Jasper Fonteijn

Arizona

18th April 2010

Summer in Europe

Hi there and welcome to my news section. It has been quite some time since the last update but finally here's something new. I'll go through it all in chronological order and I'll start with what I've been doing last summer. After returning from California I went to Liptovsky Mikulas in Slovakia to coach the Dutch athletes during the European Championships for juniors and U23 paddlers. The race was held on the left course and during the week training went pretty well. Unfortunately during the race most athletes had difficulty to perform on the same level as they did during the training. A few weeks after Liptovsky I went to Sault Brenaz to the annual VKC summer week. As always we had nice weather and water and it was a fun week. With 3 or 4 hours coaching a day there was little time left to be on the water myself, but I made sure to paddle at least once a day.

Tempe, AZ

Sun Devils in action

At the end of August it was time for something completely different. I flew to Phoenix, AZ, to start my internship at the Arizona State University. It took a few days from me to get used to the 9 h time difference and the 40+ ° C temperature. I also had to find some place to stay for the next four months so I rented a car and checked out a few places. In the end I found a house very close to campus there I joined my roommate Dori. My landlord Russ just visited The Netherlands a few months earlier so we had some entertaining stories to exchange. A bike came with the room, so I had all the essential stuff worked out.

My internship was about aggregate modeling of manufacturing lines and I performed my research under supervision of Prof. Dieter Armbruster. Without going in too much detail I analyzed a few models for manufacturing lines and and compared their performance especially for systems in transient. For those of you that like to know more about this, I'm planning on putting my report on here within the next few weeks.

Studying wasn't the only thing I did while I was in Arizona. Together with a group of both American students and exchange students, united in the Global Devils, we did a lot of stuff. Volleyball and wing night on Tuesday, happy hour on Thursday, various sport events and parties on the weekend just to name a few. Together with two friends of mine we also bought a car so we could explore other parts of Arizona and the US on the weekends. I also decided to get my Arizona drivers licence, which was really easy and cheap! I paid 10 dollars and the test was a combination of a simple computer test and a practical test that literally was just a one block trip.

Some of the trips we took were to the Grand Canyon, which I visited in December with snow and ice at the rim, but also on the road. A nice change compared to the desert temperatures in Tempe. We also went to Las Vegas where some of us lost some money, others won some money and we all had an awesome time. At the end of November my brother Joris gave me a surprise visit. During the few days he visited me we went to Tucson, climbed Camelback Mountain and we celebrated my birthday together. After the semester finished in December a lot of people started to go back home and on December 19th I also flew back, a lot of awesome experiences and great friends richer.

Back home

When I arrived back home I was welcomed by my family and friends and also by the coldest winter in a decade. So I traded my flip-flops for my down jacket and after a few weeks of vacation I started with my final project, which is about superstate refinement, I'll write more on that some other time. Being back also meant I could start paddling again on the Dommel, which I must admit wasn't always that appealing with the low temperatures. Right now I'm padding just for fun so I didn't really have high expectations when I took past at the Dutch Championships this weekend. I'm not really fit at the moment so I decided to use the fast flowing water of the DWD course to give me my speed and concentrated on getting my lines right. This payed off as I finished 3rd in the end and together with Robert and Maarten we finished 1st in the team event. I was quite happy with my performance this weekend and more importantly I had a lot of fun.

2009 Update

16th July 2009

Paddling

It has been a very long time since my last update but here it is at last. So, what have I been up to all that time? Some of you might already have noticed that I have not been paddling the major races this year, in fact, I haven't done any races at all. I will give a small reading on this decision.

When I was overtrained last year in summer, I was basically forced to take a step back from paddling. I decided to put the time that I used to put in my training to good use by picking up on my study, so I started with my Master in Systems Engineering. Back then the plan was to devote the first semester to my study and use that time to recover from my overtraining. In December I slowly increased my training level, but I noticed after two weeks that it still didn't feel rights so I decided to delay the start of my training with an other month.

After the exams of my first semester I again started to pick up on my training in January. Of course after such a long period of training hardly at all, I wasn't really feeling fit but I did notice a pretty quick response to the increased training intensity. However I lacked something that's even more important when it comes to training and that's motivation. As I mentioned before I was forced to take a step back and this didn't only mean that I could not train as much as I used to, it also meant that it provided me with the time and opportunity to take a good look at the past few years and reflect upon what I was doing.

Without going to much in to detail, many of you might remember that in the past I had some disputes with our federation and that they were not resolved in a proper way. On top of that I couldn't get along with our national coach and I wasn't the only athlete. Last year 5 out of 6 team members pleaded for an other national coach, but as could have been expected this had no effect at all. Looking back at the past years I noticed that although I made some good progress in paddling, being on training camp with the national team most of the times was no fun at all. However when we were away with only a small group everything was fine. After reflecting the past few years and looking forward to the upcoming seasons I had to ask myself a very important question: is it all still worth it?

I had to answer this question with no. Training on the highest level is a fulltime activity and the time you put in must be worth what you get back in return. I didn't feel like this was still the case and therefor I made the decision to spend my time for some of my other qualities like my study. This decision wasn't easy to make, especially because I haven't yet reached my personal goals in paddling and I still like the sport itself very much.

This decision doesn't mean I turn my back on paddling, I will still be paddling now and then, preferably when the weather is nice ;). I also continue to give training at my club twice a week and this year in May I organized our annual slalom race that's also part of the Holland Cup series. A new experience for me was this years national qualification held in Augburg. Instead of racing, I was there as team leader and coach for for athletes from our club. I'm not yet sure what the future may bring, maybe I decide to pick up paddling one again to fulfill my goals, or maybe I'll focus on something else.

Studying

With the decision made not to paddle this year, the natural thing to do was to carry on with my study. I still had a few courses left to be done in the second semester in order to compleat my Bachelor. This mainly because in the second semester I normally would be abroad often for training and racing so following courses then is a tough challenge. The year however I had much more time so I set myself the goal to compleat my Bachelor and also I wanted to finish all my courses for my Master. A few weeks ago I handed in my last projects and did my last exams and I'm happy to say I've met both goals. For now only the Exam Commission must confirm that indeed I have done all courses and projects of the Bachelor and then I have my Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering. I've also completed all courses for my Master, meaning next semester for me will consist of an internship, followed by two semesters for my final project.

Vacation

With all courses done the next six weeks for me will be vacation. I already started with that four weeks ago when I flew to California to visit my brother Joris, who had been studying there at UCSC in Santa Cruz. In conclusion of his time there we did a road trip through California.
We started in San Francisco where we rented a cool Ford Escape
Our cool rental car 4WD and then we headed of to Lake Tahoe. We camped there overnight and misjudged how cold it gets there during night when we woke up in the morning and the car thermometer indicating 2 ℃. We enjoyed a nice BBQ hamburger breakfast at the lake before we continued our journey to Yosemite National Park. It was a scenic drive with a lot of nice views, and when we arrived in Yosemite the sights only became better. After we got some groceries we set of the find a campground that was not yet fully booked and lucky us they even had a black bear sniffing around right at the entrance. The next day we stood up early to start one of the highlights of the trip, namely our hike to Half Dome.

View at the falls on our hike

The hike to the top of Half Dome is depending on the route you take a 24-27 km round trail, starting at a elevation of 1233 m and finishing at the top at 2693 m, after a impressive 1460 m of elevation. This give the hike an average elevation over 8 percent. We woke up early in the morning and drove half a hour to the parking near the start of the trail. After a good breakfast and packing all our gear (with among other things 4.5 liters of water pp), we went to the beginning of the trail, where we started our hike at 8.30. After only a few 100 m the trail was going up and it would continue that way for a long time. We took the longer route up and this lead us passed some phenomenal views and over a waterfall as well. The second part up was pretty intense and we needed to take a regular stop as we were going up pretty steep and the air was becoming thinner. The views were amazing up the dome and then it was time for our descend. On the sub dome this was pretty challenging with lost of loose gravel on the granite and I was very pleased when we were of there. We took a small detour on our way down when after a while we said to each other we couldn't remember coming past there on the way up. Better safe than sorry we turned around and we found the right trail after only 15 minutes or so. In the beginning going down felt pretty good since it was not as breathtaking, bat after a while I started to feel my knees. The last part of the trail was a bit painful, but we were back at the start 10 hours after we left, exhausted, satisfied and sticky. We took a shower and a big meal before we went back to our tent.

The next day we concluded our northern trip with a visit to Stanford University and in the evening we flew to LA. Here the next day we picked up a new car end we set of once aging, this time in to the desert to Palm Springs. We had a nice pool at our hotel and in the evening the main street was closed for some kind of fair. The next day we did a short hike to 49 palms, and hiking in the desert was also a really cool (or should I say hot with temperature exceeding 105 degrees Fahrenheit (40 °C) experience. After the hike we drove east to start in Needles with the historical route 66. It was a great experience to drive for an hour and literally see no other car at all.
On the route 66 with evening sun We did see really long trains transporting all kind of stuff. After a stay ar a local motel, the next day we continues along the 66 to Santa Monica and then we drove along the coast to Santa Barbara. We chilled a bit at the beach and also went to the movies in a Mexican style cinema. Our parents arrived here the next day after their trip coast to coast trip and the remaining week we had a laid back time, going up the highway 1 to San Francisco again. There we spent a few days enjoying the city and of course going up the hills in the cable cars. We also visited alcatraz before we flew back home on the 5th. It was a really good time and a great experience.

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