4 Dec 2018

Bozzone Wins Ironman Western Australia

“I can’t think of a sweeter way to mark my comeback. Ironman Western Australia was always going to be a hit or miss, but I am so happy I managed to hang tough and dig deep to come away with the victory! There were big question marks over a few things, which meant everything was going to have to roll my way through the race. I would defintely have to pull out all the stops and use every bit of experience after all those miles under my belt from all my years of training and racing. I began to ask myself questions like would my head stay strong? Would my achilles tendon hold together? What was going to happen after 21km of running? And more importantly, did I remember how to race a full Ironman…?”
 
“I pushed hard from the start of the swim to see if I could get clear of the group. At 500m I looked over my shoulder and saw that I had a small gap. Leading the swim is quite foreign for me, usually I am on the feet of the leader, but this was a great opportunity to see how I could handle the 3.8km swim solo. I managed to slowly work my way to a minute lead coming into T1. Heading onto the bike, my legs felt good and the power was coming out as expected. At 20km I got a bit of a surprise when Cam Wurf rolled past, I was hoping to have a little more of a buffer on the ex-pro cyclist, but he had a great swim with the group and was doing some serious damage to the field. I thought about riding  harder, but then I decided to stick to my plan and back that my numbers would get me to the finish in the most timely way.”
 
“His lead over me kept opening on the bike and fortunately our lead on the field was opening at about twice the rate. Off the bike he had 4 minutes on me and on reflection I am happy to have come off in relative contention with the strongest cyclist currently in our sport.”
 
“Onto the marathon and ticking through the first few kilometers quite well I thought I would be eating into my deficit, but Wurf was holding even and again I had to back myself that he would slowly come back to me… at some stage! Patience is not one of my strong personality traits, but it paid off out there and at 30km when I had made up the 4 minutes. Boy-oh-boy did things start to hurt next level at this point. My legs felt like all the power had gone and I was worried a little walk was due any minute. As in life, the highs and lows of a race are always there and working through those low patches is what makes the highs so much sweeter.”
 
“I gritted my teeth and dug deep in to open a gap and build my lead over the closing 10kms. Breaking the tap and winning for the third consecutive year here in Busselton put all those struggles over the past 5 months into perspective.”
 
“I was very fortunate to have my physio and good friend Tawhai Whitewood up here with me and he made sure my body was in working order. With a few strips of tape to hold things together, we got through it!”
 
“I will be heading up to Bahrain for the 70.3 this weekend. I am really hoping that I can get my body recovered enough to get on the start line, so I guess the next 3 days are going to be crucial!”