Seriously, I had a pint of Heineken in a pub in Almere, and boy, did it taste good. The Heineken export version which we get over here, sucks in comparison.

Yo, whats hattnin? just got back from Challenge Almere doing the full distance. got 10th place with a time of 8:45:10 in typical dutch windy conditions, and with some sunshine from the middle of the bike onwards.

it was a really good field at the start ca. 30 Pro men, because Challenge Almere mostly is also the Dutch LD championships at the same time. The field was spearheaded by Markus Fachbach, and the Dutch Dirk Wijnalda, Eric Simon Strijk, Mark Oude Bennink Diderik Scheltinga up and comer Thijs Koelen and Belgium routinier Gerritt Schellens and Roth specialist Roeland Smits, German Jens Kaiser, Dutch legend Remy Vasseur, US punk rock boy AJ Baucco and also next generation Dutch Ironman. You may never have heard from these guys, but they are all sub 8:30 guys and Roth top 10 finishers, so they know a thing or two about long distance racing. 😉

Challenge Almere is a very old race, it s been there since 33 years. quality race, tough windy bike course, honest distances.

the swim was held in the Weerwater, a marsh lake surrounding the city centre of Almere. very very cold water for me at least coming from the desert, 17C.

the swim went well, I was with the second group so around 10th position and therefore in good shape for the bike as well.

the bike was as expected: very windy and you had to be astute on how and where you spend your power. the out bike part was along on top of the dijk so you were really exposed to the wind. on the way back we hit the polders and some woods. It felt like riding in a videogame at times. I did a good job with that too so I was all set up for the run.

started a bit too fast in the run, payed for it a little bit but not too much in the end. I thought I was sub 3 because I crossed the mat at 2:59:45 but after that it was still ca 200metres to go to the finish, so that’s why I was a couple of seconds over the 3 hour mark. but hey I ll go sub 3 next time then. 😉

all in all a good race. I am quite happy with the performance, but still needs a lot of work to do.

peace out.

O dawg 🙂