FINALLY THE HAWAII PICTURES ARE HERE

This year the family went to Hawaii - Kona coast on vacation. Actually I went there for a race (see earlier posting) but we could get a good deal on Expedia for the whole family and made a vacation out of it.

Kona is on the West-side of the Big Island. This is the island where all the volcano's are at and where the Big Daddy of all Triathlon's are held. It has great beaches that are hidden among these lava fields. It is one of the best Hawaiian islands as it is not as touristy as Maui or Oahu.



We stayed at the Sheraton - Keauhou. This hotel has a great swimming area for kids that included a shallow sandy pool, water fountains, slides etc.




To get the family to and from the airport AND bring my race stuff with me turned out to be quite an experience. The list of equipment to take was as follows: a stroller, 2 car seats, 1 bike box and 4 pieces of luggage of clothes, diapers, baby food etc. This would have not fitted in a regular cab so I had to call a limo... correction a stretched limo...

Honuhalf race results - minus 4:26

During our vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii I once again participated in the toughest 70.3 Ironman race there is.

The swim is a mass-start of 860 people and takes place at Hapuna Beach. This is by far the most incredible race venue ever where you can see the fish/turtles on the bottom 30 ft below. I swam a new alltime PR with 32m49s. In the picture I just come out of the water and am wearing my race outfit already.

The bikeride is tough as it goes up to windy Hawi where we have to bike leaning into the wind going 2000-3000 feet up. It was gorgeous weather coming down at lightning speeds under a blue sky while looking over a blue/green sea. In the picture you see the lava fields in the back ground. The bike was awesome and a couple of seconds short of an all-time race PR.

The run is the most brutal as you have to run in intense heat over a grassy golf course that never seems to end. I pretty much robbed each aid station of all the fluids/food. I concur with the coach who in a similar experience described it as 'so hot you can cook an egg on your head'.

With a finish time of 4:52:24 I took 4mins and 24 secs of last years time and that taking into account that this year the bike was tougher due to the higher winds. This ranked me 14th in my age group, and 50th overall (including 10 pro's). Note that #1-4 overall came out of my age-group. I can only wish to be a couple of months younger!!!!!

Next race is Vineman end of July and maybe I will take the plunge and do the World Championship in Lausanne/Switserland on September 3.

Going to the lighthouse and bunker

This weekend we took the kids out to visit Golden Gate park on the 'other' side of Golden Gate. We did a picnic on the bunkers that use to protect the Bay during WW-II and visited the light house from where you can watch over the endless Ocean. Compare the blue from the Ocean against the blue from the sky...

A day with the family

Just some pics to share with you all....

Nikki eating corn, Luke going to school on crazy hair day, and Maureen with Nikki.

Day at the beach!

We found several new beaches in Half Moon Bay where Pete Kain took me on a bike training ride recently. Next day I took the family there... Maureen and Nikki are posing whilst Luke and I dug a deep hole out on the beach.




It was a great day with the kids, blue water, warm weather and a beautiful wife by my side.

LUKE AND BEN PLAY SOCCER

Luke attended soccer classes on Tuesday mornings. Ben has taken him several times. Luke has his soccer shoes, brazilian shirt, and shin protectors. Ben was telling us how the favorite part of the training for Luke is to play with the cones.

During practice they are really focusing on listening to the coach/referee, such as stopping on a whistle and shooting at the right goal.

Qualified for 70.3 World Championships

The Ironman, known for its KONA Long Distance Triathlon race launched a new event, called 70.3 Ironman. The name comes from the three distances of the different sports combined (1.2mi swim, 56mi bike, 13.1mi run) and equals a Half Ironman distance.

There are 16 qualification races, of which I have signed up for three races to get a shot at qualifying (Oceanside, Honuhalf and Vineman). On March 16 I participated with a large group of Kain Performance in the first US based qualification, OCEANSIDE.

This was the first big race of the 2006 season for me, and was aimed at testing where I stood after the winter, also I wanted to try to test if my changed running style and training had brought me benefits... ;-) Namely I had lifted my run more towards my toes, and had practiced for several weeks leading up to the race doing tempo runs with (S)Pete Kain.


Results:
Swim (1.2mi) ---- 0:33:23 (PR pace - 1:41/100m)
t1 --------------- 0:03:53
Bike (56mi) ----- 2:39:37 (pace - 21.1mph = 34kmh)
t2 --------------- 0:02:07
Run (13.1mi) ---- 1:31:47 (PR pace - 7:01/mi = 4:22/km)
=========================================
Total ------------ 4:50:44
Overall ---------- 118 (out of 2032)
Age group ------- 25th (out of 367)
(Earned me a qualification slot for the 70.3 World Championship in Florida)


The swim was challenging, I had put in multiple 12,000 yard weeks leading up to this race and the 6 secs improvement was somewhat dissappointing, but that is what you get when you swim outside the course and pass the same people a couple of times ;-).


The bike was the best bike ever going straight over Camp Pendleton, amazing to have Marine's yell at you; "we eat guys like you for breakfast, now put it DOWN", giving you target practice with the bottle exchange. AWESOME VOLUNTEERS!!!!! Coming back we headed 10mi straight into the wind, something I kinda love, going aero and putting the hammer down.



Although the weather was forecasted to be rainy it turned out to be a great day and when we hit the run the sun was out. The run was flat along the coast line, would have been easy if it wasn't for that sandy section we had to go over four times. I latched onto a faster runner and decided to see how long I could keep the pace around 6:50's. Well it lasted, 3 miles, 6 miles, 9 miles and finally at mile 10 I had to let go. But a new triathlon Pr was posted improving with well over 4 minutes!!!! Training does pay off!.


Oh almost forgot due to the run I did qualify for the World Championship held in Clearwater Florida in November 2006! CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO CLIP.

Preparation series #2 - Old La Honda bike climb

This week I raced a well known hill climb in the biking community named OLD LA HONDA. This is the benchmark climb in the region. It is neither terribly steep nor long, but the beauty of its narrow switchbacks and generous shade make it extremely popular. Almost all local riders know their best times up this hill, from the bridge to the stop sign.

Here are the statistics on Old La Honda: (courtesy of Lucas Pereira and Dan Connelly)Max. grade: 15% (18% inside switchbacks)
Avg. grade: 7.2%
Length: 3.37 miles (5.42 km)
Climb: 1290 feet (393 m)



My previous PR on this climb was 24min and 47 sec. The race started in time trial format, this means every minute a biker leaves to chase the biker ahead and trying to stay ahead of the bikers behind. My start time was 7:59am and it was friggin cold.

It was right around freezing temperature and that is very cold to warm-up for a time trial, also so cold that a large group did not even show up to race. When the feet turns numb during the warm-up, the biking community in general sees that as a bad sign. However after a full year of leg 'training' with Pete Kain using his Midevil Torture methods the results glooming.

I was able to improve significantly with 20min and 13 sec.

This looks to be a promising season!!!

This is what I do for work....

This week was a big week with the acquisition of SkyStream by Tandberg but also with a big customer announcement that we were waiting on for a while.

This is a project I worked on for the past 3-4 years and it finally went on the air.

My team sold the software for this project as the secret sauce to make it happen. It allows consumers to watch their movies without going to the video/dvd store. Really exciting and guaeranteed to get a lot of attention in the press world-wide.


So if you hear of it wherever you may be in the world ... let me know!!!!

Parks in the US

Different than in the Netherlands, it is quite common in the US to take your kids to the park and spend hours. Some families bring food to BBQ and make it a whole day event, similar to Dutchies going a day to the beach.

In the US however this can happen every day of the weekend (or both) and even during the week at the end of the day.

The parks are build to host these family events with minor attractions and ammenities such as BBQ's, play structures, creeks, and so on. We are fortunate enouhg to have Vasona Park close to our house where they run a miniature train through the park which Luke and Nikki love.

On the weekend when Maureen spends some quality time tennis, squash, dancing, and/or yoga I take them out. It is typically several hours spend jumping on the train, having Luke keep up on his bike, buying popcorn, messing around in the creek, playing in the sand box, and me chasing them down.

As we return from this trip, both of them fall asleep for hours, Maureen comes home revitalized, and I feel like the Dad I could not be during my weekday trips. So everybody's happy.

JOB SUCCESS: SKYSTREAM BEING ACQUIRED

GREAT NEWS Starting 7 years ago the journey at SkyStream is nearly complete. SkyStream is currently under acquisition by Tandberg Television out of Norway.

Link to biz journal news
Link to SkyStream PR
Link to Tandberg Presentation

What does this mean for us?
(i) This is a great things for SkyStream as its new parent relates very well to our business, customers and products

(ii) It is very satisfactroy to me personally as it was a very long and hard job to get this accomplished

(iii) In the US to be able to put on your resume that you were a major part of making the company profitable, and subsequently being acquired is a positive boost for ones career

(iv) As for the future, I am cautiously optimistic that this will have great impact! With around 50-60% of the overall revenues till date coming out of my area of responsibilities I am quite certain there will be a role for me somewhere moving forward ;-)

(v) And last but certainly not least there even might be a little extra in it for a kids scholarship program. Where at one time SkyStream was nearly bankrupt this is an unsuspected bonus.

Maureen and Yoga

Just came across this pic of Maureen doing Yoga outdoors. Wow!

Deborah comes to town

For the past weeks we had Deborah over.

Maureens younger sister and best friend. It was great to see her again and enjoy her enthusiastic presence. It must have been a shock for her, from living all by herself to step for two weeks into a household dominated by two kids.

The ladies went to town repeatedly to set it ablaze looking dashing as usual. During which most of the time I had to take care of the kids.

However occassionally I was fortunate enough to take these two amazing woman out to places such as "The Bubble Lounge", and "Sino".

Maureen on the Diveboard!

This is one of my favorite pics of my awesome wife as she climbed Half Dome some time ago. She fearlessly stands on the edge of what is known as the "Diveboard". I know you need a close-up I will put one on asap.

Snow man, sledding and snow balls

We had a great snow experience: We build a snowman (left, you can see Luke climbing a hill behind). Luke's hands got blue and since he wasnt used to it started to sniffle cuz the pain. Once we got him in some gloves it was all good.

We threw snowballs at each other (and Nikki who was defenseless in her iglo outfit), and were slipping and sliding of the hills on a selfmade sled.
We enjoyed it very much and were fortunate to have the best weather possible. The parting shot of the three of us as we get back in the car, Nikki was already in her car seat warming up.

TRAINS TRAINS TRAINS

Luke is crazy of trains so this week we went to a renowned train museum in the US: The Colorado Railroad Museam.

He went crazy and was running from train to train to climb on, ring bells, climb out, look under, and so on. We took numerous pictures but here are some to share.

You see some three well known steam engines of which the one on the right is the model for the movie Polar Express. Also you see the two Rio Grande trains a steam engine and a diesel engine. Luke's interest is nearly making me an expert... ;-)

If you look closely on the left you find Luke stending in front of the tender to give you an idea of scale of him (or the train)

The last picture is of my family as they pose for a final shot, please note that the weather was so warm we were dropping our coats except mr. freez Luke who is a true Californian and can't stand anything below 60F (15C).

Cute pics from kids

The before and after pictures dressing up the girls. Nadia is a very content girl that likes to lead out loud and throws smiles at you whenever she sees you.
Nikki is very outgoing and will come up to you and give her "Haaai" she has started to learn many words such as flower, shoes, socks etc.

The guys are practicing in this picture (Ren/Luke, Jacco/Nikki, Preman/Nadia) as we are taken responsibility for the kids this Thursday night as the girls (Kathy, Maureen and Sue) are going out for girls movie night to see 'Memoirs of a Geisha'.

The weather is getting colder as the wind increases, the kids still play outside although the mall has turned into a great option for the kids to play.

Xmas 2006 in Denver

Christmas morning finally came and Luke rushed out of bed to check under the X-mas tree.

The firetruck was unwrapped and deployed in mere seconds. On the other side Nikki was tearing off the wrapping of her gifts while Preman and Nadia were working on the other X-mas gifts.

There are a bunch more of photos and we hope to share them with you all in the near future.