Meet Sione Jongstra - Professional Dutch Triathlete

Hello everyone,
It has been a while since I have written, but something really neat happened yesterday that I just had to mention, because I know you will get a kick out of it. Especially our fellow Triathlete Friends :0)
My grandfather from Holland called me yesterday and read this article to me about a young woman, Sione Jongstra. She was born near where I am from in Holland, and it said she was going to be participating in the Arizona Ironman April 13th. Wow, that is so cool I thought. My grandfather knew that Jose was initially going to do this race and of course he is all ears when he hears IRONMAN, since he has been familiar with it since Jose has been doing the triathlons. He rides his bike all the time with the California 70.3 cap we gave him after Jose finished Ironman 70.3 in Oceanside last year (his first Triathlon). Well, I ended up "googling" her name yesterday and it turns out that she is Professional Triathlete from Holland. She won 3rd place in Ironman Lanzarote in 2007 and competed in The Ironman World Championships in Hawaii (KONA BABY) last year. She placed 17th and her time was 9:55....All we had to say was WOW!! That is amazing!! Such a HUGE accomplishment of course. Well, I left her a comment in her guest book and to my surprise she e-mailed me back yesterday. That was so nice. She said she viewed our blogsite and read about my cousin Ronald. It turns out that she knew my cousin, Ronald, whom you all know passed away last year in June from a Biking accident in France. What a small world isn't it? I thought that was such a coincidence. Well, she wrote that she might be able to give Jose some tips on Arizona after she has completed it. And she is rooting for him for Boston. She is trying to qualify for KONA again and I hope she makes it. We'll be checking it out on Ironmanlive on April 13th. Wishing her good luck and all the best.
Anyway, thought you would enjoy this story and I'll post how she did after the race. On the other hand, Jose is training very hard for his marathon in Boston this month and I think he will do very well. We're looking forward to our trip there and I can't wait to see him cross that finish line :0) We've been studying the course map and those hills on mile 21 - 24 seem really tough. Ouch!! But, he's been training heavily on hills, so I think he will be okay.
Take care everyone and I'll post again real soon!! - Happy Training!!