Stage 8 Garmin Data

Thanks!

I must thank everyone that has helped me with this adventure. Justin Weber for the endless training with me, Pete and Nina Karinen for letting me travel to Stillwater with them, Steve Pribyl and his family for hosting/dropping me off/picking me up from the airport, Oskar's parents for driving us to the race, Oskar for picking me up from the airport (and bringing me back this Thursday...) racing with me/helping me to finish some of the days and being the best teammate I could ask for, The Bike Shop (Caleb, Steve, Rob, Andy, Kate, and Kai) for helping me out, everyone else that has helped me out along the way, Marissa for encouraging and believing in me and last but not least my parents for always being there no matter what. This trip (the good and bad) will always be remembered. It has been a great experience. I can't imagine a better group to share my experience with!

Thanks again.

This weekend I will be racing the Wausau 24. 24 hours "solo" but I will never be able to thank my girlfriend Marissa and my friend Ian enough for being there to crew for me! Hopefully it goes well after my 8 day training camp in the Alps. The best way to repay everyone is by putting up good results and trying my hardest!

Finished!

We made it! It was an interesting night before the race. Of course a concert (it was classical music) had been scheduled right outside of the gymnasium that we were staying at. This concert also didn't begin until 9 pm! Italians are apparently crazy for that sort of thing and the crowd was pretty rambunctious. Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, they started to sing around 10 pm. The concert lasted until 11 pm and I was so relieved when it was over! Thoughts of streaking through the gymnasium to the quad flashed through my mind (noone in the gymnasium would have even noticed since that really wouldn't have been out of the ordinary with how the week had been!) but I didn't summon up the courage and really didn't feel like being in an Italian jail in the morning. Cutting the power would have been a decent fix as well...

It was an interesting night. The race the next day was also interesting. They started us up a climb that narrowed so quickly that we were all hiking up paved roads. Not exactly the best choice for the route but oh well, there was some fun singletrack throughout the day and for the most part we enjoyed the day. There was about 30 km of down/flat after the final climb and we were able to create a pack of about 15 people and share the work to the finish. The sun was even shining when we arrived!

Oskar's parents met up with us in Riva del Garda and we packed up and left to head back home. It was a long day and a half of travel back to Sweden, however, I will not bore you with any details.

Both of us are getting better with rest (the colds are going away) and we are happy that we took on the 2011 Bike Craft TransAlp but neither one of us has plans to do it again...ever.

Thank you for reading the blog. I will try to continue to post some more pictures as I have time and a competent internet connection.

Stage 7 Garmin Data

TIRED!

Well today was the opposite of yesterday. I was the tired one and Oskar had to drag me around. It was not a bad stage though. Some beautiful scenery. We are now 72nd in the men's category (there is a men's, master's, and senior master's...). We hope that tomorrow goes well, it's only a measly 2100 m of climbing and 75 km after all. It will be tough! At this point tomorrow we will be finished though. I can't wait for "vacation" to be over so that I can catch up on some much needed rest!

I will do my best to post pics tomorrow.

Almost there!

Only 2 stages left! We did well today, the course had lots of climbing but it was fun. There were many little climbs and an awesome singletrack down the last hill to finish off the day. There was lots of beautiful scenery along the way!