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“I received a lot of sweet messages after my anouncement of moving to France. But I also think I lot of people misunderstood my situation. They are scared I will leave the Dutch athletics ‘scene’. I would like to say that I am and will stay Dutch and run for the Dutch team. I will stay a member of my Dutch club, and train with a Dutch coach (besides the coaches I have in England and France), so to all of you, no worries 
. I bought a house in France to be closer to the track, and of course there will be periods I will stay more in France than in Holland. But there will also be periods when I will stay in Holland a lot more often (think about the competition season).
At the moment I am in Holland. I attended the Olympic weekend and it was very good to see everyone again. It was nice to speak with my fellow heptathletes and of course all the others as well. Rudy had a good time as well and it was a good chance for him to learn some new words. After the weekend we went home to celebrate my mum’s birthday. Her birthday was on saturday, but because my brother and I weren’t there, we decided to go to a restaurant on tuesday.
Next saturday we will celebrate Sinterklaas. Officially this national day is at the 5th, but we will celebrate it earlier because Rudy and I will leave for South Africa on tuesday. We will spend 6 weeks in Potchefstroom. The first three weeks I will stay with the French team. Then we will be without coach for a week and after Christmas Joe will come for 2 weeks. I’m really looking forward to these weeks.”
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“YESSS… No more rest, training has started since the November 1. Even though I can’t do any plyometrics yet, at the moment I can run, throw and jump (of the right leg) pain free. Last week I did my first high jump session from the otherside. It is weird to make a rotation from the otherside, but Jean Paul says it will come once I ‘feel’ the bend better.
At the moment training consists of running, weights, circuits, drills and I also started with some technical events. But these events also exist mainly of doing a lot of work. For example, last week I did a shot session of 70 throws (backwards, forward, standing with different weights etc). The jumping is mainly conditioning work as well, with a little bit of attention to technique.
I already feel quite at home here. Last friday I was invited to an official meeting in Picardie for all the sports people who are able to qualify for the Games in Beijing. And I was invited because I train and live in Picardie. Rudy and I were invited to a 2km cross country race as well in Amiens. There was a race for all ages and a race for personalities in Amiens. Rudy and I decided to run and crossed the finish line in an astonishing 10min.
There is not much more I can say at the moment, except the fact that I’m really happy I do not have to train outdoors so much anymore. I can leave my googles at home when it rains and my toes and fingers do not break when it’s cold… GREAT!!”
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“A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that this season some things were going to change this winter. Eventually, more things will change than I thought at that moment.
For a while now I’m thinking about moving to France. From the moment I had these thoughts I shared them with all my coaches and they advised me to think about what my training situation would look like. An advise I followed carefully.
Finally I made a decision: I will prepare the Games in France. The main reason for this decision is that I will live in Amiens, 5 minutes from the track, unlimited acces to an indoor facility in which all my coaches are welcome.
After I told Joe we concluded it will be easier for him to visit Amiens than Heerhugowaard, so I will see him much more often than last year. I also spoke to Hans and he told me that if I will come to Holland on a regular base, I will keep the level of my throwing events.
With Arno I had a good conversation as well. We decided our athlete-coach-situation will end here. The reason is that I have to learn to high jump of my other leg and it will be too confusing to learn that from two coaches. Because I will spend most of my time in France it will be too hard and too complicated to train with Arno.
Arno will not disappear completely. We worked together for four years and we have become good friends. We went through deep valleys and we celebrated beautiful highlights. That is something I will never forget. Arno will still be my webmaster.
This year my coaches will be Joe, Hans and Jean Paul Bourdon.
Jean Paul is Rudy’s coach and he has a lot of experience with multi-eventers (two decathletes over 8000p and 3 heptathletes over 6000p of who Marie Collonvillé is the best known.) Jean Paul’s specialism is High jump (4 heptathletes over 1.82) and this will be the event I’m going to work on with him.
Last week I visited Dr Vergouwen and he was very happy with my progress. I can start doing a lot more in training. I’m not out of the ‘danger-zone’ yet, but I’m going in the right direction.
Because I decided to move to Amiens, Rudy and I started to look for a house. We wanted to rent something but that was so expensive that we decided it would be better to buy. But buying a house is difficult as well. Untill I found an appartment with 2 bed rooms on the internet. Rudy visited the apartment and was so enthousiastic that we decided to make an offer. The owner accepted the offer, so this weekend I drove to France with my mum to visit the house (before signing). Eventually we decided to buy it and signed.
We will get the key in January which is a long time, but we will go to South-Africa from December 4 till January 11, so January will be a good time to receive the key. The appartment has to be decorated and we need a new kitchen, but no other work needs to be done.
I will keep you updated…”
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