I picked up the pace and managed to make up a few more places, crossing the line in 7th place, the first New Zealander home.
Now I am settled in at our base in Japan, the nearest main city is Nagano, about an hour drive from here. But our house is situated 800m above sea level near all the ski resorts. The food is… how do I put it, well it is food but I am really struggling. I may be a bit lighter by the time next weekend comes. Everything is revolved around recovering for the big race next weekend in Beijing. It is our first Selection race for the Olympics and the whole team is keying that event as it will be a huge relief to have selection out of the way this early on. I leave the base on Monday and over night in Tokyo then fly out the following morning to get my lungs acclimatized to the pollution, hehe.
Hopefully this is a start of good things to come. Thanks to everyone for having patience and supporting me through the rough patch.


GERMANY: 1 September 2007


Guten tag from Germany,I hope the weather around the rest of the world is a bit better than what we are experiencing here in Hamburg.I arrived here on Tuesday from Canada and it is now apparent to me that it is pretty hard to find warm weather anywhere in the world. I left home as it was too cold to train there, but I have not put on a pair of shorts since I have been away. I was training in Victoria, Canada for the previous 4 weeks with Simon Whitfield and the Canadian squad who I have spent a lot of time with in the past. The training was some of the hardest that I have ever done but it was great to have a group of people doing the same work day in & day out pushing the pace. I managed to improve the areas that I needed work. From swimming in a 50m pool & lots of open water session my strength really picked up, & run training with Simon, one of the fastest guys on the circuit at the moment couldn't hurt either. So heading into World Champs and 2 weeks down the track Beijing world cup/ our first olympic selection race I am in a good place... I was house sitting for some good friends for a couple weeks and thankfully the house that they just moved into didn't fall or burn down. Kieran Doe, a fellow New Zealander who is into the long distance racing stayed with me for a couple weeks leading into the canadian ironnman in Penticton last weekend which he lead from start to finish to take the win.Well race day is tomorrow, Sunday at 3pm, or 1am back home in NZ, so I won't be too offended if you don't log into the ITU live feed. Hamburg is a beautiful city, I love seeing all the old buildings and being around a different lifestyle is really an eye opener.The only down side of racing here this weekend is that with another big race in 2 weeks time I can't afford to indulge in the local ice-cream. Oh well maybe next time!Will touch base with you all after the race tomorrow and let you know how things unfold.Take care


Vancouver; Des Moines; Edmonton World Cups June 2007


Hi guys,
Firstly I would like to apologize for the missing race updates the last few weeks. I felt like every time I was giving an update there was never any positive news so I wanted to wait until I had some good news before I filled you in on the bad news.
I arrived home in Auckland yesterday after a long trip home from Edmonton, Canada and now a day later my bags are still nowhere to be seen. The joys of traveling. I was away for 3 weeks and did 3 World Cup races. 1st stop was Vancouver. This was a first for the city and a practice run for the World Championships next year. The course suited me well. I was 10seconds behind the leaders out of the swim, and with my bunch doing no work we quickly dropped back to a minute deficit to the lead 7. At the rate things were going I was not going to be racing for a top spot, so I put a bit of an effort in and broke away from the bunch with one other. Due to the nature of the course, with all the sharp corners a small bunch was going to move along much quicker than a bunch of 30. We were bridging the gap by 15 seconds a lap, at this pace we would have caught up to the leaders with 10km to go, I was feeling great and riding hard, maybe too hard because I went around a corner at the bottom of a 400m climb a bit too fast and rolled my tire off the wheel and it blew up. Luckily I managed to stay on my bike, I tried to keep riding on the rim, but because the tire was half off the wheel would not fit through the frame. So I jumped off my bike and started running, I could see the gap to the leaders getting bigger and the chase group catching up, but still I ran as hard as I could, up a 400m steep hill and then along 200m on the flat to the wheel stop, by the time I got back on my bike I was exhausted and had lost a minute to the chase group. What was I meant to do, pull out the race and save it for next weekend, or keep going and see what I could make of it. The adrenaline was pumping and I didn’t want this whole race to go to waste so I put my head down and kept going. I didn’t gain or lose any time top the bunch but when I started running I knew that if I was in the lead bunch the results would have been a bit different. I slowly passed a few guys on the run and finished 31st.with absolutely no ITU points. Samantha Warriner from NZ won the woman’s race.
I then caught the ferry to Victoria to stay with my good friend Rob Hasagawa and his family and do some training with Simon Whitfield and his group before heading to Iowa for my next world cup. A new race to the circuit with the biggest prize purse in the sport, with the winners taking home US$200 000 and a Hummer, which would have been no good back here on our small roads. I knew if I felt as good as last weekend I was going to be in for a good race, but from start to finish I was struggling. I felt like I was going to sink in the swim and the air was hot and humid and I really struggled to breathe the whole race. After a hard day at the office I crossed the line in 24th, earning some much needed points to make it too the start line in Beijing.
Last stop of this trip was the Edmonton World Cup. A course that suited my style of racing. There was a lot of pressure for me to do well at this race, I needed to have a good race to improve my ranking otherwise I was going to have to find some more races later in my season which I would like to avoid doing. I went into the race baking myself all the way. I was not racing for experience anymore, this one was for the win. Race day came and I felt good. I had a good swim and nailed my transition to get on the bike with the front guys. There was a group of about 18 of us working pretty well to hold off the rest of the field. By the time the run came along we had about a 2 minute lead which was good. I headed out and my legs felt great so I pushed the pace. 3 guys including Kris Gemmel from NZ had broken away with 5 km’s to go on the bike and had a 20 second gap which closed slowly. Bevan Doherty took the lead after 4 kilometers and I was running comfortably closing the gap to the front. At the start of the 2nd Lap I started getting the most excruciating stomach cramps which were killing me with every stride I took. I lost about 20 seconds within 2 kilometers, but then came right and started pushing the pace again. With another big jump in pace with 1500meters to go I found myself running past a couple guys and finishing off in 6th spot. One of my better performances on the ITU scene, which was a big relief. And with lucky number 6 comes a drug test!!! Great, especially now that I was dehydrated.
This result gave me a lot of points, not enough to guarantee a start in Beijing in September, but has got me a lot closer as I am now ranked 4th kiwi, so it comes down to how the others race over the next couple months as to weather or not I have to race another points race.
It has been a long road to get back on top of my game and there have been a lot of down times where I have found it really hard to keep going. I appreciate and thank everyone for supporting me through this rough patch in my career, as without your help and encouragement I may not have made it back. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come in the near future.
I will be sure to write more frequently and not as lengthily.
My next 2 major races are Hamburg world championships on the 2nd September and our first Olympic Selection race on the 16th September in Beijing on the official course.
Thanks again and take care
Regards


Richards Bay World Cup 13 May 2007


Hi from sunny South Africa,
Well what can I say about my trip... Umm, well the weather was good. That's about all that was good for me.
The red eye down from Europe was okay, I managed to get a few hours of light sleep squashed in the back of the plane. Finally after about a day of traveling I arrived in Richards Bay, it was great to be at my final destination and settle into a rhythm. I started a short course of antibiotics as I seemed to pick up a bit of a throat infection on the way and was struggling to get through the day, uncomfortable and tired, with sore legs from last weekend.
I didn't end up doing much during the week, a little bit of easy training and heaps of resting. By the time Sunday race morning came along I was feeling better but still struggling with my breathing, however I was determined to go out there and have a good race. I told myself that in the past when I have had some of my best performances I have felt pretty ordinary before the start. So maybe I was ready for a great day. This was not to be.
The men headed off at 2.30pm, and the start of the swim was crazy, we only had 275 meters to spread out 75 men before our first turn, I thought that I had positioned myself well and it seemed like I was near the front, but when it came time to turn the buoy I found everyone on my outside was now on top of me. Inhaling air without getting a mouth full of water was impossible, and sometimes getting your head out of the water was hard enough. I knew at this stage that I was a way back and I had to do a lot of work if I was to bridge the gap. I pushed the pace and slowly made my way up the field, once I was out the water at the end of the second lap of the swim I ran as hard as I could as I knew I was going to be close whether I made the front bunch or not. I had a great transition but was still too far behind, soon a small bunch formed and even smaller few pushed the pace to bridge the 20 second gap. It gets quite frustrating when there are only a couple guys working to bridge the gap, someone should point out to some other individuals that if we don't bridge to the front pack the best position that they will get is 30th. Maybe next time I will just sit up and see what happens. By the end of the 3rd lap we had closed the gap but my legs where a bit fried, add another 5 laps with a 300m uphill sprint ever lap and I had not put my legs in a good position for the run.
The last few laps of the bike went by fast, but there was a break away of about 10 guys that got a minute lead onto the run which didn't help my situation. And when I started out running I felt like I had never run before, I struggled to put one leg in front of the other, I struggled to breath in air and after about 1500 meters I was struggling to move in a forward direction, it got so bad that I had to stop and walk for a second, I was on the verge of pulling out, I had dropped from being in the top 20 to being over 40th in less than 2km's, but I realised I would achieve nothing from quitting, I was still alive and my heart still wanted to kick some butt, I now had nothing to loose so I just put my head down and found my rhythm. Before I knew it my legs where moving well, I was pulling in guys left, right and centre, slowly making my way to the front. Trying to get quicker and quicker each lap, I was digging real deep, but my knee was slowly giving in, and I knew that every place I pulled in, I would get more points towards my Olympic qualifying ranking so I just kept finding more and more, if only I felt like this for the first lap I would be running up with the leaders. Not today though, I was going to have to settle for 21st place, a rather disappointing result but one that was going to have to do. James Elvery, a fellow New Zealander had a huge kick at the end of the run to hold me off and finished 20th.
I hate being made to race when I am not ready, because all you get at the end of the day is disappointment. I know that if I had enough time to have a good build-up and get sufficiently ready I am capable of much better things, but because of the Olympic Selection Criteria it is what needs to be done.
I start my long trip home today with a short over night stopover in Johannesburg to catch up with a few of my old school friends that I have not seen or spoken to since primary school. I get home on Thursday and its back to the hard training for a couple of weeks before I head to North America for 3 more World Cups in June. I know I will be a lot stronger and ready for some better results.
Thanks as always for your support and encouragement.


Lisbon World Cup 6 May 2007


hi everyone,
I hope you are all well and keeping busy. As for me... Well I have sore legs.
Yesterday was my first World Cup of the year, held in Lisbon, Portugal. Well where do I start? I arrived in Lisbon on Thursday after 30 plus hours of travelling, luckily I managed to get upgraded on Thai Air and slept at least half of the trip. Thursday afternoon I tried to go for a little bike which ended up taking the whole afternoon. Not only was I scared out of my pants with the crazy drivers but once the sun started setting and I had no idea where I was and it seemed that I was so far off course that no one could point me back to my hotel I really started worrying. After calling on all my bike handling skills I managed to weave my way through peak hour traffic and get back to my hotel. My next challenge was to try and stay awake until 8pm so I could settle in to the time zone straight away, this was a real struggle but when my head hit the pillow that night my lights were out.
The rest of the week was pretty ordinary and routine, checked out the course, race briefing and drinking coffee at one of the many cafe's. It seems to amaze me that these little cafes are packed all day given there are so many that wherever you are it would take at most 30 seconds to walk to the nearest one.
The course was one that would be great for the spectators and could go either way for the athletes. The transition was inside a big event centre, so we would have to ride through a technical part 8 times and going into and coming out of transition we were on cobblestones. Absolutely scandalous to use my zipp z-tec wheels on such a surface.
Well race time rolled around and at 2pm on Sunday we were off. I was determined to have a good swim to set me up for a good race so I made sure I pushed the start. Apart from all the leg pulling, punching, kicking and pushing the swim went well. I was out of the water in the top 15 and out of Transition 1 in the top 10. The bike started pretty fast and didn't slow for the full 40km. The bunch was pretty much strung out single file the whole ride with a couple crashes costing some of the guys their race.
Soon we were out onto the 10km run, I had a good transition but struggled to find my rhythm and speed early on. I found myself alternating 2km moderate, 2 km faster for the whole run. I am still lacking a bit of strength from only being back training for 4 weeks after my knee operation 9 weeks ago. I finished the race 22nd, So onwards and upwards from here.
I am currently sitting in Frankfurt airport typing with my 2 thumbs on my blackberry, waiting for my connection to Johannesburg where I then head to Richards Bay, a couple hours from Durban for my next World Cup on Sunday. I just need to make sure that my legs recover this week and I should be on track for a better result.
Will keep in touch.
Take care and thanks to everyone for believing in me and supporting me to achieve my dream.
Regards

What a month!!!

At the end of February I had surgery on my Knee. I had been struggling with it since a head on crash on my bike with a car in October last year. After trying everything to make it heal Surgery was my last option. Now coming to the end of the month training is slowly picking up, I am back Swimming and Biking and hope to be back on me feet running in another week or so, but don’t tell the doctor I said that.
Every year on my birthday the 1st of March, my sponsor Plumbing World holds a Plumbing Industry Charity event to raise funds to support youth at risk in New Zealand. The beneficiaries of this event are Rotary International, Parents Inc., FADE, and What's UP a youth line that works towards helping to prevent youth Suicide in New Zealand. My good friend Cameron Calkoen and I have been ambassadors for this charity for a number of years and it is great to see how What's Up has grown over the years with the help from the Plumbing Industry Charity Event. Thanks to everyone who supported this event as they managed to raise over One Hundred Thousand Dollars.
I have also signed up to be part of Charity Mix, which is an online charity that benefits from people purchasing songs and play-lists that I and other Athletes have created. There are half a dozen charities and we each get to choose one, my charity of choice is the National Prostate Cancer Coalition. Check out the link on the right of the page, if you do purchase one of my play-lists which have some great New Zealand Music you will be helping raise money for Prostate Cancer. If for some reason you don’t like my taste of music which I will be really upset about, you can browse to another athlete’s page and check out there tunes.
I hope everyone is well, I know that we down here in the Southern hemisphere have been enjoying Summer while the rest of you are probably training with a dozen layers of clothes on, but it is almost that time of year that things will change and we in the south of the world will be freezing our butts on our long rides.
Good luck for any of the upcoming races.

Happy New Year
I hope that your Christmas and holidays were good and you have made some interesting New Year resolutions. I have had a great break from training and I am now feelin.lly refreshed and ready to go.
2006 was a good year for me, I won the Wildlfower Half Ironman in record time, had a couple good results on the world cup scene, finished 6th in the first 70.3 Half Ironman World Champs and then finished my racing for the year at the Laguna Phuket Triathlon coming 2nd in a competitive field. After my race in Thailand my girlfriend and I took 10 days to enjoy the culture and visit different parts of the country. We had an amazing time but we are still trying to get out of holiday mode.
My big goal for this year is to make the New Zealand Olympic team. Our selection race is in September but I will need to keep racing the world cup circuit through the year to keep my points up so I can get a start in the selection race. This is going to make it pretty hard to keep my form up until September but my coaches and I have planned the year as best as possible so when September comes I will be ready.
I would like to welcome onboard Saucony, Specialized and Profile USA, the newest team members who will help me reach my goal of becoming the best triathlete. They will join my great support team who has helped me get to where I am today which include: Plumbing World, North Shore Toyota, Oakley, and a number of other companies and individuals who’s help I could not do without.
I am still keeping up with my studies towards my Bachelor of Business which is giving some stimuli other than triathlon, but at the rate I am going it will probably take me until the end of my triathlon career before I have my degree, but hey, it’s better than nothing.
I would just like to say thanks again for all your help in making this Journey possible. I hope the road ahead is even more adventurous than that that has just past.
Good luck for 2007, I hope you achieve what you have set out to accomplish.
Kind regards
Terenzo Bozzone

CLEARWATER Half Ironman World Championship 11 November 2006
Hi all,
I hope that everyone is well and gearing up for the Christmas holidays. Last weekend I was over in Florida competing in the World Half Ironman Champs. Firstly my apologies for the late newsletter. I have found over this past year that when I have a good race it is easy to tell the story about how things unfolded, but when the cards turn and the race doesn’t seem to go as planned I always find it harder to get the words onto paper and it never sounds as good… well here goes everything.
Well it all started about 9 weeks ago when I started my build up for this race. Everything was going to plan and I was feeling stronger than ever. I knew that everything was going to come together nicely. I was just finishing my second week of training when I was riding my bike down to Piha (one of our famous surf beaches) with one of my training partners Silas Cullen and I had a head on collision with a car. I was totally at fault and besides a few scraps and bruises I was not too badly injured and my bike was still in working form. We finished our 6 hour ride and then I headed off for a run. It wasn’t until the next morning when I got up to go for a run that I realized that I had done more damage that I thought. From the crash I had pushed my pelvis out of alignment and to keep training was probably the worst thing that I could do as my body wasn’t working correctly and I was putting strain on the wrong parts. I was diagnosed with ITB friction syndrome, something most endurance athletes would have encountered at one stage or another. An injury that usually takes me a week or so to recover from is still hanging around. I did everything that I could, I saw the physio every day, sometime twice a day, regular massages, strengthen and stretching and a cortisone but nothing seemed to help. So I struggled between doing an occasional run on the road and a fair amount of aqua jogging. I had a choice to either pull out of the race or go over and give it a shot. I chose the latter. I had been looking forward to this race all year and I knew that anything could happen on the day.
The race started at pier 60 on Clearwater beach and the pace was on in the Swim, the water was calm and warm and all we had to watch out for was the sharks. Coming to the end of the swim I found myself at the front, I thought I could get out of the water first and pick up the swim bonus, but someone else had the same idea, the sprint had begun. I was just about out of the water when I lost my footing and took a dive for the sand, yum yum, there is nothing like the taste of fresh sand.
Next up was the 90km bike, besides a few bridges the course was predominantly flat, the roads were smooth and our average speed was around 43km/hr. The top contenders where all up there, Simon Lessing, Craig Alxander, Richi Cunningham and everyone was riding as strong as the next person. I tried the whole bike to set a faster pace and to get away as I knew that I hadn’t done much running and I would have liked a lead heading out onto the run, but with the course being so flat and straight it was near impossible to shake the guys. My knee held out until the last 40km of the bike, that’s when it started hurting and it started to become a matter of surviving, but at the same time I didn’t want anyone else to catch up from behind. Eventually we made it back to transition and this is where the hard part starts, out into the sun for the grueling 21km. The pace was set fast early and I couldn’t find my legs to keep up, I decided to find a rhythm and I would come right soon. For some reason my legs didn’t come right, I made it to the end of the first lap and I found out I wasn’t running too slow, I just had to keep up this pace and I would do okay. Then it hit me, my knee came back to haunt me, I started running with a limp and before I knew it every stride hurt with immense agony, but I didn’t come all this way to pull out so I just tried to keep chugging along. The finish couldn’t come quick enough and it wasn’t going to because I had slowed down so much that guys who were 3 minutes behind off the bike like Chris Leigh were catching up. I just tried to focus and find myself but the pain was getting worse and worse I don’t know how I made it to the finish line but after 3 hours and 52 minutes I was there. Only in 6th place, I had paid for the lack of running but I had learnt a lot and beside all the pain I enjoyed the race.
Well what’s next for me? At the end of the month I head to Thailand for the Laguna Phuket triathlon which is always an amazing race in the scorching heat.
Take care and merry Christmas if I don’t speak to you before then
Regards and thanks for the support
Terenzo Bozzone

LAUSANNE World Championship Triathlon 3 September 2006
Hi everyone,
Well what can I say? Firstly, what they say is true, “there is no place like home!!!” finally I after 2 months training and racing around the world and about 2 full days of traveling I arrived home. My last stop was Lausanne, Switzerland where I competed at the world triathlon championships. Prior to this I was based in the south of France at the base of the Pyrenees with the New Zealand team. The weather was great and the training grounds were ideal. I managed to keep healthy and I was on top form. After 4 weeks at the base we fly up Switzerland to settle in before the weekend of racing. We arrived on Tuesday evening and for some reason the 2 short flights and a train trip seemed to take a lot out of me, but I had the whole week to rest and come right and by Saturday I was feeling ready to get out there and have a great race.
Race day quickly arrived at 1 O’clock we were off. I knew that I had to have a good start to set up for the race, so I made sure it happened, however when we got to the first buoy I was still to far back. It was a complete stand still, everyone jumping on top of the next person, pulling legs back and pushing heads under, I was pleased when it was over to have just made it out alive. I then just tried to settle into a rhythm as I thought I was in a good enough position. To my knowledge everything was under control…and then we came out of the water and into transition. I could not believe it, I was further back than what I had been in previous races. I put this all behind me and did all I could to close the gap. I nailed my transition and was on my bike in great time, then my foot slipped and I lost my momentum. I hammered it as hard as I could but my legs weren’t operating at full steam, this was not good, especially on this course where we had 7 laps and on each lap we had to go over 2 steep climbs. Trying to push my pedals as hard as I could, but each pedal revolution I felt my heart trying to jump out of my throat. I knew all I had to do was get through the first few laps and my legs would warm up and come right so I just hung in there as best I could. By the end of the first lap I knew it was no use, the bunch I was with, even though riding the hills so fast was cruising so slow on the flats. I could feel my race riding away from me. My legs only seemed to come right with 2 laps to go, I wanted to leave everything on the course, you never know what could happen as it is not over until you cross that finish line. So I put in a big sprint and broke away from the bunch I was with, I quickly put time into them, but it was too late, the front bunch had ridden to much time into us.
I hit transition and headed out onto the run, although I was so far back I tried to run the race as if I was up the front. Slowly I started to pick up the straggles from the lead bunch. My run was going the best out of my 3 disciplines, if only I was up the front. I managed to keep the pace up and by the end of the run I had almost caught up to fellow New Zealander Shane Reed, but he sensed me coming and gave a big sprint for the line to hold me off. Hamish Carter and Kris Gemmell had great races, finishing 2nd and 4th respectively. Nicky Samuels finished 3rd in the U23 girls, and race favorite for the Junior Girls, Rebecca Spence had an unlucky race finishing 10th. New Zealand also took several medals in the age group divisions.
What a trip, I didn’t end up getting the results that I was hoping for but I did manage to learn a few new things. Not getting the results I was expecting has given me more motivation to train harder and smarter and find other ways in which I can get back on top of the game of triathlon. With the Olympic Games selection coming up this time next year I am going to have to be a whole new athlete. it is going to be a big challenge for me, but with the games being a dream of mine since before I can remember I am prepared to do all I can to put me in a position that I can make my own destiny.
Thanks again for all the support and let’s hope with my last big race of the year I can write home with a similar story as my first race this year.
Regards
Terenzo Bozzone

CornerBrook & Salford World Cup Triathlon 23 & 30 July 2006
Hi all,
Well I hope that everyone is healthy and well, more than what I can say about myself. I have had the craziest last two weeks; this is how they unraveled, more or less.
So after my easy week in Minneapolis I flew to Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Canada. It is pretty much what its name suggests… in the “corner” of the world. Flights were delayed and cancelled throughout North America due to the bad weather they had been having and this didn’t help my travels and I ended up having to overnight in Montreal. Finally I arrived in friendly Corner Brook with no bags, just great. So the 2 and a half days before the race I was trying to locate my bags and no body seemed to know where they were. It was coming to the stage that I was going to have to borrow equipment and I didn’t fancy that. I woke up on race morning and my bag was in reception waiting, but only my bike bag, no clothes still.
To cut this story that I wish I wasn’t telling short this is pretty much how the race unfolded. My swim started off well but before I knew it I was having an asthma attack (my asthma medication was inside my bag that didn’t arrive, I suppose that is my fault for not carrying it on me) and found myself struggling to get around the first buoy. I was ready to pull the plug; with my bags not being there I wasn’t able to get ready mentally like I needed to. But I found my breathing coming right and my arms feeling better so I worked my way back up through that pack in the Swim and found myself leading out the second pack less that 25seconds behind the leaders. Everyone road pretty hard to bridge the gap to the front and by 15km into the bike we were all 1 group, that is until 3 guys broke away and got over a minute lead. With my breathing as it was and the course being pretty tough I was struggling to keep up and eating into my running reserves. The run started and I thought I should give it a go and see if I could make something from it, maybe this was my lucky day. It was not meant to be, by a quarter through the run I was dead, I had never felt this bad, I was running at a training pace and feeling worse and worse, but I had to finish, I didn’t come all this way to have a DNF (did not finish). I struggled across the line near the rear of the field, I was surprised that when I finished they hadn’t packed up and gone home. Fellow Kiwi, Kris Gemmel won the men’s race with Simon Whitfield from Canada having a great run coming in Second.
I Spent a couple days training in Corner Brook before heading to Salford, Manchester, all I can say is wow… and I thought that New Zealand had a lot of hills. My trip to Manchester went smoothly, I was planning on staying a night in London with Kelly’s (my Girlfriend’s) sister and fiancé but I thought I’d better get to the race site, settle in and try and change my unlucky streak that I have been having. Leading up to the race everything seemed to be feeling good, I felt ready to have a good race.
Race morning came along and like every world cup race we, the guys have to wait until about 3pm to start. So there is a lot of hanging around in your hotel room watching TV and trying to sleep as much as you can before you start getting ready 3 hours before race time. The weather in Salford had been unusually high, but not to bad and I was looking forward to racing in the warm weather, it wasn’t meant to be, just before we started our swim it began to rain and the temperature dropped rapidly and I was freezing. The gun went and we were off, and just like my other races this season my swim was nothing to write home about, I got smashed around and found myself playing catch up. I felt better and better as we spread out, but I wasn’t making up enough time and when we got out of the water I was lagging at the back of the second pack, I wasn’t to worried because I knew we would close the gap, but when? Luckily the bunch was moving quickly and by the end of lap 2 out of 8 laps there was a big bunch of about half the field, 35 guys swerving in and out of corners on a very technical course. Heading into transition I tried to work my way to the front of the bunch, as I knew any advantage would help as this run was going to be lightning fast. It took me a little while to find my legs and once I did I had already lost a fair amount of ground and due to not being able to find the right fluid to race with my stomach was cramping. I was not going to give in that easy, I wanted a good result and I knew that I was going to have to work for it. I felt like I had my running legs on and they felt like they were turning over well but for some reason it was not good enough, what was going on? Last year in all my world cup races I was finishing in the top 15, now this year, I had done a lot more training, I was a lot stronger and a lot more experienced and I was struggling to race well.
I finished in 24th. place, an improvement from last week but still way to far off track. My coaches and I am going to have to have another good look at my plan for the next few months and see how we can fix this. At the end of the day if would be great to win everything but realistically you cannot be on top of your game for the whole season. I have ITU world champs in September and then the Half Ironman world champs in November. Those are the targets, lets see what we can do.
Sorry about the lengthy email, I will try and shorten them down a little in the future.
Regards
Terenzo Bozzone

Life Time Fitness Triathlon Minneapolis 15 July 2006
Hello to you all,
Sorry about the delay in getting this update out. I have been trying to think of how to explain my race in the most Politically Correct way possible, but at the end of the day I think I will just tell it as it happened.
After a reasonable performance at the Edmonton World Cup last weekend finishing 9th I flew out to Minneapolis, Minnesota to get ready to compete in what would be the biggest money race in the sport of triathlon. The race was to be held on Saturday and we were going to cover the standard Olympic distance, a 1500m Swim, 40km Bike and a 10km run. The race was going to be a non drafting bike, similar to the format of a half iron man event, and lastly, the woman were going to have a handicapped start of 9min 49sec and the first person, male or female across the line will take home the grand prize.
I stayed at a great home stay with a guy Matthew Heggie who really made my time before the race comfortable. The heat was definitely going to be a factor on race day as by the middle of the week we were hitting low to mid 30’C and it was predicted to get over 35’C on race day and coming straight from New Zealand where we are in the middle of winter didn’t help, but hey everyone had to put up with the conditions and I usually enjoy the heat.
The end of the week approached and everything was falling into place, I was as ready as I would ever be. I could not wait for the race to get underway and that it did on Saturday morning at 8am the girls were off, almost 10minutes later us guys hit the water. I was a little nervous as to how my swim was going to go as I did not have the greatest swim last weekend, but it seemed that my body was back on track, I had a good start and settled into the bunch, I knew if we were to keep up this pace for the entire race the girls would soon be swallowed up. At the end of the swim there was a big pack of us and heading out onto the bike we were going to have to be very cautious not to get penalized for drafting and that I was, I slowly made my way to the front of the bunch to pick the pace up and hopefully tire out some of the faster runners. On my way to the front it happened again, I lost my flask with squeezy gels inside; I can never seem to keep them on my bike, even though I tried a different holder. Oh well there was nothing I could do so I just put my head down and hammered. Eventually another couple guys came through to take a turn at the front, but for some reason they started to slow down and I found my way weaving back to the front to keep the pressure on, just as I was about to take the lead again a motor bike with the US officials pulled up next to me and told me to pull over, I could not believe it, this was impossible as I was 100% certain that I had not gone out of line once, it was absolutely incredible. Further more with the rules being what they are, you aren’t allowed to question these guys even if they are in the wrong. This officials call was going to cost me my race, it was a very disappointing decision from the “Good Guys”. I had to pull over to the side of the road and put both my feet on the ground for 1 minute. I could still not believe it, and this was not the first time this week that these guys had done the dirty, 2 nights ago at the pro athlete meeting they told us that we would not be allowed to use our helmets because they didn’t have the USA safety sticker inside of it, and the only reason that it didn’t have the US safety sticker in it was because it was from New Zealand and we have different, yet higher safety Standards than here in the US, and it didn’t matter that other people who purchased there helmets here in the US, the exact same helmet as me only difference was that it had a different sticker in it. So with aero helmets making such a difference in your bike position aero dynamics I had to go out that evening and purchase another helmet.
Okay so enough of me complaining and making excuses, I had come here to race and that is what I would do, when I was allowed to head back out on the bike I made it me mission to get this rubbish out of my head and concentrate on racing the perfect race. I gave it everything to make up my lost time, I knew that I would either catch back up and have given too much on the bike to be able to run well or maybe I would be having a great day and for some reason my legs would be invincible, either way, to go hard was the only choice I had if I wanted to try and have a respectable finish, so this I did and to my surprise I managed to catch the main bunch of guys with 5km to go, I went straight back to the front and started to ride away from the bunch, could it be, was I back at the front of the race. As I approached transition I could hear the announcer calling out a few of the guys names and I realized that I didn’t see them in the bunch when I rode through, there were about 3 or 4 guys who had make a break from the field and were a minute up the road.
Now the interesting part, would my legs hold out on the run? I started out and I didn’t feel too good, but I thought, “give it time, it will come right.” With the heat pounding down and the guys that I had just passed catching back up I didn’t know what I could do, all I wanted to do was to run fast but my legs felt different. All I could do was hold the best rhythm I could find and that I tried, and I bet it was not a pretty sight, I felt heavy and tired. Now I could not wait for the race to be over. It had been a long race and I would have to wait until next year to try my luck again at the Worlds Richest Race.
Beside a handful of guys dropping out through the race I found myself crossing the line last guy, just behind the 4th. place girl. A disappointing finish for me.
Hunter Kemper (USA) was the first person home, with Hamish Carter, fellow New Zealander finishing 3rd male. Emma Snowsil, who has been dominating the female side of thing over the past few years was unable to hold off the guys, but she did managed to hold of the rest of the girls field.
I am still in Minneapolis until Thursday but I have moved home stays and now I am staying with Steve Brandes, an up and coming force in long distance triathlon, we have been having a good time and training is going to be pretty chilled this week as I get ready for my next race on the weekend up in Corner Brook, Canada.
I hope that everyone is well and healthy. I will keep in touch with how my progress is going.
Thanks for everything and take care
Regards
Terenzo Bozzone

Edmonton World Cup 9 July 2006
Hi everyone,
I hope that you are well, and everyone back home in New Zealand is not freezing.
I am just leaving Edmonton, Canada after my first world cup of the season, with a 9th place finish.
I left Auckland on Wednesday afternoon and arrived here in Canada on Wednesday evening (its great how you can gain time though travelling such a distance). I didn't think it would ever happen to me but it did, both my bags didn't arrive and I hugely regretted not being prepared for this situation. I went 24 hrs with no clean clothes, no training equipment, no anything. Although it may not sound that drastic, when you have been travelling for 20hrs, you really need to get out and spin the waste out of your body.
I eventually arrived at my hotel and woke up my room mate Shane (Snuffy) Reed, an experienced professional who has been on the circuit for a while and a great friend. The rest of the week slowly passed, and if it wasn't for Wimbledon, the Tour de France and the World Cup Soccer I might have gone crazy.
After waiting around and trying to make time pass quickly in our hotel room our race started at 3.30 in the afternoon, the weather forecast was 29, but I don't think it ever reached that temperature, in fact everyone was pilling on the clothes while waiting for the start as it was raining and cold.
Eventually we were off and because I had not raced yet this season I had a poor starting position and didn't manage to get off to the greatest start, getting beaten up and pushed back, I tried to relax and not get caught up in all the hustling and wait for the right time to start moving back up through the pack. Once we got onto the bike I was 20 seconds back on the front pack, but the group I was with worked well and before 15km were up we were all one big bunch. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the bike to pass without crashing and heading out for a strong run.
I got out of transition in the top 5 but my legs didn't feel great and I wanted to try and pace myself better than I have in the past. So I really relaxed the first 3km, and after we hit the next lap I knew that I was starting to feel strong, so I started to pick up the pace and work my way back through the field. Slowly I was passing people and one by one I was making my way closer to the front of the bunch. Running into the last 1km, I was in 10th position with 9th place not to far up the road, but it was not until the last 100m that I actually decided to sprint for the line. With the crowd cheering and the finish line getting closer I dug in deep and managed to sprint into 9th position.
I was pleased with my result although I would have liked to have been further up the ranking, the season is still early and there are bigger races to come in future weeks and months.
Next stop is Minneapolis where I will compete in the life time fitness triathlon – battle of the sexes. In this particular race the woman start ahead of the guys and at the end of the day the first person across the line takes all.
Well take care, and I will keep in touch to let you know how things are going.
Regards
Terenzo Bozzone

Ironman Baja 70.3 Mexico 21 May 2006
Hi all,
What a place, what a race.
My room mate Bryan Rhodes and I arrived in Ensenada, the wine area of Mexico on Wednesday, a lucky move as there was a shooting on Thursday and the border was closed.
It is great being in a race environment as there are no other stresses, all you have to worry about is looking at the course and recovering. In our case though, looking at the course turned out to be a matter of surviving, as I may have miss interpreted the course map and taken us slightly off course down the back roads of Mexico.
Race morning fast approached and by Sunday I was as ready as ever to attack the challenging course. I had been looking forward to the race all week and couldn't wait for the gun to go off. I was going to have to wait a little longer as everything here is done on a sort of island time schedule. What was meant to be a 7am start ended up being a 7.40 start. Everyone was in the same boat but after waiting around for about half an hour I realised that the race was going to end up being a long hard day at the office for me. I tried to keep focused and was determined to try and make the race as hard as I could.
When we eventually started I raced to the front and set a strong tempo in the water as I wanted to make as much time as I could on Chris Legh, who got second to me at Wildflower. My plan worked but not as well as I had hoped. I headed onto the bike with a 1 minute lead, put my head down and got into my rhythm.
With triathlon you rely on a lot of external factors to go right. You hope that the race is what you expect it to be, you hope all the things that can go wrong with your bike and equipment don't, you hope that the food you have eaten over the last week don't react with your body in the wrong way. Well for me at Wildflower 2 weeks ago everything went my way, and it was my day, but yesterday it seemed that my luck had changed.
Between 5 and 6 kilometers into the bike race we went through a really rough section of road with pot holes and bumps every few meters. I had almost made it through this section perfectly and then I hear something hitting the ground, I reach behind me to make sure my drink and nutrition were still in tacked, they weren't, what do I do? Do I turn back and pick them up as it is important to make sure that you get your calories in during the bike so that you don't blow up, well I thought that maintaining my lead was more important, looking back now I wish I had made the opposite choice and picked them up.
So I road the first 30 minutes without fluid before picking up a drink bottle at an aid station. Now from here to the turn around at 45km was all up and down hill. I just tried to keep the best rhythm I could. I was still feeling good, I knew that all I had to do was keep this pace and I would get off the bike with at least a minute lead. But with 30 kilometers to go I started to feel my legs loosing power, the lack of calories was starting to kick in and make things worse the wind had picked up and it was a head wind the whole way home. I just tried to relax and keep turning my gear over, but my legs were feeling worse and worse, at this time I was worried I would not be able to move my feet when the run started.
With 10km to go Chris caught up, I was just hoping that he was a little tiered to so I could slowly work into the run. We soon came into transition and after leading the race from the start I was not about to give up. Having come from a back ground of world cup races I had a faster transition and was off into the run. I was quite surprised, the day before I had eaten something that had up-set my body and it felt like something was stuck in my throat, thankfully it hadn't got any worse. I tried to cruise the first few kilometers and get as much coke into me as I could, I knew this would help make me feel more alive and boost my calories.
After running with Chris for a few kilometers I felt like my legs were right and I could run my race again. So I slowly picked up the pace and made a little gap all I had to do was not blow up and this race was mine. I felt comfortable, that was until about kilometer 7. All of a sudden I started having bowel problems and needed to go to the bathroom badly. I hoped that it would go away, my pace was slowing and my stomach was getting worse. At kilometer 10 Chris had caught back up and I had to go to the bathroom. After stopping for a few seconds I had to catch up the time I had lost, I closed the gap down and this must have been my lucky day (not), after making up my lost ground I had to make another bathroom stop. This time when I came out of the port-a-loo Chris had made an even bigger gap and when I started running again I just couldn't get my legs turning over. I tried several times to stick it out and push the pace to catch back up, but it seemed every time I pick up the pace my stomach played up. I knew I could not afford to loose any more places as my goal for this race was to come top 3 so I could be selected for the half Ironman world championships in November. I had to keep moving and get to the finish line. I didn't drink anything else, I just couldn't stomach it. My bowel was still playing up but was not that bad that I had to stop. I could see Chris up the road moving at a huge pace, I tried once more to bridge the gap and after a couple hundred meters I knew that this was not my race. Now it was just a matter of surviving. The finish couldn't come fast enough.
Eventually I made it. Crossed the line in Second place, what a race. Chris Legh was on fire, he came from the back and had an amazing race.
I managed to do what I had come to do so I was pleased about that, but was really hurting deep inside, to lead the race with all that bad luck and then drop off the second half of the run was disappointing. Well done to Chris who was the better man on the day.
What's next for me? Well I leave Ensenada Mexico today and then leave San Diego on Tuesday night. I will have a couple easy weeks of training before building up for my next big race- the Life Time Fitness triathlon in July.
It has been too long away from home. I can't wait to have a break from living out of a duffle bag and sleep in my own bed. At the same time it has been a beneficial trip for me. I have learnt heaps more about triathlon and life and had a couple good results.
Thanks again for all the help and support and I look forward to catching up when I get back.
Take care
Terenzo

Wildflower Half Ironman 6 May 2006
Hi to all,
Hope your legs are feeling better than mine. Well I have just finished one of my greatest races ever. On Saturday I raced in the Wildflower Half Ironman. I had the race of my life. Everything seemed to go right for me on the day.
I arrived at the race site which is halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco on Tuesday evening. What a long trip it was, my plane was delayed 90 minutes out of Auckland, my rental car company didn't send a bus to come pick me up and what I thought was going to be a 3 hour drive ended up taking a little over 5 hours. What can I say... Character building.
I met up with a friend, Johnathan Collet in LA and when we got to Wildflower we were put up in a caravan, my first time staying in one of these, what an experience, especially because the darn thing was parked on a hill, this made sleeping rather difficult. Well we got through two nights there then were moved to a house about 20 minutes away. What a beautiful place, right on Lake Nacimento, basically...wow.
The week leading up was relaxing, I felt up and down with my training, but I did feel a little more confident on the course, which was reassuring.
Race day came and I was up at 5am getting ready, all was going well until I started warming up on my bike and my nose started bleeding, so I rode back to my car trying to seal my nose with a sniff and my head tilted to the back, not the easiest way to ride a bike. Well that stopped and soon I was ready to race.
The gun sounded at 8 o'clock and we were off. There was a great field racing with pro athletes from all around the world. Although Simon Lessing, the defending champ and record holder was not racing due to an injury, one of the favorites was Torbojorn Sinbad from Denmark, 2nd place getter last year. I knew I was going have to watch out for him as he rides a bike like a demon on wheels. My plan was to make sure the swim was at a strong fast pace, this would spread out the field, leaving some of the strong cyclists a little bit behind out of the water, giving me a chance to try and hold them off. All went to plan, the swim was a descent pace and heading out onto the bike in 2nd place behind Tom Evans, Canadian Ironman legend. I quickly took the lead as the technical part of the course was right ahead, I kept my head down and pedaled as hard as I could for the first few Kms, not looking back I kept going, expecting some of the guys to go to the front and pick the pace up. Well I made it to about 20kms and still no one had came past, I glanced over my shoulder, and to my surprise there was no one to be seen. I made sure I kept my head down pushing the limits as I knew Torbojorn, the great Dame would not be far behind. I had soon made it to half way through the challenging course and still no Torbojorn. This soon became a lesser part of my worries as I knew that the second half of the bike course had a lot more hills and I would have to keep my pace up to stay away from the rest of the field. My legs slowly felt like they were deteriorating and with the last 15km being a gradual uphill this was not good. Thankfully I had paced myself just enough to ride the 90km course and soon I was off onto the equally challenging run course.
Did I have enough juice in the tank to tackle the hills or did I empty it all on the bike, we would soon find out. I knew I was going to have to pace myself as the hills got harder and harder. I had to find the best rhythm I could, as is was in the back of my mind that I wanted to break the record that Lessing had broken last year. Running along with all the volunteers and spectators spurring me on was great, and this is what kept my spirits high. Attacking and pushing my limits right to the edge, until I got to the steepest section of the course, last year I had to stop running and walk for 10m, was I going to be able to keep running this time. Well I would love to have said yes but no, I had to walk for a few meters, which wasn't actually much slower than running and by walking I gave me body a little time to slow down instead of pushing my heart rate too high.
My goal in the run was to keep picking up the pace and this I tried to do running every mile of the second half faster and faster until I made it to mile 10, kilometer 16, where we had to turn around and run uphill for about 1km then it was another 4kms home.
At the turn around some yelled at me, said that I had 24 to get the record. Everything was running through my head, actually just mathematical equations, didn't have enough energy to think of much else. As they only had mile markers on the course I was trying to work out if I had converted the miles to kilometers correctly and if I remembered the correct amount of miles that I had to run, because 24 minutes to run 5km is just under 5 minutes per kilometer, quite a bit slower than training pace. Well soon I figured that at the end of the day I was aspiring to my perfect race, so I stopped thinking about the record and just put everything I had left into the last section of the run. And then all of a sudden I had more things to worry about, my quads were starting to cramp up, I could feel my muscles starting to twitch and I prayed that I would not have to walk back to the finish line, that would have been risky. I kept thinking about what my Pilates instructor Raewyn always tells me, "relax and breath." Thankfully this helped but I knew that the race wouldn't be over until I was holding the finishing tape in my hands. The last kilometer of the course is probably the most challenging, situated where it is. It is a downhill stretch to the finish line, well I knew this was going to be tricky as my legs were finished and running downhill on what felt like sticks from an old frail tree was going to be interesting. It didn't prove to be as hard as what I thought but now 2 days later I am wondering why my legs are aching. I got to the bottom and saw the crowd yelling, running down the finishing shoot with hundreds of people yelling was amazing and looking at the clock reading 3hr53min was a huge shock as until last year no one had broken 4 hours and now I was about to go 6 minutes under the record set by the great, Simon Lessing.
What a day. It is not too often in a triathlon that you feel great and everything goes your way but on this day, on this course, I had my day!
I wouldn't have been in this position if it hadn't been for some important people in my life. First and foremost, my parents, nothing can describe what you guys have done for me. My brother Dino and girlfriend Kelly, I don't think anyone has put up with as many mood swings and grumpy days as you two have. Maz (Kelly's mum), my cook away from home, always making sure there is good food for me to eat, even if it is a mid-night snack. My coaches Jon, Frank, Mark, and Raewyn my Pilates instructor, thanks for everything. And my sponsors, for without you help I would not have had the opportunities that you have made possible over the years, I would not have the best equipment, and I would be struggling to get from race to race, so a huge thanks to you. And everyone else, thanks for being a part of my journey.
Well next stop Baja, Mexico on the 21st May. Let's just hope my legs recover fast enough.
Take care and thanks again
Cheers

April 2006
I hope that everyone had a great Easter weekend and didn’t eat too much chocolate.
So far my year has been off to a good start, I have managed to get in some of my biggest training miles ever, and I am really looking forward to starting to race.
I leave home on the 2nd May and head to Los Angeles where I will drive up and race the Wildflower Half Ironman, a race that after I finished last year I swore I would never do again. This year I know what to expect and I can only hope that my training has made me more prepared for the grueling course and the challenging competition. I will then spend a week recovering and training in San Diego before heading to Baja, Mexico my second Half Ironman of the season. There is a little more pressure to do well in this race as it is part of a series that will help me get selected for the Half Ironman World Champs in November in Florida. A great perk of this race is that we get put up in a five star resort for the week, so there is no need to worry about over training before the race.
I will then come back home for a month to firstly sit my exams at university and then get ready for my next trip traveling and racing through the States and Europe.
University has been going well, so far I am on track and I am enjoying having something to do that takes my mind off triathlon for a few hours a week.
I look forward to hopefully having some good news to write home about, but until then be safe and God speed… because he is allowed and we will get fined if we do.
Congrats to all the Commonwealth Athletes – awesome results. A special congrats to friend and training partner Paul Hamblyn on a great 1500m. Well done to Bevan Doherty, Sam Warriner, Andrea and Debbie
Cheers

February 2006
So far this year training has been pretty good and I am getting ready for a big year. I will start racing in the middle of April and my season doesn't finish until November. Paul Hamblyn, my brother and I have started doing Pilates with Raewyn Hing at IQ Pilates. We have all found great benefits with doing Pilates. Our flexibility has increased which is so important when doing endurance events as you never do stretch enough and wind up with injury after injury.
Also would like to say congratulations to Nathan Richmond for winning and breaking the record at the Tauranga Half Ironman and Keiran Doe for coming a respectable second.
Congrats to Bevan Doherty and Samantha Warriner on winning nationals