Thank you all for a great year!

Thank you friends for voting for Bridget and I as your 2006 Athletes of the year!, in particular my bike/run training partners over the year, Aron, Mark, Ryan, Pete, and my swim lane mates: Wes, Rob, Amanda, Joe, and Karen

Thank you DiNapoli family for your generousity and hospitality in hosting this super party.

Thank you Pete for coaching to get the best out of myself, overcome my fears and achieve new goals, to listen to me and take me along. It was an honor to train with you, beside you.

But most of all thank you Maureen for being there while I left for early mornings swims, to put the kids to bed during my evening brick training, and on the weekends take them to the Kids Museum while I went for long bike-rides. There were many days that you must have felt that you were raising our kids by yourself as I left for another training ride.

Ironman 70.3 World Championship

Man what a day. Last Saturday (11/11) Pete and I raced in the final race of the year. The World Championship in held in Clearwater, Florida. It was quite an experience with 30+ countries representing.

Anyway at 7:15 EST my wave of approximately 600 athletes left on a beach start. Before I knew it I was in the front group leveraging lessons Pete has taught us on 'dolphining' through the shallow water. I struggled to hang and at the end of the swim was caught by Pete (coach) who started 5 mins behind me. As I exited the water I recorded a new sub-30 minute PR for the swim (YIHAAAAA).

The bike was a story by itself, with 2000 racers spread over just 4 waves, seperated by a mere 5 minutes combined with a very flat fast course it was inevitable that drafting (illegal) would take place. And so it did. Fortunately I felt strong and before long was in one of the lead groups, actually pulled that group for quite a while due to the threatening marshalls. This lead to a new PR of 2:11:59 (equates to an average of 25.48mph or 41kmh). Coming out of T2 I was right with Pete who with severe leg cramps still managed to outrun me.

The run was extremely tough as I clearly had blown too much energy on the bike and was 'hanging on'. Although Clearwater is as flat as a pancake they had managed to find a bridge that we had to cross 4 times and made it quite tough. I ran a flat 1:37 (about 5-6 mins slower than usual), and had no issues with my ankle.

Overview result (#349)

Swim 29:58 (PR - 31:08)
Bike 2:11:59 (PR - 2:33:10)
Run 1:37:58
-------------------
Total 4:24:37 (PR minus 23 mins)

I came in 52nd in my age group and 205th overall

A lot of thanks to my coach and friend Pete whom had an unbelievable swim (19th overall) and bike (20th overall) but was held back due to injuries on the run, yet still managed to finish ahead of me.

Wushu graduation

Some time ago we concluded that Luke could use some help in funneling his energy. So we put him in Wuschu class (Karate). There is a local school that was highly recommended and so we signed him up. Below are the picture of his graduation.

WUSCHU CLASS OF NOV-2006


He was taught to stretch from early on. A delight to see him do that. We were a little worried in the beginning not knowing if he would be able to maintain his focus. Sometimes he can drive his coaches insane as he bounces of the wall.



The graduation exercise included, blocking hits from the top, doing a snap-kick, punch, maintain quiet for 30-sec to demonstrate his focus, show his ability to understand leadership etc.

Luke graduated as the first in his class received a round of applause from Opa, Oma, Irene, pappa, mamma and Nikki. He was very proud and came over to present his yellow-belt.

The halloween outfits

Nikki and Luke (Dracula). Well Luke originally wanted to be an Astronaut and in the week leading up to Halloween he changed his mind. He wanted to be a 'business man' like pappa. Maureen put him in his "wedding suit" used some paint and made the most supercool outfit. For all male adults to consider. Nikki was just happy with anything in pink, in particular pink socks and shoes. Does it get any better than this?

SWING AWAY!

We are trying to change the hood to a front-yard one together with several of our other neigh-bors. So last week I made a tire-swing, and build a table with benches. The swing was super easy, $20 in fasteners from home-depot, and the local tire shop had Ben pick out a tire of choice (brand new spare tire).

We also celebrated recently the first block party. This was great as we met all the neighbours, several who we had never seen before. Its a mixed group of all age ranges / backgrounds. We had like an international food market going on with dishes from all over the world, Greek salad, American Dessert, Indonesian Sate, Mexican food, everything. A fire truck showed up to let the kids from the neighbourhood play and that made it like a real block party.

Well look at the pictures, I am telling you a tire swing is a lot of fun. Its great to come home and see Maureen and the kids in the front-yard. If any of you need a building description let me know, it is really super easy and most tire companies are happy to give you a tire as it costs them a lot of money to recycle.

Ups and downs ... and making tough decisions

My gosh what a hectic week. Last week I am doing great. I hit PR's on my workouts, have no pains, no issues whatsoever and even my weight was on track. Then on Sunday while I do an easier trail run I sprain my ankle and my whole season looked to end in face of the finish line (race).

Sunday I had a tennis ball size swelling on my ankle that had me depressed. However a new day came and on Monday morning I started my therapy at TeamClinic, a pit-stop where many pro-athletes in the Bay Area get there treatment.

Today I am 3 sessions into the treatment, I can walk, already swam a practice and did a hard bike workout (80%). I got 5 more sessions and the news sofar is that I can make it and will not sustain long term damage as long as I follow the plan.

I am anxious to make it to the race, I have to loose the 2 pounds I gained while being stuck on the bed/couch the past days and I have to do some training to keep all cogs turning.

Rock-n-Roll Half Marathon - Best yet!

Wow what a race. RnRSJ is a marquee run race taking place in San Jose. With nearly 10,000 people attending this is definitely a BIG race, 678 people just in my age group!!!!

With a new PR of 1 hr 23 m 20 sec I was ONLY 23 minutes behind the winner. This comes out to about a 6:22mm pace and lead me to 10th spot in my age group, and 85th overall.

Sorry but I cannot relate to you the effort it takes to run at this speed and then see someone else running it 23 mins faster!!?!?!?!?? That's nearly 2min/mile faster. #1-12 were all Kenyans by the way. Afterwards I biked back home and enjoyed a big breakfast with Jeff.

Next race is the big one - World Championship 70.3 in Clearwater Florida ...

Blast from the past - Mau in KLM Blue

 

Tahoe Weekend / 10k Scramble

A fun weekend with the Kain family in Tahoe!!!

We drove down to Tahoe on a Friday and spend the weekend in "Eric and Beth Sterns Cabin" on Alpine Valley.

We had such a fun trip. With the Kain kids we had a 1yr old (Nikki) a 2 yr old (Jeremy) a 4yr old (Luke) and a 5 yr old (Jessica).

They had soo much fun around the cabin, there was a raft for them to play on, a beach, a forest where they could climb on rocks, bridges etc. The kids could make fire at night and just ran around the cabin chasing each other the whole time.

XTERRA
There was a racing event held at the same time where Sharoo competed and did an awesome job in the pro-field. The event location offered a lot of fun things for the kids to do.

There was a "Base Camp" where the kids could go crazy. Luke did super at rock-climbing and before we knew it he was half way up there already! Nikki , not to be outdone by her brother turned in some climbs as well. Both on the cargo net as well as on pappa's neck.

All in all a great weekend thanks to the Kain family for inviting us and the Stern family for sharing their property!

SENTINEL OLYMPIC TRI !!!!

SENTINAL RESULTS

Had another great race that took place right on the coast at Santa Cruz!!! Awesome location and it was another great enjoyable race as I now start to compete in these things. Man it still looks so far away though as the winners are 10-15 minutes faster. Nevertheless this race once again showed a significant improvement (7+min over 2 year).

(Y-o-Y)
Year ------- Swim-------- Bike -------- Run
2004 ------- 0:27:00 ----- 1:09:30 ---- 41:41
2006 ------ 0:23:26#---- 1:03:46 ---- 42:46*#
=============================
Total ---- Time ----- AG Rank
2004 ---- 2:21:19 --- 13th
2006 ---- 2:13:47* -- 5th

# Personal record
* Run course was 0.66 mi long (was revised by race director to a 38:36 10k, and a total of 2:09:36)

My run felt SOLID!!! I felt I had a EricV gallop...yeah!. The main step I have to take next is to get my swim 1-2 minutes faster, that is for the off-season. Thanks to Aron for taking the picture as I came out of transition and encouraging me on.

MESSY PAINT PARTYYYYYYYYY

Luke's 4th birthday was destined to become a MESSY PAINT PARTY!

We had setup paint-stations ... and some shaving cream. It was a great party and for sure there are too many great pics to pick ... here are some to give you an idea!

1990's - Trip to Indonesia

Where were we 15 yrs ago? Indonesia on a 7 week trip starting with a train ride from home to Zaventum Belgium. Great train ride but if you are carrying luggage for 7 weeks you get the picture. But okay a small hernia later we caught a flight to Singapore - where we stayed in a 3-star hotel feeling like we were doing a 5 star trip. This is where I learned that tipping someone who then carries your stuff is a win-win!!!!

We enjoyed my first Nasi Rames for breakfast in Jakarta where we stayed for 2 days with Maureens wonderful family. Then it was onto Bogor (Maureen's birth city) where it took Maureen 10 days to show the white guy around the family. Once everyone had seen 'blondie' we jumped on a 29 hrs bus ride to reach Bali, where we crawled out of the bus and were asking for mercy... no more long bus rides for us! In Bali we had a great time touring the tempels, beaches, and so on.

We followed this up with a snorkling tour to Lombok Sengigi beach. At this time we just wanted to eat hamburgers and be on the beach all the time. As we made our way back through Java we had no preparation anymore and just winged it as it came. We touched the Buddha's on Yogyakarta and toured the rice fields, we went from city to city using trains and busses seeing the cites, meeting friends wherever we went. The grand finale was a 5 day trip to Pulau Seribu (Thousand Islands) where a boat dropped us off and we just snorkled for 5 days eating nothing but fish. For breakfast, for lunch and for dinner...

We now look back and think... what were we thinking to travel for 7 weeks at age 20/21 .. we could have been killed for $50!!!, or how the heck did we ever manage to get 7 weeks off from school and work???, who 'financed' this trip since I was in school then and Maureen had a minimal wage job???... I calculated it back and it seems we spend USD 4,500 for 7 weeks including the flights/hotels etc... how come it was so cheap??? and most of all... which lunatik convinced us to take a 29hr bus ride?

Anyway Indonesia is a great country and I hope that one day we can take our kids with us to enjoy the wonders the 6,000 islands has to offer.

Luke Turns Four

Some quick shots for our family in Netherlands - He is having an awesome time. He got cars cars and cars. We hope he has fun with it. He is really appreciative of the gift he gets!!










We gave Nikki some stuff I bought on a recent trip to Texas. She just left the house with Irene.

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)

More race results, Jungle Run, KPC, and CatFish

KP Challenge
This is the clubs time trial taking place every couple of months. It involves a 500 yard swim, a steady 7mi bike climb of 2000 ft, and a 1 mile run. Mostly based on a stronger bike (new PR of 34min55sec) I got a new PR of 47m29s (last one was 49:59).




JUNGLE RUN
This c-race I did got me the first podium ever! Yeah. The race is called the Jungle Run. To be fair it was more the lack of serious competition but I did manage to take 3rd overall at a local 10k race with 280 participants.

The time was 38:00.5 which is within a second of my PR, but since I raced the KPC challenge the day before I felt very good about it. The race uses the Los Gatos trail that I train regularly on.




CATFISH
Another tune-up race was the CatFish race. This was a 1.2 mile swim in the local reservoir. It was a superhot day (like 108F/42C).

The swim went well and I posted a 34:00min flat and was 27th out of 96. Last year it took me 35:47min and I was 69th so needless to say that I am happy with this improvement on my weakest sport!!!!

We followed this up with a stiff run in the heat that got a little sweaty but was necessary for the upcoming VINEMAN race on July 30th.

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...