The only appropriate description of what happened today is WOW!!!!!!!....

Still can't believe I am doing this, and who I am riding with.   In our group we have a mix of a few fairly average bikers who get dropped pretty quickly once the pace picks up a bit. Then there are the wannabe's, which is where I fit in, the serious amateur triathletes, and then to round it out , there are 4 Pro's....

Not just any Pro's, in addition to Jonas Colting who is a sub 8:20 Ironman athlete & 2 x UltraMan World Champ we also have Ted As who's won the Swedish Ironman Championship several times ~ 8:34 IM best, and to round out the "awesome list" we have Clas Bjorling who holds the Swedish IronMan record at 8:15:59 and is an insanely talented athlete who is built like a rock... 

It's always fun to train with good people who push you to improve, my training friends in Austin, you all know who you are!  That said this is "everyday training" which is very good, don't get me wrong, BUT when you have a chance to train right next to World Class athletes it's a whole new dimension! 

Even though these guys see some of this training as fairly easy, they're great sports about this tour and really do their best to make everyone feel comfortable and a very chatty.

For the first few hours of todays ride I was having a hard time believing I was really training with these people.  How cool is it to be taking a 5 minute pull in the aerobars with Jonas Colting on your right and Clas Bjorling on your wheel...

Today's ride started out at a fairly easy pace as we rolled out of Boras heading south towards Halmstad.  This was supposed to be 95 to 100 miles, if it hadn't been that the local, Jonas, led us down the wrong road after about an hour which added a few miles and the excitement of riding a TT bike on a dirt road.  How's that for a first?!?

Most of the day was spend on small country roads, mainly rolling hills which added great variety.  About 90 minutes in to the ride we started upping the pace a bit letting the stronger riders take turnas at doing 2 minute pulls at the front.  Early on there were 8 of us rolling around, smoothly cruising mile after mile at ~ 25 mph. After a couple of hours we were down to six guys in the rotation, and up until that  point I hadn't missed a pull.  During the las hour of fairly hard riding we were down to 4 guys, Jonas, Ted, David (amateur who's done a 9:11 IronMan...) and ME.....

Overall I felt very good, never tired but towards the end I was hoping & praying that I didn't spend too much of my energy on the first day and then blow up tomorrow...  We shall see!

All in all today 106 miles (170 km) which were covered in about 5 hrs 20 minutes!

Tomorrow it's Halmstad to Loddekopinge ( ~ Lund) which should be about 130 miles (210 km), except for one looooong climb up & ov er Hallandsasen this should be a relatively flat stage. Then perhaps a 30 minute run after the ride.  Unlike some of the guys I am not doing the 1 hour morning swim, I will be pulling some much needed zzzzzzz's then!

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