Last week was spent in a maze of anticipation with the two Bruce Springsteen concerts coming up Friday & Saturday in Gothenburg, not the most productive week ever....

Having been to 30 something Springsteen shows in my life it was with huge anticipation that we headed down to Gothenburg on July 4 for the first of two shows. Bruce, 4th of July & Gothenburg should be a surefire bet for an awesome show right?!?

We hooked up with my two cousins Martin & Per nd headed for the stadium infield where we had to 'fight' a bit to get a good spot.  We ended up about 25 - 30 meters from the stage, just in front of the mixer desk.  Good spot if you are tall, Dragana was struggling  bit to see anything but the huge video screens...  

Bruce & the band are always good & better than any other live act by a country mile, but despite the occasion it felt like the first show was "just" a standard show. I was a bit deflated after the first show, long day with a 5 hr drive and then rumbling around in the infield at Ullevi. We slept over 10 hours straight.

A BIG thank you to Dragana's brother Veso who kindly lent us his apartment out on Hisingen while he crashed with his girlfriend for two nights!

For the second show we had seats pretty high up in the stands with exellent visibility & suprisingly good sound. Dragana was much happier tonignt as you can see by the pic's.... 

The second of two shows in the same town is almost always better, and the Saturday, July 5 show was no exception.   Tonight Bruce and the band were awesome!!! Fantastic start with Night which sounded about as tight as it possibly ever has. Hungry Heart as song nr 4, has that ever happened before??? Then Summertime Blues, YES!!! Time to pick up the first requests for the night, and I couldn't agree more with Bruce that having Backstrets played as early as son nr 7 is "most unusual....". BUT it worked and the plce went nuts!!!

All the "Set List Nerds", me included went in to a collective state of extacy when Bruce brought out Drive All Night towards the end of the main set! This song was played very rarely even back on The River Tour in 1980 - 81, and hasn't been played in forever, and what a rendition it was. I had the chills big time!

Rounding off the show with Twist & Shout is always good, even when you have to cut the version a bit short to make sure the show ends before the midnight "curfew"...

All in all a great experience and we were all smiles walking out of the stadium where Dragana's brother picked us up and drove us 'home'. That's service!!!

I have posted some pictures taken during before, during & after the two shows, enjoy!

Here are a few shots of where we will be riding our bikes in just a couple of weeks.... 

Col du Tourmalet is 2115 meters / 7050 feet and has been ridden 74 times in the Tour de France.

Col d Aubisque is a little lower at 1709 meters /   5697 ft but it just gets steeper the higher up you get....

I wanna ride!!!!!!!!!!!!

...no really, it is!

 Well, sort of anyways ;-)   I have finally received the Swedish license plates for my beloved car that I brought with me from Austin, and  this is the random first three letters that I got, AZZ.  How 'bout that?!?  Dragana thinks it describes me as a person, sometimes...  Hmmmm ;-()

Now all I need to start driving legally is the darn road tax sticker.  Should be in the mail any day now.  It better come soon as I plan on driving all the way from Stockholm down to Luscan, France in the heart of the Pyrenees in less tahn two weeks.  With a litte luck I should be down there on Wednesday, July 16 right when Stage 11 of the Tour de France rolls through the area. 

This was purely  by coincidence.......

NOT!  It was a bonus though as the original plan was to go down to this area and ride bikes in the Pyrenees for about a week and also race the "Duathlon val d Aran" on July 20.   This is the Frenceh Long Distance Duathlon Championships where you run 12.5k, bike 82k and then finish things off with a 10k run.  Hardly an inch of the course is flat so it should be a fun challenge!  The TT bike will definitely NOT make this trip and I will make sure to have a 12 - 27 casette  on my rear wheel when doing this race!

We will be staying at a little Bed & Breakfast that I found on this site http://www.pyreneesmultisport.com/about.htm   where a room is just 45 Euros (~ 70 dollars)  per night and that includes breakfast! The even have a bike shop on site should you need to have some tweaking done. Mmmmm!

(Especially for U GREGG...)  Check out this link http://www.steephill.tv/galleries/2005/high-pyrenees  which is a combined photo & video diary of a Cycling Trip to the Pyrenees that a british guy did in 2005.  Wow...   And this is what we are going to be doing in about two weeks. Can't wait!!!

Should easily be some of the best training I have ever done so I should be in excellent shape for the upcoming Long Distance Duathlon World Championships in Geel Belgium on August 10 and especially for the  "Big Daddy" of all Duathlons, the PowerMan World Championships in Zofingen, Switzerland on September  7 which is 10k run, 150k bike & 30k run, all HILLY...

This week in training: 

Monday:  1h 13 min bike (25 min warmup & 48 min race (as you could read about last wek, an unmitigated disaster...), 35 min easy run in the evening for a 1h 48 min tot.

Tuesday:  2 hr easy ride out towards Gustafsberg etc.  ~  16.5 mph avg

Wednesday: Forced rest day due to work.  EMC Partner Pub at Strandbryggan.  Very niiicceeeee, so I didn't mind a day off!

Thursday:  Run 50 min tot. 15 min warmup then 5 x 1 km intervals on treadmill (3 min 22 sec/km ~  5min 25sec / mile average). Plus cool down.  Felt like crap before the workout & almost canned it.  I am glad I went and did the work.  Felt great afterwards!

Friday: 1hr 30 min bike avg ~ 17.5 mph.  2 x 45 min commute to work in mild... & sunny weather.

Saturday:  1 hr 3 min run, ca 13 km / 8 miles, avg 5 min / km ~ 7:50 min/mile. Ran first 35 min with Dragana so this was very easy, then i sped up a little during the second half.

Sunday:  4 hrs 28 min tot.  3hrs 50 min bike (avg 19 mph) & 38 min run.   Rode first 35 min with Dragana at a moderate pace down to Gustafsberg, the took off towards Ingaro.  Averaged ~ 20.5 mph but didn't push & felt very good.  Run off bike was AWESOME, started out easy then picked up the pace and for a while cruised at 4.00 min/km /  6:40 min/mile pace and it felt easy!   Nice cool down & felt fantastic after the workout!!!

Best of all I bumped in to another rider, also named Peter...., who's an avid racer who's just moved to town from up north.  We exchanged cell nr's at the end of the ride so hopefully we'll roll a couple of hours on Wednesday, July 2.

Total for the week:  11hrs 39 minutes.  

Monday, June 30:   2 hrs 3 min moderate ride down to Gustafsberg then to the  Norra Lagno ferry stop (very pretty place, just gotta bring the camera so i can show y'all...).  Broke down and bought a big bag of candy after the ride which I promptly finished while watching Wimbledon with Dragana.  Weak character.....

Tuesday, July 1:   47 min run / ~ 10 Km.  10 min warmup then 12 x 400 meter intervals on treadmill, 1 min jog in between.  Started out at ~  80 sec pace for the first two, then down to 76 sec's for intervals 3 - 7, then 75 for int's 8-10 and finally cranked the treadmill up top max, and ~ 72 sec pace for the last 2.  7 min cool down.  Felt very strong and could easily have done another 5 reps but as this was a lunch work out I had to cut it short...

Later!   

Today's race at the Swedish Time Trial Championships in Falun is one of those that will just be filed away in the "forget & move on" category!

 Felt pretty good heading out to the start this morning & the overnight rain had stopped so I was cautiously optimistic.

Three minutes before my allocated start time DISASTER strikes, I get a flat tire rolling towards the start box....  I can not believe it...

Panic sets in but I have enought prescence of mind to head towards where other the riders are warming up, and luckily I find a chirpy fella who loans me a spare front wheel.

Just turns our the wheel isn't 100 % and neither am I...  Felt like I put in a good effort but with all the troubles I eneded up 33 or so of 53 riders...  Not where I should be.  Looking at the results of riders I have beaten before or at least been very close to, I should have been top 10 - 15 on a normal day.

There's always a next time so no use being sour....!

Total:

1h 13 min bike (25 min warmup & 48 min race)

35 min easy run in the evening

1h 48 min tot 

...NOT... 

But I was pretty dejected when Sweden lost to Russia on Wednesday in a game where it seemed like more than half of our highly paid pros just did not care to fight....  A sad sight indeed. Time to get some fresh blood on the pitch!!! 

It helped a little bit that the Russians whipped the Netherlands 3 - 1 yesterday and in the process made them look bad...  Go Russia!!!  Never thought I'd ever say that, but I really dig the way the Russians play so I hope they with the whole Euro 2008 tournament.

Other than that a very busy week both for Dragana and me with long hours at work & hence little time for training...

To make up for my lack of training this week I have added some links to the blog under "Mina Länkar" = "My Links" in Swedish of some people who train a LOT and provide me with a healthy dose of inspiration!

This week in training:

Monday:  Easy 1hr 5 min ride, avg ca 16 mph, just focused on rythm.

Tuesday: 50 min Speedwork on treadmill. 15 min warmup, 11 min @ 3min 30sec/km ( 5.38 min / mile)  3 min jog, 1 km @  3min 30sec/km ( 5.38 min / mile), 2 min jog then 1 km at 3:15 min/km (5:14 min/mile).  cooldown... Had intended to do a 5k in 17:30 min butthe body said NFW today...

Wednesday: forced rest day due to work.

Thursday:  1 hr 5 min run, Fartlek tot ca 13 km / 8 miles.  focused on 3 - 7 min intervals with 165 - 170 bpm pulse then ~ 2 - 4 min recovery, essentially waiting for pulse to dip below 140 bpm.

Friday:  rest. Midsummers eve, no time to train as we had guests coming...

Saturday:  2 hr easy ride with Dragana down to Saltsjöbaden & Älgö.  Got drenched by a shower last 10 minutes...

Sunday:  Rest.  Prepping for Swedish National Time Trial Championships tomorrow.  30km (18.7 miles) out  & bacxk course where the first half is uphill.  We will climb ~ 850  feet in 10 km.  Then we will have a kick ass descent after the turn around on some pretty bumpy roads...!!!  I just hope  it doesn't rain....

Total for the week:  5 hrs....   Back at it BIG next week!

Adding a few pics from the local scenery up here in Falun (3 hrs north of Stockholm) that I won't have time to see tomorrow....  Later!

... when I ride....

Picture is from last years 4th of July weekend in Marfa, Tx. The pictures are from the Scenic Loop around Ft Davis just past the McDonald Observatory.

Dragana climbing up to the Observatory at 7,000 ft. Puhhhhh..... ;-) 

For the weather that is, back to typical Swedish "Summer"... After more than two weeks of great weather with tons of sun & temps in the 80's, we're back to the typical rollercoaster weather.

Several days last week with rain, wind & temps in the low 60's. At least it got a bit better Sunday when the sun popped out & we enjoyed some 70's...

About the only good thing with the somewhat crappy weather was that it was perfect for working. And work we did, Dragana had three days when she came home after 8 pm... Too much damn work is not good...!

The Euro 2008 Soccer Tournament has finally started, two games per night on Prime Time TV. So far so good, Sweden kicked the reigning European Champions' Greeces butts with a dominating 2-0 win in the first game.

The second match against Spain looked really good for about 89.5 minutes when the score was tied at 1-1, that is when the one super slow defenders we have missed getting rid of the ball for a corner kick and Spain scored the winning 2 - 1 goal.... :-(

Next up Russia now on Wednesday, this is a MUST win!!! Actually a tie might cut it, but a win always feels better!!!

SUPPORT the Swedes, skip out of work early & drag your butt down to Fado's. Game starts at 1:35 pm!

This week in training:

- Monday: planned rest day

- Tuesday: 1 hr ~ 8 miles . Intervals on treadmill. 15 min warmup, 5 x 1 km w 2 min jog (4 x 3:25 min/km (5:30 min/mile) & 1 x 3:16 min / km (5:15 min/mile) 5 min easy jog then 5 x 1 min @ 3:00 min/km with 1 min jog (4:50 min/mile) .

Felt a bit heavy & bloated to start the workout but itgot better as thinngs went along. Original plan was 6 x 1 km (2min).

Wednesday: 2 hr easy ride with Dragana to Gustafsberg / Lagno & back.. Avg ~ 16 mph

Thursday: 1hr 50min moderate to hard ride. Avg. 18.5 mph. Can you do "Fartlek" on a bike???? Had planned to do intervals on the TT bike but felt tired. Opted to take the roadbike for a spin as I finally have the Black & Yellow Specialized bike up & running! Put in some hard sections & sprints when i felt like it but no real structure. Felt OK after the ride.

Friday: 1hr 35 min ride. Avg. 15.5 mph. Bike commuted to work on a lovely sunny friday morning. 2 x 47.5 min.

Saturday: 2hr 5min trail run. Avg ~ 7:40 min mile. Ran first 3.5 miles with Dragana at a nice & slow 8:10 min/mile pace. Then picked it up a bit but as the trails or sometimes total lack thereof were very hilly and twisty it was hard to run very fast. Felt pretty ok.

Sunday: 3hr 35min ride. Avg 18.3 mph. Rode first 50 min down to Gustafsberg with Dragana at ~ 16 mph. She's tugging along better on the bike than on the run. Just gotta fix her gears as her bike makes awul noises when shifting going up hill.

Once out on Ingaro I picked things up a bit but stayed nice & controlled. Overall a very good ride! Opted not to do a 'run off bike today'

Total for the week:  12hr 5min.    

Monday June 16: 1hr 5min bike ride. Nice easy & controlled short but hilly ride.

.... hot weather (by Swedish standards) all week & Saturday Sweden was the warmest country in Europe !!!!?!!! believe it or not with a sizzling 87 F for a high!!!

Due to the nice weather we've spent most of our spare time outside & hence we've been slacking a bit trying to make our place am bit homier...

Since the forecast for later this coming week calls for rain it looks like we will have time to make up for the slacking......

Busy work weeks again for both of us, Dragana had many late evenings & Peter had to get up at 4:30 am on Tuesday to catch the 6 am train to Gothenburg for a business meeting. Puuhhhhhh......

Thankfully we had a short work week as Friday was the Swedish National Day, our equivalent of 4th of July. Dragana and I celebrated by going for a bike ride & then took a "Fika" break in Hammarby Sjostad where we watched a Bicycle Crit Race. Gregg, you really should come over and do this next year!

Saturday, one of Dragana's brothers Dalo, his wife Matilda and their daughter Esther plus mathilda's sister came to visit us. Another picknic on the pier! This never fails to impress. Just like our Austin style Soft Tacos. Everyone looves these....

The week in training:

Monday: Planned rest day. Needed it too!

Tuesday: Forced rest day.... Got up 4:30 for a business trip & didn't get back home until 7:30 pm. Only working out today was walking from the couch to the fridge for Mineral Water. Dragana ran a 5 k fun run with her job & 17,000 others.

Wednesday: Moderate 1hr 56min ride in great weather down to Gustafsberg / Norra Lagno & back. 35 miles ~ 18.5 mph avg speed.

Thursday: 55 min / 20 miles / avg ~ 21.5 mph. Various bike intevals out on Ingaro in full race trim with Zipp Disc wheels etc. Only missing aero helmet.... All this pimping out was to prep a little for the 14 mile TT on Saturday on the same course I rode tonight.

Friday: 2hrs 5 min easy ride with Dragana out to Gustafsberg / Norra Lagno. Avg ca. 17 mph / 35 miles.

Saturday: tot 55 min / ~ 21 miles. 14 miles / 22 km Time Trial race in 30min 50sec averaged 27 mph // ~ 43.4 km/h . 9th of 43 starting in my age group. Even though I really didn't know what to expect I had quietly hoped for a top 5.

BUT racing pure cyclists is different from whipping Tri- & Duathletes where I am usually one of the top dogs on the bike. Came away a bit humbled, but also somewhat encouraged as I was just 5 sec away from 7th, 25 from 5th and about 45 sec from a top 3. Next time I will warm up better and make sure to get really mad before the start. Arrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!! ;-)

Next cycling TT is the Swedish National Championships on June 23. This time 19 miles so it should suit me a little better....

Sunday: LONG workout today! 5hrs 3min in total. 3hrs 56min cycling & 1hr 7min running. Again great weather !!!!!

75.2 miles (121 km) on the bike avg 19.4 mph (31.2 km/h) felt surprisingly easy given the average speed as I just focused on staying comfortable & well within my limits. Ran first 20 min with Dragana at ~ 8 min/mile pace, then picked it up to ~ 7:20 min/mile but with 20 min to go I was starting to feel the long workout. Didn't BONK, as I just eased off substantially as I was getting tired but.... still ~ 160 pulse doing 7:30 min / mile pace is a clear indicator to chill a bit...

Total for the week: 10hrs 54 min