Check this out. Boulder, Lead, Speed, Youth competitions, world up…keep climbing!

Yeah, this competition started this morning! A competition till 18 years old! I’m talking about Youth Open 2011 at Monk Bouldergym.

The youth of today, 175 kids (!!), are performing right now at Monk! Unfortunately you can’t sign up anymore, it’s full, however you can enjoy the ambiance though!

Will you be around? I’m going to drink some Milk & Fruit juice to warm up my voice. I’ll be announcing some news and eventually hand out prices to the best boulder kids of the country.

See you around at Monk!

Impression photos:

Check out Facebook for more photos!

Hello everyone.

I just realized it was exactly a month ago when I posted a story on my blog. Well lucky you, because I have an update with lots of photos!

I’ve been gone for 3 weeks on a business course in Ohio University in Athens.

3 Weeks no climbing went quick although sometimes it felt like I was in the States for months. Working in different high performance teams every week was oodles of fun!

It’s awesome to be with 22 colleagues, going out bowling, watching ice hockey, american football, playing pool games, experiencing Black Friday, shopping at Easton/Jeffersonville, having breakfast/lunch/dinner and so on.

Photo by Maaike Brinkhof

The professors and coaches were really nice and I can’t wait to translate my theory into work experience!
To end this trip I received an Ohio University certificate last week yeah!

Professor Michael Martel & Truong

Truong & colleague Wim Hofland

Truong & Professor Doug Wistendahl – Ceremony photos taken by Maaike Brinkhof

This week my team won the Sogeti‘s best idea/service. All our effort has turned into proud. It’s a great work experience and I won’t forget it ever again!

Sogeti 62

Anyway, I’m back in the Netherlands! I missed out on a lot. I had to watch a compilation video of the nationals and refresh the results’ page to check out the results…

I must say I was quite surprised about the women’s results. The men’s results are quite obvious. It’s never too late to congratulate everyone who participated though, so congrats haha.

Meanwhile the international competition season has come to an end. I guess that’s a good thing, so I won’t miss out on more international competitions. I guess that’s it.

What else is on my calendar?
Well next Saturday I’ll have a mic in my hands during the Youth Open event at Monk Bouldergym. I’m also planning to team up with teammember Vera to join Monk’s annual Klim Quiz a Gogo!

This event will be held on December 18th at Monk Bouldergym. Hopefully we’ll score better this year!

See you around!

Hey there climbers!

I haven’t read much news about it, but I’m sure there will be more news coming up on several climbing weblogs, for instance a photoblog here from Tony Lamiche. I’m talking about the Petzl Roc Trip in China which was last month from october 26th – 30th, 2011!

I just spotted a video about it. This area is amazing! Check it out yourself.

Read more »

Come Saturday will be the National Championship Lead climbing. You can still buy tickets to support everyone! I won’t participate however I can wonder about the results beforehand.

My blog wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t add a survey about the results right? So here we go again!

I think it’s quite obvious who will win the lead competition 2011. However to make this more interesting and again original compared to last year’s survey, I’ve changed the question about the expected rankings in both categories. Have fun!

Here we go:
Women contest:

 Loading ...

Men contest:

 Loading ...

As you’ve noticed I haven’t been blogging much lately. There is a reason for that, which I will explain below.

I decided to set priorities in my life. Climbing is important for me. It’s fun, keeps my life adventurous, training equals discipline, competitions are challenging and it’s a lifestyle. However, if I’m being realistic then I have to mention that I can’t make a living out of this. Therefore I have a job, which keeps my life in balance.

Since November 1st, I have a new job at Sogeti being an Infrastructure Engineer. I have fun colleagues, interesting lectures and I’m loving it! However I choose to put a lot of time and energy in my job. It changes my life for now. And that also means changes in climbing.

In a few words, I can share you that I have cancelled all my competitions for november and december. It was very difficult for me to make this choice as I love my competitions. I was invited to participate in the National Championship Lead come Saturday at Tilburg, but unfortunately I can’t participate because I’ll be on my way to the United States. For your info, I’ll stay 3 weeks at Ohio university in Athens.

I don’t know what the future will bring, but next year I’ll try to get back into my old lifestyle. Combining career and competitions is hard. I will need time to think things over and reset priorities if possible. So for now I’ll have a climbing break. No fixed team trainings and no competitions for this year but I’ll be back! I hope you’ll understand.

This morning I set my alarm at 6 o’clock but I couldn’t get up on time. I suppose to leave at 6.30h, so I would’ve some spare time for my trip to Schiphol airport, but unfortunately I slept late. I left at 7 o’clock and arrived one hour later at Schiphol.

Fortunately I didn’t have any delay. At the airport I ran into team member Nikki, she was there on time. Team member Elko arrived soon and we’re complete. Checking in went well. This dude at the metal detector checked up on me. I had to open up my bags, but there was nothing dangerous inside my bag. He was just checking out my gadgets, I think he’s jealous at my camera!

The flight to Zurich was nice. I received swiss chocolate during the flight.

It was so delicious, I craved for more. I managed to score some more chocolates with my pure awesomeness at the end of the flight.

We could spend 1 hour at the airport. While Nikki and Elko were busy with their notebooks, I explored the airport. It was quite fun because I could try some fine chocolate sweets. I enjoyed it a lot.

So if you ever have time left at Zurich airport, I suggest you to walk around and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.

At Zurich, Mathilde and her mom from Sweden joined us. They booked the same flight to Lyon.

When we arrived at Lyon, it was up to fix a rental car.

I booked a small car before, however it was meant for 3 persons. We were with the 5 of us and luckily they had a bigger car available on their parking lot.

We fit well in the car, including our luggage. It took us 2 hours to get to Valence. We managed to get on time at the climbing gym for the registration without navigation.

First we parked our car in the same street of the hotel and checked in. It’s a ** hotel and it’s about 15 minutes by foot to the climbing gym.

To be honest, I’ve seen better hotels in my life. Anyway, I’ll just stay here for a few days!

Next we went downtown to grab a bite. It was already 6.30 P.M. Most of the restaurants open from 7 P.M. We had to hurry because we wanted to be on time for the technical meeting from 7.30 P.M. We ended up in an average restaurant where we got served pretty fast. I ordered entrecote nature avec pomme et salad. Too bad I didn’t have ketchup with my fries. The meat was nice though.

I was too hungry so it was okay I suppose. Nikki picked lasagna and Elko had pizza.

We were on time at the technical meeting. There’s nothing special according the officials.

Nikki will start 7th in her first route and 23rd in her second route. Elko will start 6th in his first route and 28th in his second route. I’ll start 38th in my first route and 16th in my second route.

The programme remains the same. After this meeting we had some desserts to end our long journey. We visited this restaurant near our hotel.

It was super delicious. We’ll definitely return to his restaurant for a meal. After our dessert we went back to our hotel.

That’s it for now. I’m tired and I’m going to sleep because I have to wake up early. Goodnight to everyone and greetings from Valence, France!