Maddie Boon shook off a massive training load to take out today's feature ironwoman race at the Central Regional surf lifesaving championships at Taranaki's Oakura Beach, which doubled as the second round of the new Sonic Surf race national series.
Just a day after returning from three weeks on the Gold Coast, the Mairangi Bay club member blew the field apart with a superb ski leg, heading off two-time national champion Nikki Cox and Papamoa teenager Natalie Peat.
In windy, stormy conditions at the west coast beach, 21-year-old Boon admitted her preparation wasn't ideal for today's carnival and the benefits of her gruelling trip to the star-studded Northcliffe club on the Gold Coast might still be some weeks away.
"I absolutely smashed myself in Aussie, to the point I picked up a head cold in the last week - we were training upwards of five hours a day and swimming around 30km a week," Boon said. "It was really tiring but enormously beneficial, especially training alongside Nutri-Grain stars like Liz Pluimers and Courtney Handcock - you just can't get any better than that. I had a few mixed results today and the ironman was definitely the best of them - I only flew back in yesterday and I guess I was still showing the effects of three really hard weeks of training."
Like Boon, Midway teenager Cory Taylor saved his best performance for the open ironman, after struggling in his board and ski races.
