The unseasonably sunny & mild fall weather continues here in the Stockholm area!  Good thing to have something positive to think about in the midst of the "Gloabl Financial Meltdown..." & rising mortgage interest rates!

This week on of the Swedish Morning TV shows on TV4 took the unusual approach of cold calling / prank calling CEO's, Presidents and other big wigs at the major banks and mortgage institutes asking them to Please Lower the interest rates now, people are hurting...!!!  Some lauged this off and a few hinted that we may see a slight drop in the not too distant future...  We would NOT argue against this!

Other than this, the week went by in a blur of looong and intense work days. Hence the week was mainly eat, sleep, work, train (a little..) rinse & repeat :-)

Training in the week of Oct. 13 - Oct. 19:

Monday, Oct 13: planned rest day

Tuesday, Oct 14: 1hr 15min bike intervals on the trainer.  15 min warmup, 5 x 5 min (2 min easy) at just under lactic threshold, 3 X 2 min (1min) at 53/11 and ~ 55 rpm cadence, 10 min cool down.

Wednesday, Oct 15: 1hr 5min trainer ride at moderate pace. Ca 17.5 mph which roughly equates 19.5 mph on the road.

Thursday, Oct. 16: ca 1hr 15min bike intervals on the trainer.  15 min warmup then 6 x 5 min (2 min) @ 53/13 and ~ 60 rpm cadence, 4 x 2 min (1 min) @ 53/11 ~ 55 rpm, 10 min cool down.

 Friday, Oct 17: 1hr 10 min tot, 10 min warmup on rowing machine, 50 min weight training. Focus on upper body (or rather lack thereof ;-)  ) using lots of reps & fairly low weights. Finished with 10 min on the Cross Country Ski Machine...

Saturday, Oct 18:  2hr 5min very easy bike ride with Dragana. Avg ca 14.7 mph.  Very nice & sunny day which made for a lovely ride out to Norra Lagno where we turned around at the ferry stop. See pic's above!

Sunday, Oct 19:  2hr 31min run  ca 47:30 min 10k pace. Felt strong but veeery difficult to get any kind of pace going where I ran...

Did a Muddy Buddy Dirt Derby in Hellasgarden!  Ran, slid, splashed and climbed my way around the 10k trail which is partly in miserable condition for running, also did a lap on the 5k trail which is much nicer to run right now!   I looked like I had swam in a mud puddle when I got home. Dragana was wondering where the f**k I had been :-)

Total for the week:  9hrs 21min  (of which  8hrs 31min cardio)

... Is what I got when I stayed up all night last night to watch the webcast from the Hawaii Ironman World Championships!

Even though I am a Duathlete and NOT a triathlete, this is an absolutely electrifying event! Dragana and I were glued to the big screen already from the start. Half the screen on the live video feed and the other half for the comprehensive text updates & standings.

Dragana cruised off to bed around 1 am local time but I, the nerd, stayed up until 3:45 am to watch when the first men crossed the finishline.

We were cheering hard for the Austin Pros in the race, but unfortunately none of them featured high enough in the standings to get any TV time.  We'll have to claim Michael Lovato as an Austinite as he has lived there before & I met him at Jack & Adams.  Super nice dude and he got 9th yesterday, GREAT JOB! 

This week I have slowly been getting back to training. Very low intensity & even less volume, BUT that's intentional. I will continue to go relatively easy and also do some 'cross training' in the next few weeks before getting back to more serious & structured training before the first A race of 2009.  More on what race that is in a few days...

Training in the week of Sept. 29 - Oct. 5:

Sunday, Oct. 5:  2hrs 30min run, ca 33 km (20.6 miles).  Started at North Beach in San Francisco, ran towards the Golden Gate, over the Golden Gate, in & through Sausalito before I turned around and ran more or less the same way back.  Felt OK, pace veeery comfortable but a little stiff in the end.

Training in the week of Oct. 6  -  Oct 12:

Wednesday, Oct. 8: 63 min morning run, ca 12,5 km (7.5 miles).  Ran down Gear St & Market St. down to the Embarcadero and all the way down to the Presidio and back. Again very comfortable pace.

Friday, Oct. 10:  20 min run (13 min warmup & 7 min cooldown), 60 min weight (!!!..........) training in between. Went thru prety much the whole body!

Saturday, Oct. 11:  1hr 40 min bike ride back at home in Nacka to Gustavsberg & back.  Ca 18 mph avg speed.  Nice fall day & only had a long sleeve jersey, NO JACKET!!!  Not bad for Sweden in October...

Sunday, Oct 12:  1 hr 53 min run, ca. 24 km.  Ran first 12 min with Dragana at ca 56 min 10K pace, before she ran off & did her thing. Gradually picked things up throughout the run and ran ca 41:30 min / 10 K pace in the end.  Most of the run on trails & fairly hilly. Another very nice fall day!

Total for the week:  4 hrs 56 minutes

...aaahhhhhhh....

When I finally had some free time after work this evening, I was a man on a mission.  A mission from god to find a Chipotle restaurant & indulge in a HEALTHY (!) Veggie Burrito.

Yes, this sounds weird if you live in the US, but for us who now live in the Burrito starved nation of Sweden, Chipotle is a gift from god!

Mmmmmm it was goooood & also healthy as Chipotle only uses fresh ingredients!!!  

Right after I had finished the monster burrito from hell, I hopped in my rental car and drove down to North Beach and then went off on a 2 1/2 hour run.  Headed west towards Golden Gate Park, up & over the Golden Gate and on to Sausalito, and back the same way. All in all ca 21 miles / 33.5 km.

Stopped briefly in Sausalito for a fresh bottle of water and also took some pictures of a bunch of awsome classic cars that were on display in a little park next to the marina.  All of them are owned by Vijay Mallya, the owner of Kingfisher Beer, Kingfisher Airlines & the Force India F1 team!

Even after this awsome run, one of the most beautiful & spectacular ones ever, I still had no apetite. The burrito from hell was still talking to me.  Ended the day with a dinner consisting of 2 small bananas...... 

After a full week of feasting on all kinds of unhealthy stuff that I normally never eat such as burgers & fries, kebabs, pizzas, bad burritos, more pizza and a total of 5 pounds of candy, I finally put a stop to it on Sunday.

As I am currently in the US / San Francisco on a business trip,  eating unhealthy if you really want to...

Having a 2 pund breakfast burrito sounded like a really good idea. That is until the thing you see in the picture was delivered to me. Blääääähhhhh... 

Easily the worst burrito I have ever had.  Lesson learned: NEVER, EVER order aburrito in a 50's style diner / breakfast joint!   Stick to the omelette...

While forcing this strange thing down my thoughts went to Morgan Spurlock and how he must have felt at the end of "Super Size Me"...

I was feeling really gross and lethargic after just one week, he did ONLY McDonalds for 30 days straight....

...from training that is...

After abandoning Lidingoloppet after 7.5 km this past Saturday I decided to take at least a whole week off fom any form of training.

This week the focus will be on "indulging in the forbidden....  Foods & drink.

So far I have had at least one small bag of candy each day.  Pizza & red wine for lunch yesterday, greasy thai food & coke for lunch today.

5 more rest & indulge days to go.  Hoping to down a huge Kebab tomorrow and then hopefully a tasty Burrito for dinner. Yummie..... :-) 

Sometimes you have days when you just "don't have it", yesterday was definitely one of those days...

Ever since racing PowerMan Zofingen three weeks ago I have been fighting a 'semi cold', ie. I've had cold symptoms but it hasn't developed into a fully fledged cold...  It's been kinda 2 - 3 days when I've felt like crap and hence done no training, just focused on getting lots of sleep, chugging down huge amounts of Vitamin C and plenty of fluids. The back to light training to keep the body 'loose' for Lidingoloppet, only for the 'crappy' feeling to recur...

Going in to the race yesterday, Lidingoloppet 30 K XC, I'd been feeling pretty OK since Tuesday so I at least had hopes of having a decent race. 

My legs felt really light & loose when I started my warmup which is always good, but even when just jogging at a very relaxed pace my heart rate shot up to 150 BPM which is about 20 beats too high.  Could it just be the heart rate monitor that was going nuts?!???

Unfortunately it wasn't...  Just 2 K into the race I felt really winded and had a heart rate of 188 BPM even though I was just running at a 38 min 10 K pace. This was still ca 20 BPM higher than normal...

I kept plugging hoping that I would settle into a normal pulse rate and feel better. Sadly it was not to be...  I came through the 5k mark at ~ 19min 15sec which was still well on pace for  a sub 2 hr finish.  BUT I just felt worse & worse and by now I was starting to get light headed and dizzy....   Arrrggghhhhhhhhh.... Sooo  frustrating.

Time to face the facts. I still have some kind of "bug in the system" and there's no point in trying to push the limit when you're not feeling well. Hence I decided to call it a day when we came through the 8 km mark where we passed an area with spectators where Dragana was standing.  Just as she screamed "c'mon Peter!!!!" I stopped.  Sorry babe.....

I immediately started to excuse myself for dragging her along to the race when I didn't finish, but with a few minutes of perspective and still with a sky high heart rate it was evident that a DNF today was the right call.

So that's that.  The end of the racing season.  Time for some recovery.

I just realized yesterday that I have not had more than 5 consecutive days off from training since February 2007 so now I will grant myself a full week with no training!  The focus in the coming week will be relaxing with Dragana, eating what I want whenever I want, focus on unhealthy food like Pizza & Kebab's etc...  Then there's Red Wine, there will be lots of that too!!!

Once the "sloppy relax week" is over time to refocus and start building for next year, ease back into training in preparation for the first goal of 2009. More on that goal soon....

made slightly better by a great rider position!!!

2008 Mens TT World Champ Bert Grabsch from Germany on his Team Columbia, Giant TT bike.  Arguably the ugliest looking bike in the business, but wow what a position, his back is totally flat. 

Wish I sat like this on my TT bike....

Next year maybe?!?  ;-)