What’s the scariest moment in the whole process of racing long distances? Is it when you realise that it’s only one week until the start of a race? Picking up the race number? Or when you enter the cold water of a 10km swim, and you know that now there’s really no turning back? Or is it months before that; when you fill out a registration-form, and then finally have the guts to press that final ‘enter’ button?

I remember those key moments: signing up for my first half ironman, my first marathon, and my first longdistance triathlon. At the first two I was pretty stressed, but really excited that I registered, at Challenge Roth I was mainly surprised that I got in (Roth sells out in record time, so it’s about typing fast, and being very lucky…).

Last year I signed up for The Double Brutal Extreme Triathlon (read my full race-report here) and although I already decided to do that race months before I registered, this was still a big moment… Sitting at home with my laptop, I had just committed to something that was seriously big… This was going to consume my life for the next months, and even then; I would still not know if I would even make it to the finish-line (I didn’t even know if I would make it to the start… Since it was going to be a hard year of training, so you never know how the body and mind respond to that!). Since I already knew for a while that I would do this race, you would think filling out the paperwork is just a formality. Not so… Now it was official, so this was one of those HUGE moments in preparation… And signing up for The Double Brutal was definitely one of the scariest things I’ve done in my life… Not much would ever top that!

Well… I’ve just done something far worse…

Triple Brutal registration is completed… See you in September…