Still Truckin

It's been a while since I've posted anything so here it goes...We're all doing well, settling in to the transition from Summer to Fall...leaves are changing, the air is a bit more crisp, and the days are shorter. I'm going to miss the summer...Sure would like to hear from more of you! I'm half tempted to stop this blog and start dumping directly to your email boxes!

Dedi is doing well with her new job in Geneva. She is also wrapping up her work on her Masters of Science Degree. Hopefully she will have her thesis done by the end of this month. Brenna and Aubrey are doing well in school. Brenna just took her PSAT tests...time does seem to be flying by!

Had a Dr. check up and was immediately sent to a cardiologist as they thought it was abnormal for my heart rate to run between 40 and 50 beats/sec...I tried to explain that this was the result of biking too much but was told, better safe than sorry...So I went to the cardio guy and he gave me a clean bill of health...Actually he said I was at 150% of my maximum capacity, whatever that means...

So I went back to my doctor for the follow-up....."Ok your heart is good but you weigh too much!" She then showed me the 1950 vintage chart and told to drop 8Kg ...(about 18 pounds). This would put me about 10 pounds below my highschool weight! We negotiated down to 4 Kg. which is probably fair and good motivation to step up my fitness level...Also my cholesterol has climbed up a bit since switching to the swiss diet of cheese, bread, wine and of course chocolate....(4 food groups no?)

So in the last week I've biked pretty hard...Climbed Mont Tendre in 1 hour 1 minute. I did the math and this translates to about 270Watts of sustained power assuming my bike has 100% efficiency...not bad..especially since this was after a 30km ride to get to the start.

Then on Thursday I rode to Montreux and back...about 78km...averaged 30.2Km/hour solo including stops, traffic etc...Today I rode to Nyon (about 40km) but went easy out and hard back.

Nyon is a beautiful city..we'll have to swing by there soon! Found an interesting Indian restaurant and an American grocery store! They even had peanut butter jars larger than 4 ounces! Prices though were through the roof

Other news...Brenna is running in a quarter Marathon tomorrow with our friend Cheryl. Brenna has been training hard and consistently! I hope she has fun and meets her goal of 1 hour and 10 minutes. Cheryl had the foresight to invite her marathon friends from Canada and two have arrived for the race...So if any of you runners are reading this...think about coming out for next year's Lausanne marathon!

Aubrey's into the skateboarding world and skates as often as she can (sometimes too much and unfortunately getting her grounded!). She's hooked up with some good kids at her school and they often meet at a local park in Lausanne. She also just celebrated her 14th birthday! We had a nice time but her birthday fell right on the October holiday so most of her friends were out on vacation.

So that's it for now....send me a note sometime!

Cheers, Dave