Barack Obama the first President with "Rock Star" status!   I remember all too well the huge turnout for his first campaign rally in Austin in late 2006. That was amazing, but still nothing compared with last night...

Let's just hope he can now step up to the huge expectations he's created!

George, time start warming up the tractor....

This past week I took the plunge and become a Mountain Biker (!....).  Never thought that would happen, BUT if you want to do any kind of riding other than indoors on a Trainer this is the only option when you live in Stockholm, Sweden and not in sunny Austin, Tx...

Over the past few weeks I have been sucking up advice on Mountain Bikes from my colleague & friend Johan who's been "one of them..." for several years.  After last week's visit to Cykloteket (the Stockholm equivalent of Austin's Bicycle Sport Shop, just a bit smaller.) he had me convinced, and Wednesday this past week I came back to pick up my first MTB. 

After looking at a ton of bikes on the web and in stores I finally settled on a 2008 Commencal Meta 4.2 full suspension ride.  In my opinion this is one of the coolest looking MTBs on the market. Add to this the fact that it is a small botique brand out of Andorra (!), and that the only difference between the 2008 and 2009 model is the paint scheme, the decision was easy.  Saving roughly $ 400 by buying last years model didn't hurt either!

Week of October 27 to November 2:

Monday, Oct. 27 & Tuesday, Oct 28: still sick...

Wednesday, Oct 29:  1 hr 15 min Trainer Ride @ moderate pace ca 19 mph with heavy gears.  Felt pretty OK...

Thursday, Oct 30:  1 hr Trainer Ride @ easy pace & medium gears ca 17.5 mph avg.

Friday, Oct 31:  1 hr 40 min strength training.  12 min warmup on stationary bike & 1 hr 28 min weights going through whole body. Focus on moderate weights & lots of reps.

Saturday, Nov. 1: 2 hrs 40 min MTB ride...  Some trails but mainly dirt roads & bike paths to get familiar with the new ride ;-)....  ca 35 miles. 35 F, Sunny & not a cloud in sight!

Sunday, Nov. 2: 2 hrs 5 min MTB ride in Hellas Garden with Johan A.  Another beautiful day & ca 35 F.  Pretty much all on very tiny, hilly, rocky & generally wet, slippery & difficult trails... Knowing that Johan is a hard core MTB fan I guess this was to be expected, but I never thought it would be this hard!  I was definitely taken to school today & got a lesson in staying upright on 2 wheels!  Johan is no cardio stud by any measure (sorry bud...), but the Dude can handle an MTB!   I on the other hand wiped out 8 - 10 times on today's ride...  Nothing serious, but I did go for a brief swim in a huge mud puddle right in the middle of the forest, where I managed to submerge everything but my head ;-).

Thankfully you stay warm when you ride..... 

Total for the week:  8hrs 40min (7hrs 12min cardio)

It was very encouraging to read that Canada’s Tom Evans, the dude is 40 YEARS OLD...  won Ironman Florida outright yesterday!!!

He took control of the men’s race midway through the bike and ran away with the title – his second at this event, to set a course record of 8:07:59, whipping Daninish Uber-biker, Torbjorn Sindballe by 10 min!!! Flat-out out rode the Great Dane.... This race time beat the previous race record by almost fourteen minutes. In addition to this, the dude has already won Ironman Cour d Alene earlier this year!  WOW... Makes me wanna go race something right friggin NOW ;-)

Well maybe not as the Swedish race season is over, but great inspiration for next year.  Onwards & upwards!!!