Sam was bantering with a fan on IG once, and I clearly recall him writing that his FTP number doesn’t have a 3 in it. So if he is at say 400 W, at 300 W he is still riding in high Zone 2-3. I don’t see Jan being that far off at his peak, he always did what he had to do win, not more not less but he was an uberbiker. Let’s not forget he put out a 66 min half off a hard bike to beat Gomez and Brownlee at 70.3 worlds, and this was before super shoes, so hard to tell what his limits really were during IM bikes and runs.
Short course triathlon training is much more standarized and the Norwegians have never been dominant with their system.
But when it comes to long course they innovated, no one else goes as long and as often as them and no one comes close to their total volume.
It makes sense, it’s a long race so train long, but the traditional focus on VO2 max inherited from short course prevented the rest of the field from even imagining 30-35 hour weeks, the norwegian short threshold reps in contrast minimize muscle damage and are much more relevant for the distance.
They’ve created the blueprint for long course triathlon, it was olympic but longer before them.
Good long form interview within PTN pod with Stornes
well done @kyle.glass
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Thanks man. Was a fun one!
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The question I was hoping you guys would ask him is what happens if there’s a disagreement about which races or which approach they’re taking.
Like if Gustav wanted to race Oceanside, but Kristian wanted to race IMNZ.
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Good question.
This Norge trio have raced the same races in 2025. They have not been distracted by other races: no T100s, no WTCS, no Roth. Blummenfelt is secure to win the ($200k) Series unless he DNFs Marbella (there is a way Stornes could overtake but super unlikely).
In 2026, if they aspire to beat KB, Iden and Stornes probably need to deliberately choose different IMs. Remember Marquardt won both Cairns and IMLP at 5000 a time. This assumes that they ‘all’ will go for the IM Pro Series in 2026, with Kona and Nice being the specific ‘A+’ races.
I predict IMNZ is going to get a strong field both men and women, as athletes seek to spread their racing load and design in longer periods between races.
| Date | Type | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07-Mar | IM | IRONMAN New Zealand | Taupō, NZL |
| 18-Apr | IM | IRONMAN Texas | Texas, USA |
| 07-Jun | IM | IRONMAN Hamburg (WPRO) | Hamburg, DEU |
| 28-Jun | IM | IRONMAN Frankfurt (MPRO) | Frankfurt, DEU |
| 05-Jul | LD | Roth | Bavaria, DEU |
| 19-Jul | IM | IRONMAN Lake Placid | NY, USA |
| 15-Aug | IM | IRONMAN Kalmar | Kalmar, SWE |
| 10-Oct | IM | IRONMAN World Championship | Kona, Hawaii |
I was imagining that part of the reason they’re so effective is that they’re all on the same schedule. One benefit of the training group is that you’re all doing the same workouts, pushing each other, and feeding off each other’s strengths and doing recons/altitude blocks at the same time. Once you start doing separate races, you lose some of that, I’d imagine.
But looking ay the calendar, and the main IM races aren’t that much of a choice. Kalmar is too late for Kona and NZ is probably too early if you’re going to Marbella. So Texas is a given. After that, the only real choice is Frankfurt or Placid. If they want to do Nice again (and they do), then the easier choice is probably Frankfurt again.
Maybe one of the guys goes to NZ to snag the points, and they split Frankfurt/Placid they run the board (apart from Kalmar), but I can’t help but feel that most of the benefit they gain is doing things together.
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Capser and Gustav both commented on this on the Norwegian Method podcast after Nice. Kristian sounds like he took charge of those bigger harder sessions and really carried the other 2 along with him. I can imagine it’d be easy to lose that 1-2% without that sort of help.
Agree the ‘all on one schedule/programme is a serious plus for joint training.
Given that the 70.3 World Champs is in September, 4 weeks before Kona for all (as opposed to Marbella four weeks after Kona this year), IMNZ, perhaps preceded by a ‘down under’ two month training ‘package’ is March - October same as (for example) April - November (Oceanside to Marbella this year).
Besides Kona and Nice, then (and dependent) the IM Pro Series, capturing Ditlev’s full distance time record could be a target. That probably has to be at Roth (at least for the men). Roth $$
Here’s a race schedule which includes an IM Pro Series campaign (with one fallback 70.3) and Roth.
| Date | Type | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 07-Mar | IM | IRONMAN New Zealand | Taupō, NZL |
| 22-Mar | 70.3 | IRONMAN 70.3 Geelong | Geelong, AUS |
| 18-Apr | IM | IRONMAN Texas | Texas, USA |
| 17-May | 70.3 | IRONMAN 70.3 Aix | Aix-en-Provence, FRA |
| 05-Jul | Full | Roth | Bavaria, DEU |
| 13-Sep | 70.3 | IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship | Nice, FRA |
| 10-Oct | IM | IRONMAN World Championship | Kona, Hawaii |
4x full distances in a year is a lot for a crew that’s trying to win WC titles. It would seem to me that you need to pick two of: Pro series, Roth, IMWC, T100… and be disciplined about it.
Even then, the Pro series is mostly done ‘as you go’ on the way to the IMWC bid anyway. You can only really afford to replace a bad 70.3 - if you have a bad IM, anyone serious about Kona wouldn’t replace it (unless it’s Frankfurt into Placid and you DNF’d before you got deep into the run)
Edit: Though Kudos to IM for changing up the pro series next year - there’s at least a little bit more wiggle room. None of the top contenders for Kona would do Kalmar, but at least it plus NZ gives an extra space for someone to make up a bad IM score.
Yes, I guess Kalmar is there for an earlier ‘fail’ or/and also as a way of scoring 5000 (‘cos “None of the top contenders for Kona“ will be there) and an athlete can expect to be >16 minutes down in Kona.
I look at this group like a cartel. While in theory they are stronger together, inevitably one of the will cheat on the group in some way for their personal benefit.
What does cheating look like? You’ve got Christian pushing and pushing and pushing the workouts, with the other guys saying he’s doing the best in workouts, and they are holding back in the workouts, while continuing to agree that they should do them (or maybe play devils advocate that they shouldn’t work so hard, but reluctantly agreeing, and then holding back while Christian pushes them harder).
At the end of the day, every cartel has the same issues. Casper and Gustav know exactly what they are doing. They played their cards right and Christian paid the price on the big day.
Now all of that said, Norway is one of those countries that does have a very strong engrained sense of solidarity. So maybe here’s some cultural pride and pressure that keeps them together.
LOL do you really think that is what happened?
It’s vivid imagination bollocks (and even then, misuse of the word “cheating”)
They literally have said in interviews Christian kept pushing harder and harder. It sounds to me like just as in Kona vs. Gustav where Christian was perplexed that he lost where he was crushing workouts and “beating” Gustav in workouts the same happened here.
Christian over trained, they held back, and beat him on race day.
Is it hard for you to understand a metaphor?
Three suppliers get together and agree to share or coordinate in their supply to control the market.
Three athletes come together and agree to share in their training to dominate races.
Perfect analogy? No. Is it worth considering what makes cartels work and what makes them fail? It’s you who might have a failure of imagination.
I suggested one way the analogy could be looked at to see where a cartel would fail. You can do dumb replies like say, technically they aren’t a cartel but an alliance as they aren’t monopolizing supply and blah blah blah.
But when three people get together for the good of the group and there’s money and fame and glory on the line and there’s something to be gained by acting in self interest in some way, while still being a member of the group; yes, someone will eventually cheat. It happens in every cartel, which is why I brought up the analogy.
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Nah. Still a terrible analogy. In your cartel world, if Iden and Stornes overtrained with Blu, he would’ve won the world champs. Also, in your world, they act sneaky and he is none the wiser.
Not to mention that these guys don’t in principle do the exact same paces/power in interval workouts and never did.
All I can point to is Blu was beating Gustav before Kona and Gustav won. Blu was beating them both before Nice and they both beat Blu. Seems like it’s working out well for everyone but Blu.
My opinion is that Iden has the mental edge over Blu when it comes to the run leg. We’ve seen it in Kona, T100 races, and now Nice. If those 2 come out running together I think Blu’s gameplan goes out the window because he feels the need to match/respond to everything Iden does. This usually ends in cramps and a blow up.
And KB has beaten both of them many times recently. They explained they train at the same paces, it’s simply that KB takes charge and does the pacing.
Come race day, in such a long distance, there’s many small details that can affect the result. In Nice in particular, Iden and KB pushed too hard in parts of the marathon and paid the price. Casper paced better.