March 14, 2007

Brown wins 6th New Zealand Ironman

Cameron's Scott Plasma Special Edition bike For your fastest bike split ever, get more information about the Scott Plasma.

Here is Cameron's race report: "By Thursday afternoon I was counting the hours till the race, knowing that with each hour I'd feel better. That evening I managed to get a couple of McDonald's cheeseburgers down, and then on Friday McDonald's was on the menu again. I don't think I'd advise this as a pre-race carbo-loading strategy, but I was just trying to get something in my stomach and it felt good. It wasn't until Friday night that I started feeling human. I had my normal pre-race meal, homemade salmon pasta, and went to bed early, confident that I'd feel better again on Saturday. Race day dawned calm, with not a breath of wind, and I can assure you that was a welcome relief for the 1,100 competitors. I had a great swim and reached the shores of Lake Taupo just 30 seconds down on the leaders. After the warm 20 degree swim, we descended into the forests and farmland out behind Taupo and that's where the temperature dropped and the mist rolled in. I could hardly see in front of me and visibility was down to 100m in places. Australian Luke Bell made a flying start in the early stages of the bike and opened up a 1:50 lead. Dane Torbjorn Sinballe started off slowly but was planning to tear the legs off the field in the last 90 kilometers of the bike. I rode with the Dane for the first 70 kilometers until we caught Bell and we rode together for a few kilometers and that was when Sinballe had had enough. As the kilometers went by, the minutes to Sinballe kept growing and by the transition I found myself seven minutes behind. My other major concern was that Luke Bell had 1:50 on me off the bike as well.

The crowd of spectators was incredible. I've never seen numbers of this kind in Taupo before. They were so vocal and I was very thankful for that. I caught Bell after five kilometers and together we set off to try and reel in the Dane. Halfway through the run I think Luke and myself were starting to get a little worried. We had halved his lead to three minutes but then Torbjorn lifted his game and was now holding us at that deficit and the kilometres were decreasing rapidly. Finally, up the last long climb coming back towards Taupo, we passed Sinballe. It had taken some 27 kilometers to do so and now it was a two man race between Luke and I. We were trying to drop each other on the final 10 k leg back to town - unsuccessfully I might add. I didn't fancy a sprint finish with Luke, who's six years my junior, so I tried a few more surges to try and drop him, but he still just ran on my right shoulder. At around the 38km mark of the run I put in one more surge and that finally ended the partnership. I had to take a few glances back to make sure he wasn't coming back at me, and thankfully he wasn't. I was trying to enjoy the last couple of kilometres but I was hurting badly. The finishing chute was a welcome relief." Results:
1. Cameron Brown
2. Luke Bell
3. Torbjorn Sinballe
4. David Meade
5. Nick Saunders
6. Rene Rovera
7. Duncan Milne
8. Shingo Tani
9. Axel Reiser
10. Andrew Merrill