Oakley partner of Frozen Dreams

OAKLEY in SUP 11-City Tour

By Jan Fokke Oosterhof

From September 1st till September 5th 2009 I participated in the SUP 11 City Tour in Holland, together with 17 invited athletes and a number of Dutch celebrities.

What is Stand Up Paddle?

Stand Up Paddle (SUP) is a water sport in which you move forward standing on a big surf board, while paddling on both sides of the board. It is an accessible sport and very healthy for the young and old where all muscles in the human body are utilized. But above all, it's a sport where nature and fun are the main things. SUP originated in the 1960's in the United States and Hawaii and has enjoyed a great deal of hype after it was revived four years ago.

The 11 City tour

In Friesland - the northern part of Holland - the 11-City Tour is a phenomenon you can't escape from. The tradition started a hundred years ago. A race between the 11 cities, where the track is formed only in the severest of winters when the canals freeze over and was challenged by a handful of tough skaters... In one day!

It is a true challenge to cover 220 kilometers on a SUP-board in five days. The tour demands both an enormous physical and mental effort and therefore represents a formidable challenge.

Dutch-Hawaiian professional windsurfer Anne-Marie Reichman organized the SUP 11-City Tour in 2009 for the First time. She proved the monster marathon could be done by SUP. In 2009 it was a race where athletes participated by invitation only. In 2010 the event is open to other participants.

Route:

1 September Leeuwarden-Sloten 45 km

2 September Sloten-Workum 46 km

3 September Workum-Franeker 45 km

4 September Franeker-Dokkum 54 km

5 September Dokkum-Leeuwarden 30 km

The weather in Holland can be anything in five days (it can change fast, and it can stay the same - even though that is hardly ever the case). To protect my eyes from the sun I requested Oakley to support me with a pair of excellent sunglasses, in this case the Oakley Jawbone Retina.

I like extreme physical challenges like running or a polar expedition, but for me the Tour was even more of a challenge since I hadn't ever even touched a SUP-board before. My board was delivered only minutes before the start of the race. The first minutes were wobbly but I managed to stay dry. The first two days I had some real problems in facing the strong headwinds. I had to make use of the support boat sometimes. The last three days I felt stronger and managed finish the days unsupported. It was a fantastic adventure being on the open water and enjoying the elements. I will only be back next year if someone donates me a SUP-board and I will do the Tour non stop;-)

I thank Oakley for the support with their high quality products.

For more information: http://www.supfryslan.nl/pdf/SUP-11-City-Tour.pdf

The website of the event: http://www.supfryslan.nl

An overview of the competitors: http://www.supfryslan.nl/?page=athletes

More information: http://www.frozendreams.nl/

Dream Catchers use Oakley goggles

Jan Fokke Oosterhof (1975) and Paul Kamphuis (1956) started their dream-quest on the 6th of April 2006 with a handshake. They have shared a dream for a long time: a unique expedition to the Geographical South Pole on Antarctica, the coldest en windiest continent on earth. Two entrepreneurs, one dream, one mission.

They have set up a website, (www.frozendreams.nl), where anyone can share their own dreams and they have pledged to take many of those ambitions with them to read out at the South Pole. Their adventures and messages will be caught on camera. The project aims to involve children and students in the concept.

The first challenge in a series of training expeditions was to climb and film the Mont Blanc expedition. The two explorers realized that filming their endeavors was critical to the idea reaching a wider audience. The key issue was to share the realization of their dream.

The next step was Paul running the Spartathlon - 246k of non-stop running from Athens to Sparta - with Jan Fokke as a coach. Next they started of to cross the Greenland Icecap. Jan Fokke and Paul set of to Greenland with a plan to spend just under a month on the icecap and with a target of covering 600 kilometers on skis, pulling their sledges by own physical means. But within days after their landing on the Greenland icecap, they were in the middle of a Pitoraq, a Polar storm. For four days, high winds kept them in one place, tent-bound and having to dig themselves out of the ice and snow every one and a half hours. Followed by three days of white out, which meant that they had no visibility whatsoever and were still stuck. They returned home safely and unharmed which was the first and most important goal of their endeavor.

The next step was an attempt to cross Iceland, the Frozen Dreams Iceland Crossing, during which they used Oakley goggles. They send Oakley a request to use the goggles because of the mirroring qualities. The goggles were used to shoot mirror-images: i.e. footage of two expedition members and the surrounding area mirrored in the glasses. The expedition was a real endeavor. They left with only one pulk (sledge) and two very large backpacks. The snow conditions were very hard to assess, that's the reason they didn't take two pulks. When there is not enough snow, you have to carry everything on your back through the lava fields. In the end it was a wise decision. Instead of minus 20 degrees the temperature rose to plus 12 degrees centigrade. ‘After five days the entire country was melting under our feet!', says Jan Fokke. They had the greatest difficulties even to get back to the civilized world. They struggled through kneedeep ‘slush' which was harsh. The wet snow piled up on the snow rackets, leaving Jan Fokke and Paul wrestling and struggling for every single meter. In the end they reached a small farm, which cannot be said about all expeditions. Some had to be flown out by a chopper. However they've returned with spectacular images and are very content about their goggles. ‘They are very comfortable in snowy and icy conditions', says Jan Fokke. ‘We have had very negative experiences with other goggles during our Greenland expedition. The glasses were covered with ice almost immediately and we had to fall back to our sun glasses. A disaster when you are surviving in extreme conditions for almost a month'.

Paul and Jan Fokke met each other whilst preparing for the Swiss Alpine Marathon, an ultra run over 78,5 kilometers through the Swiss Alps and wrote a small booklet about their running adventures entitled: Your belly button as a compass. The book was a big hit, so Jan Fokke and Paul started their publishing company Frozen Dreams Media and they published a book about the Spartathlon-adventures. They also feature in a documentary about their Frozen Dreams project, produced by students of the Dutch INHolland Hogeschool.

Since starting their project Jan Fokke and Paul have spoken to audiences ranging from friends, colleagues, sponsors and groups of runners to networking clubs and managers. They are both entrepreneurs as well as business-men.

They also started a Frozen Dreams Foundation, aimed at people all around the world who want to realize their dreams. Frozen Dreams is a platform connecting people that acknowledge that sharing is the key factor in realizing your dreams.

The story is real and they tell it with passion and enthusiasm. Frozen Dreams began in the summer of 2006 and has since become a high-profile event, attracting much attention in the Dutch and international press. Jan Fokke and Paul have featured widely in (inter)national print and broadcast media. They set out to realize their dream and many unbelievable things have happened since then.

The message: defrost your Frozen Dream by dreaming, daring, sharing en doing!

Read more: www.frozendreams.nl