Ready to rumble!!! It has rained so much over the last couple of days that paths and bridges have been washed away. The race course will be adapted. These are our last few minutes in the dry, almost time to start. Woohooo, see you on the other side!! #adventuretrophy

Preparations for the Adventure Trophy 72h adventure race in full swing in our AirB&B turned expedition basecamp...

The Adventure Trophy. 

This is a 72h non stop adventure race, and is supposed to be ‘only’ a training race for La Réunion in November (ok, I admit, when you do training races that last 72h non-stop you know you belong to the crazier half of society.. ;) ). The idea is to just to go slow, and to practice transitions, race strategy and racing. We’ve never raced together as a team with Sil being new to expedition racing, and there have been injuries. Finishing will give us the confidence that everything is ready for November. Unfortunately Janne had to drop out due to a broken leg, so we'll start unranked and we'll be racing as a team of 3 instead of 4. It's a real shame, but she's working hard on recovering well and being as ready as she can be for the World Championships Adventure Racing in La Réunion in November.

Selected!

A message on my phone. I'm selected for Team NL and whether I want to participate in the World Championships Ultra Trail Running in Penyagolosa (Spain) this year. I'm honoured and thrilled. Of course I don't need to think about the answer..

Penyagolosa ultra trail

6 months later I find myself in Spain. Together with most of the best trail runners in the world. All runners stayed in the same hotel, plus some retired people who thought they had booked themselves a quiet holiday.. fail! The atmosphere was really great, the spirits of Team NL were high (we had SO MUCH FUN), the food was good, the weather great.. All set for a great adventure!

TeamNL 2018

Maarten, Mieke, Sil, Nikki, Dorien & Joost were searching for a bit of snow in Japan last January. And snow they found...

Maarten made a great movie of their adventures, enjoy!

I’ve had the pleasure to try out the Naked Running Band (NRB) from Naked Sports Innovations. To be honest, I was a bit sceptical when I first saw it. It’s a very thin piece of 4-way mesh fabric that’s promising not to bounce. Well… Let’s see I thought.

I’ve tried it on multiple training runs for a couple of months now, during the Trans Gran Canaria 125km, during the Circuit des Grands Crus 27k, and recently during my preparations for the World Championships Ultra Trail Running. I have to say, I really got to LOVE it!

Maarten and Mieke have been kayakking in India recently. It looks like they had another great adventure, check out their video here:

Annnd.. We're in!!! 

Team Vertical Dissidents (Sil, Maarten, Arjan & Janne) have been accepted to the World Championships Adventure Racing in La Réunion November 2018. So it looks like we have something to train for! November is still far away, but we're super excited! 

Pic: Organisation Raid in France

Pic: Kirsten Oliver

And here it is: the video of the 15 day trip kayaking through the Grand Canyon of Mieke, Maarten, Sil and the rest of the crew!

Last February, Maarten, Mieke, Sil and a bunch of friends descended the Grand Canyon on a Kayak. Here's the trailer, a longer movie of their adventure is on the way too!