Finished!

Yes I did it! I finished in a time of 10:03 and had a perfect race! It started with a great swim (1:03) and after a quick but long transition (we had to go up a parking garage) I had a great bike ride. The course is quite hilly (As you can see in the graph) with over 1900 altitude meters, but I rode with a 39/27 which was a very good choice. I did it in 5:17 and finished with a 3:34 marathon.

It was just one of these great days: Mike and my dad ran all over the course to see me and Jon, Helen, Jenny and Alec cheered so loud everytime I came by: just awesome!

I finished 66th overall and 17th in my age-cat, just about 75min behind the first man overall. Unfortunately it wasn't enough for a Hawaii slot, but: WHO CARES!!! I just had a perfect race and finished in the top 3% !!

I really would like to thank all of you for supporting me, calling me and Anita (I'm sorry if I didn't pick up the phone in the US), Andrea for the great support and of course Mike and Jenny for all they did for us...

Ironman Wisconsin

Hi Friends!

it is again a long time that we posted. Joost (me) is in Madison now, one day before the race. Anita couldn´t come with me, since she had to work. Doing an Ironman is always a strange experience, even if this is going to be me 11th Long Distance race. You never know how the day will go: you've trained a lot (every year I think I trained more and better than last time, so this year) but your last hard season was already a couple of days ago and you didn't try the whole thing before in training. I rested a lot the last days, which is also a strange feeling for the body, since it got pretty used to being out there swimming, biking, running for up to 28 hours a week (I took a week off). I'm feeling very good and really looking out for tomorrow...

I just checked in my bike, and it is just great to see the reaction of all people (thanks TEO). An Isaac is pretty rare and of course mine is very nice...

The last couple of days I had a great stay at Mike and Jenny, Alec, Ashlynn and Kjersten. They treated me and my dad so well! Alec gave up his room so I could sleep in it, Mike took us all those great places (Brewers game, Trek, Crane-Foundation), Jenny took so good care of us and Kjersten just stole our hearts. We'll really going to miss them when we've got to leave on monday. In Star-Trek they have such a great Tele-Transporter and I wish they would invent it in the next couple of weeks, so we can see them more often. It is great that we have the opportunity to travel so much and meet these great people, but everytime it is again a bit "hart-seer" (heart pain) if we have to leave.

Ok, I will let you know how the race went and hope we can plan our trip to Hawaii in the next couple of weeks....

Take Care! Joost