Sad news...

I have been postponing this message for a while now and even at this moment I don't know how to start. For me... life sucks at the moment.

After a really good, strong and fun winter, I was truly looking forward to the new season. I ended 2017 with podium spots and my best stage race ever and I was not only looking forward, but also eager to make the best out of 2018. New team, new challenges and I was ready for it. My first races in April were okay, not super, but I always need some races to get the good feeling. Furthermore, it had been busy at my job and I was a bit tired, but nothing to really get worried about. I took some rest and then I had my first time trial of the year. It felt like I was flying and it was my best time trial ever. It gave me so much confidence and felt like all the hard work was coming together in that one race. The Sunday after, bad luck fell over me the first time. A stupid crash in a race and I broke my shoulder. Luckily I was back on my bike soon, lost the good shape, but happy to be able to ride the bike so soon after the crash. The doctor even agreed with racing again after three weeks. Then the IJsseldelta race came and I crashed again. Despite no broken bones, it was a hard crash and it took some time to recover from it. I can better say, it felt like I did not recover from it at all. I had one good race in the Netherlands where I took 2nd place, but furthermore no good races at all. Also no good feeling on the bike, but I was selected for the Dutch nationals and it is always an honour to start at the nationals. Although I felt like I wanted to sleep for the whole day and was not able to go deep during training, I did my best at the race, which later turned out to be the last race of the season. After the Dutch nationals I took some time of, because I didn't even like riding my bike anymore and that scared the hell out of me. After three weeks I missed the bike and started riding again. No training, just riding for fun. I planned my holiday and I had one of the best bike trips ever, riding form Leipzig back to home and it felt like the sun was shining again. Enjoying my bike and enjoying having some time of from work with a long holiday.

The trip from Leipzig back to home was my last blog of this year. Soon after, I started again with training, but within a week I realised I could not continue training. The feeling on the bike was horrible. Just riding the bike and enjoying the sun with small coffee breaks was okay, but the soon I started training, my body just blocked somehow. I could not ride my bike for 2-3 hours without taking any breaks and doing efforts on the bike was impossible. Still thought I needed time to recover from all the crashes, but at the end of August I got worried and visited the doctor. I was sent to the hospital for further check ups and last week, after various test, the diagnose was exercised-induced asthma. I am familiar with exercised-induced asthma, but normally only in spring in combination with hay-fever and really only during exercise. I have never had any experience with having it all the time, also with just doing nothing. From riding my bike daily and training more than 15 hours a week, it is currently not even possible to ride my bike for an hour. Also work cost me some much energy that sometimes I had to call in sick. I have a week holiday now and I hope that will give me back some energy.

At this moment I got medication, but it will take at least 2 months before I will feel the difference. I am also not allowed to sport for the next 3 months, because my longs need to recover and the medication needs to do their job. After this reset, I can slowly start to sport again and try to become fit again.

So, it is not the end of the world and I am great full that they found out the problem, but it really changes my life for this moment. The first days it was difficult to be positive and I was just hearing the words no sport for 3 months. After a week, I can say, I have good and bad moments, but I am already looking for good ways to spent these months. I try not to think about all things I cannot do, but think about the things I can do. So I had my first yoga class ever... still don't know what I think about that, but trying new things is fun. I have more time to visit friends, visit musea and so on.

And furthermore, we life in a beautiful surrounding and I love to take pictures, so I combined walking around with making photographs and the result you can see below.

My goals for the moment are recovery, having enough energy to do my job the way I want to do my job and I am looking forward to the moment I can go to work by bike again.