Iden will do a lot better than the other two, Iden seems a much better LC athlete than SC, he'll place higher in Kona than he does in Tokyo is my prediction.

Not sure where Blummenfelt will actually fit it in.

Does he want to win at the Olympics or screw 5 years work and try and qualify for Kona?

Seems stupid

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it doesnt matter what you say, someone on here will pick a fight over it.

Does he want to win at the Olympics or screw 5 years work and try and qualify for Kona? //

He will do both, qualifying for Kona is a walk in the park for these guys if that is their only goal.

Hope they stay injury free. Love their passion.

+ 1, Monty. They will have no problem doing both.

I wonder if their goal for qualifying is to go to Kona to give Iden his own Blue Train....

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Let food be thy medicine...

Both Frankfurt and Copenhagen are scheduled after the olympics so not really an issue with ruining the olympic effort.

as i understand it these guys train polarised anyway so will have done plenty of IM type volume training as well as the high-intensity oly stuff. will just be a matter of doing a bit more steady state work and generally relying on their strong base to get them through. whether that is enough will depend on who else races. i'm guessing most of the top guys will want to have qualified for kona before then anyway, though this year many plans have been disrupted...

Listen to this Joel Filliol podcast with Arlid Tveiten carefully - I don't think they are polarised training. I think its more like pyramid training with some threshold stuff thrown in.

https://joelfilliol.com/podcast/2019/1/21/arild-tveiten-norway-head-coach

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He who understands the WHY, will understand the HOW.

Of course, the olympics is the main goal for the Norwegians.
But since they can fit in Kona after the olympics (and if Casper and Kristian qualify) it is an added bonus to the season.

Blummenfelt has twice been under 3.30 on 70.3. Both times with a 1.07.00 or faster run.
Casper has twice done 3.33 on 70.3.

Will they be a factor at Kona?
I do not know.
But it is cool that they are not afraid to bridge over.

They are Olympic distance athletes first and foremost.

If you want to know how they are training.
Follow them on Strave.

70.3 and Ironman are complete different races. Look at lionel, a beast in 70.3 but he isn't able to stay consistent over 140.6. In an 70.3 the nutrition isn't that important but at the full distance it's probaply the most important piece of the puzzle and there is no room for mistakes.

That said I'm eager to see what the norwegians are able to put together. The have the knowledge, talent and the team behind them to qualifiy for kona, thats for sure.

In 1996 Luc Van Lierde finished second (behind Simon Lessing) at the ITU world championships at the end of August then went on to win Ironman in October. It is possible to be competitive in short course then long course in a very short period of time.

True but those high-end diesel engine days are long gone, the bike and run are now full of surges that require a different physiology and adaptation. Lessing's controlled 31min 10k's wouldn't cut it now, and there would be 10 guys in-between as the competition is so much greater.

We lost potentially dozens of great Ali Brownlee races because he wanted to run a fast 10k and then later because he wanted to win Kona.

If Blum races in Kona this year it will cost something in the future. I love the guy, he is well suited for LC, but these guys are human.

It's polarized in the sense that they do a lot of volume, most of their training is easy, and some of their training is hard or race specific - which is of course how all successful triathletes train, long or short distance.

The particularity of the Norwegian triathlon squad is probably that their training volume is even higher compared to others, and most of their higher intensity is not very high and lactate-controlled - and therefore by strict definition their approach is not polarized, as their higher intensity is not above LT2 (but this strict definition doesn't make much sense in triathlon anyway). And this is what sets them up to be successful on longer distances as well.

However there is more to winning Kona than pure fitness, e.g. nutrition, experience... So it will be very interesting to see.

There are plenty of surges in ITU races. Both of these guys should qualify for Kona. Can they compete for top ten in Kona is the real question.

It'll be interesting to see these sprint guys impact Kona race dynamics. Usually Frodo would swim Spartacus but in 2019 Brownlee and hamburger were right there pushing the breakaway pace with frodo. If these new Olympic guys push the font pack pace, then fade when it comes to the meat and potatoes of the TT bike section, then there could be a new record coming for frodo.

How far back is Gustav coming from after the swim? It was like he really took his time to be top 15 then run to the lead in Daytona. Would he swimming with Lionel and Wurf in kona?

i hear arild saying this stuff, but then i see an example of their track workout:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UstnuRBUoyI

warm-up = 45 minute bike, 5k run
5x1k on 1min rest (at 2:59-3:06)
3x400 (at 66-65-64)
3k all-out (at 8:11)
cool-down = 2k run, 75 minute bike.

i can imagine that the warm-up and cool-down are 'easy,' but the rest is 9.2k at some bloody fast paces. if 'most' of their run volume is easy, what kinds of volumes are they?

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

Is this even remotely a serious question?

alright I admit that was somewhat hyperbole, but it did surprise me how far back he was at Daytona.

Frodos fastest 70.3 is 3.36 right? where he ripped the legs off gomez and Brownlee, and the norwegians went under 3.30 at a sunny hot Bahrain, then they might be capable of a sub 7,45 Kona? but if Gustav isnt swimming near Frodo, how far back woould he be starting the bike?

I know the paces sound impressive, but remember these guys can run 10k in a pace of around 2:50 min/km and these 1000s are more than 10s/km slower than that, so around threshold, or probably even below what they could run in a half marathon (not preceded by a swim&bike). The 400s are faster but don't add up to much volume. And yes the 3k is fast but my guess is they don't do something like this too often ("all out").

That session makes around 9k and 26 min of "fast" volume. Blummenfelt and Iden both logged 93 km in 7-7,5 hours (only running) on average over the last four weeks (on Strava), so a session like this produces ~10% of their weekly volume as fast running, and in terms of "time in zone" only ~6%. My guess is that they do two hard run sessions per week, so that pretty much adds up to the famous 90/10 distribution in terms of "time in zones" for polarized training, only that (in contrast to the polarized training ductus) most of the hard 10% are not really above threshold.

90/10 is of course not a rule but rather an observation, so it might also be 85/15 (might also vary across the three sports), but the idea is still that the majority of the training is rather easy.

Blummenfelt would come out with Jan in Kona. He swam 17:57 while Ali did 17:41 in ITU Leeds just a few weeks ago, pretty sure he could swim on Jan feet the whole way. Gustav would be in second swim pack with Ben Hoffman, Tim Van Berkel, Matt Trautman and company… around 51 mins! So 4-5 minutes back

I am going to say the opposite...they will screw it (maybe Iden does fine, not the other two).
First..
will they qualify? lets see , maybe we ll see some blowups. If they qualify maybe we will see other blowups (just remind you AB in 2019). KB is a big guy, and he is bold, but in Kona you gotta be smart. There is a curve of learning . I am sorry but they need time to ger to know IM and Kona.

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Spaniard. Sorry for my english for the sensitive ones :P

Guessing the same.