Back in Lith, boot camp starting today!

Back in good old Lith, at last, after more than 5 months. Work had been very busy lately and I must admit I was ready for a break. Before leaving I sent out a mass mail to many friends and colleagues drawing (again) their attention to this project and its beneficiary, the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research in Bangladesh. I received some very nice messages in reply, many thanks for the encouragement folks! To know that this projct is followed by you is a great morale booster, and morale is what makes or breaks an endurance effort like this.

Three weeks ahead of the rest of the family, who have 3 more weeks of school ahead of them, I arrived yesterday in beautiful sunny weather after a long trip Dhaka-Karachi-Istanbul-Amsterdam. As usual almost no sleep on the plane, but I watched 3 movies and read for hours on end, what a luxury :-) Picked up from Schiphol by my ever helpful brother-in-law Vikram, who had also made sure that the family minivan had been maintenanced and reinsured. Thanks Vikram!

Back in Lith and after shopping for groceries I went for a quick late afternoon nap, only to wake up .... this morning after 13 hours of almost comatose sleep. My back is still stiff and painful: sitting still for 17 hours in economy class doesn't help of course. But no more excuses now: cold water training starts as of today. As I am typing this I look at the river Maas right in front of my house. The watertemperature is 18 degrees Celsius, according to Rijkswaterstaats (our National Water Board's) website:

I will tell you later what 18 degrees feels like coming almost straight from the plane from Bangladesh, brrr....