The Swedish IM-distance race in Kalmar, and Swedish IM-champs as well, were held today.
My friend David Svensson did his very first triathlon ever and, get this, finished 6th with a time of 9.10! How´s that for a debut? Albeit, on a very fast course on a mild day but it just blows my mind!
He swam a 1.10, rode an amazing 4.43 and ran a 3.12 excluding T1+2. And he is someone who got in the pool for the first time this spring, got a wetsuit in May and did his first openwater-swim in June. He got his first racebike last year and got a TT-bike just last month! And he´s never ever done a triathlon before today…
Now this is a guy with a most remarkable history besides being an insanely talented athlete. I first met him when I ran past him on a crosscountrytrail in our hometown of Borås just two years ago. He told me that he came from a background of weightlifting and sprinting but that he over the past years had ventured into multisport and running. He was a pretty big and muscular guy who ran rather heavy but seemed to love it. He instantly tagged on as a regular trainingpartner to me on various runs and I soon learned of his unmatched capacity for paintolerance (which is to be explained later…) and enthusiasm. I was pretty impressed of him initially since he managed to join me for hilly runs of 2+ hours only to realize that he was averaging a 185 HR. But he was always happy about it nonetheless. And when I did intervals he would join and just max it to stay in touch only to fall apart to the point where he wouldn´t even come in from the previous interval before I had had my two minutes of rest and begun the next one. He would then sit out a lap only to join me back and absolutely obliterate himself in the process. Naturally, during this time I would try to pass tidbits of wisdom to him and coach him out his “worst” behavior when it came to training smart.
I soon realized though that for David, a painful interval was nothing but nothing to what he had endured. A number of years ago he was experiencing GI-issues that developed to be a serious case of Crohns disease. He ended up having his entire large colon removed, bit by bit, and after a long time with a stomibag (? don´t know the word…) he had parts of his small intestine transformed to become a large intestine. All in all he´s gone through 28 surgeries with all kinds of weird stuff ominating from it…
So he´s someone that in the past have been known to finish 8 hr multisport-races with a stomibag and who is used to in to training be someone who from time and time again has to work him self up from ground zero. Hence, the paintolerance…
So his running got better and he lost some weight. Last year he finished Stockholm Marathon in 3.14 and later that year he bought a racebike only to discover that he was really really strong:) And I noticed it too… In a few weeks he easily began to join me on rides up to 4-5 hours…
This spring he again had to undergo surgey to remove a herniated bloodvessel and it set him back a few weeks, Nonetheless he joined me biketour in May and rode 800 k in five days and made it look easy.
Before the race I called him to say good luck and to treat it like a trainingday; start out easy and keep things under control. Knowing him though I knew I was wasting my breath… And sure enough, he probably swam in control but then on the bike he let it all hang out! And then he ran like a mofo too! I´m totally amazed
