Thank you. That makes a lot of sense, as I now remember I had a garden tractor doing the same thing and after a valve adjustment, it ran like new. It would be strange though in my case, since I only have 11 hours and about 24 miles on the machine. But seeing how these units were produced with a lot of malfunctions, it's no wonder this would happen early on. I will have to check the valve lash and thank you for the update.
I found the procedure here, so if anyone else needs instructions, they can follow this link: