Gothenburg Calling - 4 weeks of summer ice have come to it's end.
Today I'm flying back home to Sweden, I can look back on a good period of training
, overall I feel much stronger endurance wise than I did last year at the same period.
I've been able to test my new skates, still have to be able to learn how to get the whole benefit out of them but over all I like them a lot!
The next step now is to put the speed in, and I'm excited about that.
First things first, a week of vacation with my family in Warsaw.

Greets, Claudia

Besides being challenged on the ice, I had a rather thrilling chicken race this morning. Coming back from my ice training, turning on the computer and having my traditional cup of coffee, I suddenly have a feeling of being watched. I look outside the balcony door, and to my chock I see that our two chickens have escaped the cage and are now looking at me with anger in their face. (My theory; they want to haunt us down cause we sort of had their third friend for dinner last week, but hey they are chickens, i'm not cold blooded I have feelings but still..chicken equals food)
Anyway, I grab the kitchen glow and I'm trying to push them into the cage. Then this black chicken starts to attack me and jumps on the balcony fence, to my fear I back off I don't want the bird to take its life from t he 5th floor! And it also gave me a few scratches on my arm so I wasn't as cocky anymore. Continuing the story, I start to put a food trace to trick them into the cage, after much fear and battling the black one gives up and take up the food trace and ends up in the cage, however the second one was a stubborn one. Kept watching me through the glass door, eventually also he gave in for our marvelous crackers.
Lesson learned, I will never raise chickens on my own specially not on a balcony!!

Team Gold Rush Soccer Tournament: On a Sunday rest day we had the annual Gold Rush Soccer Tournament, which offered very entertaining two hours game with many fascinating and very impressive goals, but also fascinating and impressive way's of how not score while a wide open goal is just waiting for you...

However as the picture can tell, my team won by far (13-6) if we managed to count right, we kinda gave up after a while. Thank you team! Josh, Brooke & Roach!

A lifetime of training for just 37 seconds.

Photo: Meijco Van Velzen (www.meijco.nl)

Netherlands: Little more than a week has passed here in The Netherlands and I have enjoyed getting out on the ice again.

This year I'm skating on new equipment, and it gives me an extra kick and motivation on the ice. I feel allready as strong or even stronger than my best period of time last season which looks good for the future. July the 18 I will do a test race here in Thialf, it's still early enough for races and I want to skate through a good race to see how my new skates react in competition mood.

I've enjoyed the off ice time as well, been able to witness some of the high level inline races down here, it's nice to watch and study and bring some knowledge back home to Sweden. Today I was able myself to try out the indoor track that is situated inside Thialf, and it was a nice challenge (when you don't have your own equipment and a two size to big skates)

However, I will return home with new knowledge for my own inline troop. I'm excited.

A normal week here also includes some beach work, soccer game, volleyboll game, guitarr lessons, as a skater I need some "relaxing" in between acitivties.

I also have good news for my weightclub in Gothenburg, that I might bring home a new weighlifter to join the Gold Team. She currently train with Hollands one and only weightlifter Ingrid, which I've competed against back home in Sweden several times. And we now thought of joining in together for training in the gym, share experiences and advices between each other to become even better weightlifters.

Quote of the day:

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.

Denis Watley