The forum has been flooded with posts about either Björns bike or Clas "the Baron" run after their awesome performances in Taupo last week.
It was great to sit up all night and see my three amigos finish 2-3-4 after stellar performances. Since there seem to be a lot of interest generated around Clas and Björn I thought I´d share a brief background on the "swedish doodes" as well as a few aneqdotes that will shed some light on their recent accomplishments. I don´t think they´ll mind since I´ll be leaving out the PG-13 details
Clas is from the heart of Sweden; Dalarna and the town of Mockfjärd with maybe 1000 people. His only sporting background would in his own words be "woodchopping", helping his dad with their forestproperty. He started lifting weights at the age of 16, powerlifting-style... Also, he did the occassional run. It wasn´t until he did his militaryservice that his talent for sports was discovered. He had the very rare combination of being both the best benchpresser (120 kilos or so) AND the fastest 10 k runner of all the soldiers that year. That made his supervisors take notice and they let him train a bit more. Very soon he was tearing up local running-races. He also did the "Swedish Classic" in a year. The 90 k ski-race Vasaloppet, Vätternrundan 300 k bike, Vansbro 3 k swim and Lidingö 30 k crosscountryrun. A year after that he placed second in the Swedish junior cc champs.
He started dabbling a bit with triathlon and did a few local races in 1999 and 2000 but his swim was holding him back. He contiued to rack up 31 min 10k´s on limited training. In 2001 he showed up at the Swedish LD Champs. He swam 20 minutes slower than me and Björn but biked well and finished of the 30 k run in a 1.55 and 3rd place overall. He was chosen to go to ITU LD Champs in Denmark and that was on the IM-distance. There, he surprised everyone by holding on well for a 9.04 finish and a 2.56-run. His biggest concern was riding that far in aerobars and he cracked me up after the race showing of his 5 cm gelcover for the saddle! Clas went on to run quite a bit of races that fall and even had a stab at a regular marathon when he raced the Swedish Wintermarathon in freezing weather and went as fast as 2.29 which gave him the "Rookie of the Year" award by the Swedish Marathon Associaton.
In 2002 I had contacted a guy called Gordo or Grodo (we didn´t know at the time) to come and train in NZ and Clas thought he´d give this triathlonidea a go and went along. That was probably the best decision that Clas ever made since Gordo eversince has had a profound effect on Clas development. Clas impressed everyone with relentless training and Gordo dubbed him "the Baron von Hammer" after a particularly hard and punishing run. In Taupo that year he was 12th and 1st agegroup. In Europe he went on to place very well on Powerman Duathlon circuit usually bouyed by his everpresent speedy run. He finished of the year with a "Autumn Double" with an astonishing 7th place overall in Zofingen and than a 1st in his agegroup in Hawaii.
2003 had him go back to Gordo and after punishing eachother Clas had racked up a 4th place in Taupo and that fall a 5th place in Zofingen with the fastest 30k-run by 5 minutes (1.51)
This year he´s been working harder than ever and even incorporating stuff that I was scoffed at for doing like yoga. That will help his swim over the log haul as he is what we say in Swedish "vig som ett kylskåp" (flexible as a refrigerator). His 2nd place and 2.42 run comes as no surprise to those that see him train, it just shows that everyone else better look over their shoulder in the future! Other characteristics of Clas is that he eats enormous amounts of oatmealporridge out of great big bowls and sports a year round bodyfat of around 4% (when he recorded a 4.02% at the univ. of Cc we had to convince the people at the lab that he indeed was healthy and eating like a horse..) .
Björn has been around quite a bit longer than Clas and he certainly didn´t come out of nowhere. I´ve trained quite a bit with him over the years and I have gotten quite used to clinging to his wheel staring at those monstrous calve-and soleus muscles.
The first time I got a first-hand experience of Björns cyclingprowess was during a Swedish Cup race in 1997, oly distance. The entire Swedish elite was there and I found myself in the lead early in the bike when something big and hairy on a yellow bike (Hotta) comes flying by like I was standing still. Very demoralizing as I thought I was having a good ride. He was later in that race hit by a car and DNFéd. A few weeks after that race we had a gathering with the nationalteam preparing for the upcoming Euro-champs. It was held drafting-style so in order to practice packriding we did this very hilly circuit where we would sprint at certain points for primes. The juniors were in attendance as well so Björn was on this workout. Well, the guy doesn´t know how to sprint but he rarely needs to since he knows how to grind! You could all imagine our surprise as we were sprinting towards the top of a hill and on the left of us Björn is passing us all riding in his aerobars! He beat all of us to the top.... I nicknamed him the "monsterbear" right then which was fitting since he sported a heavymetal hair-do and he refused to shave his legs. Ultimately he did shave but only after Mike Pigg told him to do so.. (incidently Pigg also has a shaved head but Björn didn´t take it that far)
During those years Björn would lead basically all races through the swim and bike in Sweden, even the elite ones allthough he was barely a junior. The juniorraces were no match for him. We would actually all get a kick out of watching him race the juniorchamps that were held draftingstyle. Three years running Björn would get out with the leaders, than make a characteristically slow T1 (none of us never really learnt how to get in those Powerpedals quickly..) and then just outride the packs on the bike by himself and than just cruise it in on the run. One year his Mavic Mectronic gears went haywire so he was forced to ride the entire bike in a fixed 12-gear. Not that it was much different from his normal riding.
His muchdebated running was quite poor initially due to an early injury that forced him to undergo surgery in 1996. In 97-98 he averaged 10 k a week running... In 1999 that had changed as he won his first National title, racing the elite division as a junior and winning by 2 minutes (oly dist.) I remember running in third place and chasing hard and thinking "damn, isn´t Björn supposed to suck on the run?" I just picked 45 seconds back on the run that time..
From 1999 to 2002 he studied to become a teacher and that held his training back quite a bit. Also, the Swedish Tri-fed didn´t help much either by their one-eyed focus on draftlegal ITU-style racing so they didn´t do much to nourish his obvious talent. In 2001 he had his first serious stab at longdistance racing when he raced Swedish LD Champs in Säter. He beat me by 5 minutes despite me running a 1.55 30 k. This "poor" runner went a 3.00 120 k and a 1.59+ 30 k run. Dabbling in bikeracing as well Björn had the weekend before finished an extraordinary 8th place at Swedish Timetrialing Champs averaging 48.2 km/hour for the 50 k. He was best amateur overall, only beaten by seven hardcore pro-bikers. After Säter I remember posting the results to the newsletter "Triathlon Digest" and writing a sidenote on Björn as "the best triathlete you never heard of..." He was chosen to go to ITU Worlds in Denmark but declined
Throughout his studies he continued to train hard but it was tough at times. My best story about Björn must be when we went to Mallorca in the spring of 2002, and Björn seemed unnaturally tired. Not that he didn´t ride fast but he looked more weary doing it. After some inquiring about this I found out that he was just finishing of his jobpractice for his studies. This meant all days in school practising as a teacher. Unwilling to compromise his time in the saddle he had made a habit of getting up at 4am to get in three hours on the MTB before school! This is in dark and cold below-freezing winterweather!!! That would be my ultimate definition of hard-core!
Last year he went on to race in the States and after getting strep-throat on the trip and underachieving at Wildflower he scored 2nd at Memphis in May and Utah half and later in the year he won UK Half
Björn is not a poor runner, it´s just not in line with his swim and bike. In NZ, he ran out of fuel. With a few more races under his belt he´s definitely a sub-3hr runner. The interesting thing about Björn is that allthough he may unconventional in his approach to biking he knows just about everything there is to know about both the technical aspects of biking and biomechanical aspects when it comes to positioning and equipment. He is "no-frills" in training. Swimming is straightforward, no toys at all. Biking is all done outdoors, all in appropriate position, all on 180 crankarms. He´s got a specialmade 58 big ring and a 61 at home for courses that might see good headwinds (like Hawaii).
There are numerous accounts of truly Epic sessions by Björn, sometimes with the company of me or others that would leave us crying for help but mostly done alone. I recall once in 1999 at a Swedish race. Björn didn´t race but came on his bike to watch. It was a 160 k bikeride to get there starting at dawn, he watched the race, had a hotdog and rode the 160 k back home. He reportedly had a 37 km/per hr average for the day. At the time he had just turned 20. To me and the rest of the people that have seen him train, his speed and strength isn´t surprising. He loggs more hours in the saddle than just anyone out there and he rides with consistency and quality ALL the time.
While they both truly deserve their place in the limelight after their recent rise to the top of IM-racing, Clas journey has been more rapid and more uncomplicated than Björns. It´s great for us "Björn-fans" to see his results for the past 12 months. Some of us back in Sweden have seen and known Björn since he was a longhaired heavymetal-punk in his teens and those who early saw his potential back then have now proved all the nay-sayers wrong. And the nay-sayers have been plenty! His run´s been too slow, his biking all wrong etc etc and quite a few times over the years he´s been known to have poor performances for various reasons like illness, injury, lack of training, stomachproblems, you name it. Seeing how young he was at the time it´s obvious that those failed races were all growing pains and valuable lessons. But the great thing is that Björn had the character to stick with his philosophy and gameplan no matter what and for that he´s got my respect.
Both Björn and Clas have a common trait and that is an unforgiving work-ethic like both Molina and Gordo have pointed out in several posts. The difference would be that Björn hates to get up in the morning to swim whereas Clas bounces up and starts to whip up the porridge no matter the hour.....
It was great to sit up all night and see my three amigos finish 2-3-4 after stellar performances. Since there seem to be a lot of interest generated around Clas and Björn I thought I´d share a brief background on the "swedish doodes" as well as a few aneqdotes that will shed some light on their recent accomplishments. I don´t think they´ll mind since I´ll be leaving out the PG-13 details
Clas is from the heart of Sweden; Dalarna and the town of Mockfjärd with maybe 1000 people. His only sporting background would in his own words be "woodchopping", helping his dad with their forestproperty. He started lifting weights at the age of 16, powerlifting-style... Also, he did the occassional run. It wasn´t until he did his militaryservice that his talent for sports was discovered. He had the very rare combination of being both the best benchpresser (120 kilos or so) AND the fastest 10 k runner of all the soldiers that year. That made his supervisors take notice and they let him train a bit more. Very soon he was tearing up local running-races. He also did the "Swedish Classic" in a year. The 90 k ski-race Vasaloppet, Vätternrundan 300 k bike, Vansbro 3 k swim and Lidingö 30 k crosscountryrun. A year after that he placed second in the Swedish junior cc champs.
He started dabbling a bit with triathlon and did a few local races in 1999 and 2000 but his swim was holding him back. He contiued to rack up 31 min 10k´s on limited training. In 2001 he showed up at the Swedish LD Champs. He swam 20 minutes slower than me and Björn but biked well and finished of the 30 k run in a 1.55 and 3rd place overall. He was chosen to go to ITU LD Champs in Denmark and that was on the IM-distance. There, he surprised everyone by holding on well for a 9.04 finish and a 2.56-run. His biggest concern was riding that far in aerobars and he cracked me up after the race showing of his 5 cm gelcover for the saddle! Clas went on to run quite a bit of races that fall and even had a stab at a regular marathon when he raced the Swedish Wintermarathon in freezing weather and went as fast as 2.29 which gave him the "Rookie of the Year" award by the Swedish Marathon Associaton.
In 2002 I had contacted a guy called Gordo or Grodo (we didn´t know at the time) to come and train in NZ and Clas thought he´d give this triathlonidea a go and went along. That was probably the best decision that Clas ever made since Gordo eversince has had a profound effect on Clas development. Clas impressed everyone with relentless training and Gordo dubbed him "the Baron von Hammer" after a particularly hard and punishing run. In Taupo that year he was 12th and 1st agegroup. In Europe he went on to place very well on Powerman Duathlon circuit usually bouyed by his everpresent speedy run. He finished of the year with a "Autumn Double" with an astonishing 7th place overall in Zofingen and than a 1st in his agegroup in Hawaii.
2003 had him go back to Gordo and after punishing eachother Clas had racked up a 4th place in Taupo and that fall a 5th place in Zofingen with the fastest 30k-run by 5 minutes (1.51)
This year he´s been working harder than ever and even incorporating stuff that I was scoffed at for doing like yoga. That will help his swim over the log haul as he is what we say in Swedish "vig som ett kylskåp" (flexible as a refrigerator). His 2nd place and 2.42 run comes as no surprise to those that see him train, it just shows that everyone else better look over their shoulder in the future! Other characteristics of Clas is that he eats enormous amounts of oatmealporridge out of great big bowls and sports a year round bodyfat of around 4% (when he recorded a 4.02% at the univ. of Cc we had to convince the people at the lab that he indeed was healthy and eating like a horse..) .
Björn has been around quite a bit longer than Clas and he certainly didn´t come out of nowhere. I´ve trained quite a bit with him over the years and I have gotten quite used to clinging to his wheel staring at those monstrous calve-and soleus muscles.
The first time I got a first-hand experience of Björns cyclingprowess was during a Swedish Cup race in 1997, oly distance. The entire Swedish elite was there and I found myself in the lead early in the bike when something big and hairy on a yellow bike (Hotta) comes flying by like I was standing still. Very demoralizing as I thought I was having a good ride. He was later in that race hit by a car and DNFéd. A few weeks after that race we had a gathering with the nationalteam preparing for the upcoming Euro-champs. It was held drafting-style so in order to practice packriding we did this very hilly circuit where we would sprint at certain points for primes. The juniors were in attendance as well so Björn was on this workout. Well, the guy doesn´t know how to sprint but he rarely needs to since he knows how to grind! You could all imagine our surprise as we were sprinting towards the top of a hill and on the left of us Björn is passing us all riding in his aerobars! He beat all of us to the top.... I nicknamed him the "monsterbear" right then which was fitting since he sported a heavymetal hair-do and he refused to shave his legs. Ultimately he did shave but only after Mike Pigg told him to do so.. (incidently Pigg also has a shaved head but Björn didn´t take it that far)
During those years Björn would lead basically all races through the swim and bike in Sweden, even the elite ones allthough he was barely a junior. The juniorraces were no match for him. We would actually all get a kick out of watching him race the juniorchamps that were held draftingstyle. Three years running Björn would get out with the leaders, than make a characteristically slow T1 (none of us never really learnt how to get in those Powerpedals quickly..) and then just outride the packs on the bike by himself and than just cruise it in on the run. One year his Mavic Mectronic gears went haywire so he was forced to ride the entire bike in a fixed 12-gear. Not that it was much different from his normal riding.
His muchdebated running was quite poor initially due to an early injury that forced him to undergo surgery in 1996. In 97-98 he averaged 10 k a week running... In 1999 that had changed as he won his first National title, racing the elite division as a junior and winning by 2 minutes (oly dist.) I remember running in third place and chasing hard and thinking "damn, isn´t Björn supposed to suck on the run?" I just picked 45 seconds back on the run that time..
From 1999 to 2002 he studied to become a teacher and that held his training back quite a bit. Also, the Swedish Tri-fed didn´t help much either by their one-eyed focus on draftlegal ITU-style racing so they didn´t do much to nourish his obvious talent. In 2001 he had his first serious stab at longdistance racing when he raced Swedish LD Champs in Säter. He beat me by 5 minutes despite me running a 1.55 30 k. This "poor" runner went a 3.00 120 k and a 1.59+ 30 k run. Dabbling in bikeracing as well Björn had the weekend before finished an extraordinary 8th place at Swedish Timetrialing Champs averaging 48.2 km/hour for the 50 k. He was best amateur overall, only beaten by seven hardcore pro-bikers. After Säter I remember posting the results to the newsletter "Triathlon Digest" and writing a sidenote on Björn as "the best triathlete you never heard of..." He was chosen to go to ITU Worlds in Denmark but declined
Throughout his studies he continued to train hard but it was tough at times. My best story about Björn must be when we went to Mallorca in the spring of 2002, and Björn seemed unnaturally tired. Not that he didn´t ride fast but he looked more weary doing it. After some inquiring about this I found out that he was just finishing of his jobpractice for his studies. This meant all days in school practising as a teacher. Unwilling to compromise his time in the saddle he had made a habit of getting up at 4am to get in three hours on the MTB before school! This is in dark and cold below-freezing winterweather!!! That would be my ultimate definition of hard-core!
Last year he went on to race in the States and after getting strep-throat on the trip and underachieving at Wildflower he scored 2nd at Memphis in May and Utah half and later in the year he won UK Half
Björn is not a poor runner, it´s just not in line with his swim and bike. In NZ, he ran out of fuel. With a few more races under his belt he´s definitely a sub-3hr runner. The interesting thing about Björn is that allthough he may unconventional in his approach to biking he knows just about everything there is to know about both the technical aspects of biking and biomechanical aspects when it comes to positioning and equipment. He is "no-frills" in training. Swimming is straightforward, no toys at all. Biking is all done outdoors, all in appropriate position, all on 180 crankarms. He´s got a specialmade 58 big ring and a 61 at home for courses that might see good headwinds (like Hawaii).
There are numerous accounts of truly Epic sessions by Björn, sometimes with the company of me or others that would leave us crying for help but mostly done alone. I recall once in 1999 at a Swedish race. Björn didn´t race but came on his bike to watch. It was a 160 k bikeride to get there starting at dawn, he watched the race, had a hotdog and rode the 160 k back home. He reportedly had a 37 km/per hr average for the day. At the time he had just turned 20. To me and the rest of the people that have seen him train, his speed and strength isn´t surprising. He loggs more hours in the saddle than just anyone out there and he rides with consistency and quality ALL the time.
While they both truly deserve their place in the limelight after their recent rise to the top of IM-racing, Clas journey has been more rapid and more uncomplicated than Björns. It´s great for us "Björn-fans" to see his results for the past 12 months. Some of us back in Sweden have seen and known Björn since he was a longhaired heavymetal-punk in his teens and those who early saw his potential back then have now proved all the nay-sayers wrong. And the nay-sayers have been plenty! His run´s been too slow, his biking all wrong etc etc and quite a few times over the years he´s been known to have poor performances for various reasons like illness, injury, lack of training, stomachproblems, you name it. Seeing how young he was at the time it´s obvious that those failed races were all growing pains and valuable lessons. But the great thing is that Björn had the character to stick with his philosophy and gameplan no matter what and for that he´s got my respect.
Both Björn and Clas have a common trait and that is an unforgiving work-ethic like both Molina and Gordo have pointed out in several posts. The difference would be that Björn hates to get up in the morning to swim whereas Clas bounces up and starts to whip up the porridge no matter the hour.....