Just under a year ago, CLIF Athlete and professional triathlete Terenzo Bozzone had completed some of the best training of his life. He had spent several weeks swimming, biking, and running alongside two-time IRONMAN world champion and Olympic gold medalist Jan Frodeno, and Australian professional triathlete Nick Kastelein. Heading into championship season, he had high hopes for a strong performance in Kona but was bitterly disappointed at having to drop out on the bike leg
The disappointing result set Bozzone on a path to figuring out why the race had gone so badly for him.
"Unfortunately, I just didn’t fire when it came to the race on the Big Island," he remembers. "I think I was probably carrying a little bit of fatigue into the race."
As well as over training, Bozzone had also experienced excessive bloating during the race, prompting him to revisit his nutrition and hydration plans for long-course racing. Bozzone says that he's struggled in the past with hypernatremia (a high sodium ion level in the blood): "My body just stops absorbing hydration and nutrition throughout the day and then come the marathon, it's game over."
While Bozzone had experimented with a few things leading into Kona, it was only after swelling badly afterwards that he did a sweat analysis to identify the amount of sodium he secretes when racing. He was surprised to find that the numbers were much lower than expected.
This new insight prompted Bozzone to alter the concentration of the electrolyte drink he uses in racing, as well as customize the sodium consumed through CLIF BLOKS energy chews and CLIF SHOT energy gel he uses for fuel on the bike.
Seeking to salvage something from all the hard training he'd done leading up to Kona, Bozzone took his fitness and revised nutrition strategy into the final few races of his season. The results were spectacular. At IRONMAN 70.3 Miami, he outclassed the entire field on the bike then stayed strong on the run to earn a solid victory. A few weeks later, he lined up at IRONMAN Western Australia where he leveraged a strong bike leg to take the win in a course record time of 7:51:26. Finally, he traveled to the Middle East to compete at the IRONMAN 70.3 Middle East Championship in Bahrain where he completed a trifecta of victories to wrap up his season.
The lessons of last year have influenced Bozzone’s approach to training and racing in 2017. "In the past, I’ve focused more on training and less on racing in the lead in to Kona," acknowledges Bozzone. "It leaves me arriving on the start line a little over-trained and not fresh enough."
This year, he's taking a different approach to his IRONMAN World Championship preparations and putting in the longer miles and harder work earlier in his cycle of training, banking the endurance in June and July. He will use key sessions and races to fine-tune his fitness and conditioning while allowing him to arrive on the start line in Hawaii feeling fresh.
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