So. IRONMAN Arizona didn’t go as I expected or at least hoped for. But. I managed to finish. And looking at my season, that’s an achievement on itself. Off course I wanted to do better. And off course there are a lot of girls who would love to do a 9.45 hrs IRONMAN. But no, I aimed for more because I know I can do better. But this is life. You do what you can, try your best, gamble a little and loose in the end. And you take it as it comes. The season has been long enough and it’s time to go home.

Raceweek was fantastic. I stayed with Sandy and Robyn Kellin, who are totally crazy about good and healthy food, love what triathletes do, love sport in general and are the founders of Xendurance, a supplement that helps you fight the lactic acid. I’ll come back to that later. They have a great house with a view over the whole Phoenix area. It was amazing to lay in the bed and look out of the window to see all the lights in the valley.

The other great thing was that I got to meet up with Lisa, Eric, Ty and Kayla again! We spent way to less time together and I hope to see them soon in the near future. And funny to say that Daniel Avant, one of our good Dutch triahtletes, and I shook hands for the first time. In Phoenix. How cool is that if you’re from such a small country as we are!

About the race itself I can be short. Swim was okay. I just started to think about the glasses. Where did leave mij special Rudy Projects sunglasses? In which bag? And as climbed out of the water I realized that I put them in my morning bag. Not a smart thing when racing in the bright sun. Just one minute on the Trek Speed Concept and I lost my powermeter. It just broke off. Even though I taped the thing. But I had my back up plan. And as tried to put the right screen on my watch I accidently locked it. Again! What? Why? And off course I could not remember how to unlock it. I tried all different keycombinations. And even the one that was supposed to be the right unlock combination. But doing that while trying to ride about 40 km per hour is not working really well. So I went with my feeling. And with the race. Fact is, I got caught up in riding with Lindsey Corbin and Leanda Cave. I wanted to stay on that pace so badly that I bit right into that. And then I couldn’t hold. It was only untill after the race how fast I had been riding the first two laps. Way to fast. And then in the marathon I couldn’t hold on to the pace I started. I started out good, but ended up having stomach problems again.

A lot of learningfactors and things to work out over the winter. I haven’t set my plans straight yet, but I’m definately going for that time that is in my head and also in my body.