TRi-Training Tunes

My training tunes for this month can be now found on iTunes. Click on the logo for a link to.

EchoStar Satellite Earth Station

Many of my friends and family know that since the TTV acquistion I spend a lot of time with EchoStar located in Denver, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The EchoStar Satellite Uplink is one of the worlds largest DTH Earth Station that uplinks to over 10 satellites from this facility. I recently took some pictures of the facility I want to share with you.

Link to DISH

EchoStar is a secure facility that does not allow pictures within the facility.
This is without a doubt the basis of my life in the US. Over the past years I have developed a "kind aan huis" relationship. Translated as "home to a child". Those who know me well will understand that relationships have been developed that I hope to cherish for the rest of my life.

FOLSOM Results -- Finally breaking 2:10!!

FINALLY! On June 13, 2004 my first Olympic Triahlon event was 2hr20m10sec (San Jose) and I finished 44th in my age group. I was shocked how painful the run was and I believed that with training I could start improving myself to get ... "up there" (a freaky way of saying compete for a top-10 slot).

Little did I know that it would take me over 2 years with a 10-15hr a week training effort to make even the slightest improvement on this distance: Sentinel-04/2:21, Folsom-05/2:16, Worlds-05/2:15.

BUT YIHAAAAAAAAA. Finally an improvement at this years Folsom Team Championship event!!! I am so happy and satisfied. It was a major target for the year and with the minute a race improvement I knew it would be very hard!

This race however was so super-relaxed. I really enjoyed it, had no jitters or anything just took things easy. I even got my best friend Jeff (who finally made it on the web-site) to join the race. So all in all a lot of fun.

FOLSOM RESULTS (Y-o-Y)
Year ------- Swim-------- Bike -------- Run
2004 ------- 0:24:12 ----- 1:07:34 ---- 41:13
2005 ------- 0:28:14 ----- 1:05:00 ---- 41:02
2006 ------- 0:24:26 ----- 1:03:43 ---- 39:42
==========================
Total ---- Time ----- AG Rank
2004 ---- 2:17:30 -- 17th
2005 ---- 2:16:49 -- 8th
2006 ---- 2:09:22 -- 4th (20 secs to #3)

TEAM CHAMPION 3RD YEAR IN A ROW
The Kain Perofrmance team won hands-down the team championship! With around 50 athletes in the Yellow/Blue competing, we won over 10+ podium spots in nearly all major age groups. It was pretty much a blow-out as a results of this giant team effort.

Vineman 2006 -- 6 places improved

The news of Vineman was the temperature. With an average temperature of 80F it was about 30F less than previous week when it hit 117F. But it turned out to be just fine.

It was a great race where I finally made some good progress on my swim, was able to fight on the bike and stay focussed and bring my run time down by 3 mins. The tempo runs and increase in swimming are really paying off. Focus for next event (WorldCup) is to increase biking while maintaining running/swimming.

VINEMAN RESULTS (Y-o-Y)
Year ------- Swim-------- Bike -------- Run
2004 -------- 0:34:51 ----- 2:35:35 ---- 1:36:56
2005 -------- 0:33:29 ----- 2:33:10 ---- 1:36:04
2006 -------- 0:31:08 ----- 2:39:18 ---- 1:32:51
==========================
Total ---- Time ----- AG Rank
2004 ---- 4:53:56 -- 79th
2005 ---- 4:47:22 -- 21st
2006 ---- 4:48:01** -- 15th

** The bike was approximately 2 miles longer due to a parcour change. The adjusted total time taking this into account would be 4:42:31 (bike would be 2:33:48)