Cameron Brown's 11th NZ Ironman - 2015

Win number 11!

Winning my first Ironman New Zealand back in 2001 was a dream come true but winning my 11th tittle a couple of months short of my 43rd birthday was incredible! I've had a great build up to this years event, the New Zealand summer has been amazing so it was easy to get out and train long and hard.

Lake Taupo was at it's best race morning calm very mild and no wind, I knew the swim would be fast with super fish Dylan McNeice in the field and it was, and it was with a record breaking 44:25 for the 3.8km swim.  I found my self 5mins down! and knew I had some work to do as soon as I hopped on my bike. Within the first 45km I had halved the led to Graham Ogrady but Terenzo Bozzone was now taking charge of the ride. At the 90km mark I had worked my way into 3rd position 2mins down but I was starting to lose more and more time. At the 120km the lead had swollen to nearly 4mins and with the wind picking up the last 60km would be tough. I still felt good so I started to push hard into the head wind, the gap at the final turn around was now down to 3mins and with 45km to go I wanted to try and be as close to Bozzone off the bike as I could be. With 10km to go I finally caught up and took the lead into T2. The race would now come down to a foot race!

As soon as we started I tried to push the pace to see if I could open up a gap and within the first kilometre I had a 10m lead, with each km my lead grew and after the first 14km lap I had a 2min buffer. I kept pushing on as you never know what can happen in an Ironman, the slightest cramp would evaporate my lead so I was keen to have a larger gap to Terenzo who was still running well. The final 4km back into Taupo is always incredible with the whole town lining the streets, I tried to really enjoy the final few km's and enjoy my 11th win here. Thanks again for your support, I'll be having some time off this week and will be resting my body! TV footage from yesterday is attached.