Cape Epic — it's time! Yes, the time has finally come. All those months of preparing are over. I did my last ride yesterday, on a beautiful spring day in the forest. Jeroen skipped his last one — he finally caught a virus too 😉 — but he'll be fine.
A couple of days ago I caught myself doing something I hadn't done before. I started counting down the number of training sessions left until Cape Epic. Eight. Not twenty. Not fifteen. Eight. Funny how that number never felt worth counting at higher numbers. At twenty you'
I'm writing this from Switzerland, where I should be doing maintenance rides on the Kickr this week. Instead, the trainer is 900 kilometres away, back home with the bike still attached to it. And I'm sitting here feeling surprisingly good about that decision. Let me tell
But maybe not in the way you might think. I've reached peak fitness in the sense that this is it. This is what I've got. Work at Trippz has been relentless these past weeks, and the reality is simple: I can't commit the training
When Ingmar is explaining that that life gets in the way of training in all the ways possible, it may look like I'm not struggling too, well guess again! Training in the winter in the Netherlands with a bike that's falling apart is kind of challenging.
So yes, another two weeks have passed. And I'll be completely honest with you, keeping up with the blog has been a challenge. Again. It's not like I don't have things to write about. The training data is there, the sessions are happening (mostly)
So there I was, driving back from Girona after barely one day of what was supposed to be a proper four-day training camp. Jeroen had felt notably stronger on our ride, my family needed me home, and the clock is still ticking down to Cape Epic. Not exactly the confidence
January 10, 2025 – 66 days to Cape Epic I'm writing this from home in the Netherlands, not from Girona where I should be finishing day 5 of our training camp. Sometimes the universe has different plans for you..... The Plan vs. Reality Sunday, January 5th: After a ten-hour
First of all, sorry for my minimal contribution to the blog the last weeks. While increasing my training hours, I was also moving to a new house and trying to run a company with end-of-year deadlines. Basically, just a lot of excuses. I admire how Ingmar still finds the time
March 2025. A random day, when I texted Jeroen: ‘’Hey, that Cape Epic thing you told me about a long time ago, shouldn’t we just sign up and go for it?” It was something completely out of the blue, as Jeroen and I had not discussed it anytime recently.
Tuesday morning, 10:30 AM. Back on the Kickr for the first time serious session in a week, after doing some light work for an hour on Saturday (which was the sweatiest session so far, shortly after catching that virus) 2.5 hours scheduled: 1 hour endurance at 190w, 24
Tuesday morning: Sore throat. Itchy ear. Slight runny nose. I'd just finished a massive week of training. Six sessions, 390km. For the coming week I had two four-hour rides scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. Everything still fully on track for Cape Epic. And then somehow nature always finds