I see a lot of people in the forums here don’t know a lot about me and my team mates, Casper Stornes in particular. Here you can ask my anything, from training to the race in Bermuda and i can see what I have the time to answer.
Hello Gustav! Great race. You are right, most of us aren’t familiar with you and your teammates (except Blummenfeld). Can you tell us about your triathlon journey thus far? How did you get into the sport, why you race, etc? Also what does a normal training week look like for you and how did you prepare for the heat of Bermuda?
Hei Gustav
As a Norwegian here in the USA it has been amazing to follow your development from juniors to world class.
Here you have some questions.
When did you start training triathlon seriously?
How many hours are you training a year?
Can you tell about the bike leg at Bermuda, was is soft before you and Kristian went for it?
Gratulerer saa mye Gustav. Jeg er sikkelig imponert av deg og dere.
I see a lot of people in the forums here don’t know a lot about me and my team mates, Casper Stornes in particular. Here you can ask my anything, from training to the race in Bermuda and i can see what I have the time to answer.
First of all congratulations on a fabulous start to the season!
On Bermuda: how was the pace in corkscrew the first 9 laps? How come you and Blu held back an attack for so long(I assume not to chase down Casper S?)
On training: how much do you guys run? How much of that high tempo/quality runs?
Oh - and Herbert - I think the Norwegian ITU-crew should be interviewed for a front page article.
Congrats on the stellar race.
I’m curious between the total hours and volume (km’s) that you do in training in each of the 3 sports, as I’ve read that Norwegians are known for putting in a lot of serious training hours.
Further, how many hard workouts do you do in a typical week in each of the 3 sports, and do you regular do brick workouts in training?
What race is up next?
Hello Gustav! Great race. You are right, most of us aren’t familiar with you and your teammates (except Blummenfeld). Can you tell us about your triathlon journey thus far? How did you get into the sport, why you race, etc? Also what does a normal training week look like for you and how did you prepare for the heat of Bermuda?
Please excuse my English. I am an athlete, not an academic 
My triathlon journey started many years ago in 2006, but that was only one race. I really got into the sport when the Triathlon Federation in Norway invited me and many other cyclists, swimmers and runners to an open weekend camp for youngsterst in Norway in 2010. I came from a cycling background, but was also a keen runner. In the camp the leders and coaches said I had to get in a swimming club to have anything to do in triathlon. I began swimming straight after that. The next year I was taken in to the national junior team, and have been a part of the national team ever since.
A normal training week is very different from where in the season we are. We had a bit of a “famous” training week during the offseason wich we spent in the alltitude in Sierra Nevada in Spain. Here we had free training meening we could do whatever we wanted traningwise and had no plan. It was i camp in collaboration with Olypiatoppen, the Norwegian Olympic commitee. There I had three of my longest bikerides ever. One of our coaches suggested we could ride around the whole mountain. We tried to do that, but used to long time to check the map and eating. We came about 270km and 4000 altitude meters. Some days later we tried again, a bit wiser. We rode the other way, started earlier in the morning, and almost had no stops. We had two of our coaches following in a car(yes, that is dedication!!) who filled our bottles and gave us bars, candy, chips and chocolate. We only had one real stop of 15minutes at a store to but some Fanta, Coca Cola and RedBull. We made it all the way around the mountain. 305km, 6000 a.m in about 11hours and 45minutes. But that is not a normal week. We normally train 30-35 hours a week during build up to season, with a lot of anaerobic treashold, and aerobic treashold. We try to take some lactate test during our training to get the most out of every training. We have test to ensure the training is going well, and adjust if it dont.
We did not really prepare that much for the heat of Bermuda because the weatherforcast did not show super hot weather. And it turned out fine. It was cold to train in Sierra Nevada with below freezing temperatures almost every day, but we had some time in both Marbella and Bermuda before the race, and felt quite climatized to the race in good time.
Hei Gustav
As a Norwegian here in the USA it has been amazing to follow your development from juniors to world class.
Here you have some questions.
When did you start training triathlon seriously?
How many hours are you training a year?
Can you tell about the bike leg at Bermuda, was is soft before you and Kristian went for it?
Gratulerer saa mye Gustav. Jeg er sikkelig imponert av deg og dere.
I think I answered the traingbit of the question in my last post, but lets say 1200 hours even though I dont really count the hours that way.
I started traning seriously when I was 10 years old. Then I was all about the Tour de France. I wanted to be the best cyclist. But for triathlon it started when I was 15 years old. The I no longer mixed my cyling and triathlon training. Then it was all about the Olympics in triathlon.
Yeah, the bikeleg was pretty easy before I went for it. I think my avg. power was below 270w. I seamed that all was saving themself for the hill, pushing hard up corcscrew, and then just resting once again. I hate that kind of “racing”, and it was pretty boring to just be in the pack. But there was not much i could do because I do not want to bridge the gap to my friend/team mate Casper. So my job was just to capture everyone who tried to get away. I did not have much to do… When someone was pushing hard up the hill on the 7th lap, I saw an opening to maybe get away in a breakaway. I think to have a background in cycling helps here to “see” the openings to get away. Casper had 2minutes at that point, so it was no risk for us to catch him. I was screaming at Blu, and we made i quick get away. I think the others gave up quite early, and we had a nice training session the rest of the race (meaning it was just as me and kristian had ride and run together in traning many times before)
Tusen takk! Skal prøve å gjøre Yokohama spennende også
Stort grattis! Veldigt bra kort av er alla!
Im a bit curious how is triathlon scene and support are in Norway.
Can you tell us a bit about sponsors and how big the sport is ?
I think Herbert know how to get in touch with us 
And since I coach all on the podium from the Bermuda race, I think I can provide some Insight in our training and how we build the team if its interesting.
I think Herbert know how to get in touch with us
And since I coach all on the podium from the Bermuda race, I think I can provide some Insight in our training and how we build the team if its interesting.
Yes, that would be very interesting. Thank you very much.
How do you progress the training through a season. Does the content of tracksessions change from month to month?
How important is bike and run volume for itu guys and how long are your normal (not the 300k) longrides and longruns?
I think Herbert know how to get in touch with us
And since I coach all on the podium from the Bermuda race, I think I can provide some Insight in our training and how we build the team if its interesting.
Hei Arild
Can you tell a little about how you use technology (hr monitor, power meters, lactate) and testing in training.
Det du har gjort er utrolig imponerende. Gratulerer.
I think Herbert know how to get in touch with us
And since I coach all on the podium from the Bermuda race, I think I can provide some Insight in our training and how we build the team if its interesting.
Arild,
Thanks so much for stopping in and answering some questions. Would you say that your athletes follow a 80:20 polarized training program as characterized by Stephen Seiler? That is to say 80% of the sessions easy zone 1 efforts and 20% of sessions containing very hard zone 3 efforts.
Best Regards,
Hugh
I think Herbert know how to get in touch with us
And since I coach all on the podium from the Bermuda race, I think I can provide some Insight in our training and how we build the team if its interesting.
Hei Arild
Can you tell a little about how you use technology (hr monitor, power meters, lactate) and testing in training.
Det du har gjort er utrolig imponerende. Gratulerer.
I will come back to you as soon as possible since I on my way to Yokohama now and will be offline some time.
Good good question need good answers
Takk Arild
Have a nice trip to Yokohama and good luck.
Looking forward to your answer.
Stort grattis! Veldigt bra kort av er alla!
Im a bit curious how is triathlon scene and support are in Norway.
Can you tell us a bit about sponsors and how big the sport is ?
Thank you. Eller skal jeg si Tusen takk
The support are getting bigger and bigger. But it is still a quite little sport in Norway and we have around 10.000 member of the federation. Out of these we dont have so many young athletes. Maximum 1000 in total.
When we started to organize the sport and put together a talent program the founding was very limited and we could only afford paying me for a 50% postion as the sportdirector and coach. That was in 2012. But then we started to get some result and the Olympic comitee was starting to support us. Both financially and also with Resources like specialist within altitude training, nutrition, motoric/strength training and so on.
Today most of our founding is direcetly from the federation, Olympic comitte and the athletes and their clubs. The sponsors play a minor role in that in terms of money, but they are good sponsors that belive in us and in our program. Our sponsors will do the best for us, and for instance our cloth sponsor ( Trimtex) make a hugh effort to make the best racingsuit in the market. and they do that with working closely with athletes and myself so they can make the best suit available on the marked today.
I think Herbert know how to get in touch with us
And since I coach all on the podium from the Bermuda race, I think I can provide some Insight in our training and how we build the team if its interesting.
Hei Arild
Can you tell a little about how you use technology (hr monitor, power meters, lactate) and testing in training.
Det du har gjort er utrolig imponerende. Gratulerer.
Hi Halvard!
We are a team that try to push the limit on how much training we can do. Or say it another way: Find the optimal individually workload who gives maximum result for the athlete. We therefore pay a lot of attention to intensitycontrol. And to control our training we of course use heartrate monitors. That is a basic tool. We also use Powermeters for cycling, but also for running ( Stryd). That we also use in all races so we have a lot of good data with heartrate, powerdata in both cycling and running.
We also use a system called Tritonwear for swimming and we use it to analysze stroke efffiency in the water and getting data like DPS, frequence.
We have started digging into powermeters for swimming, but right now we think that the available systems arent good enough.
To really now how we shoud train and what is the right intensity we do lab testing at least 5 times a year. And we then test in all diciplines. One test takes around 2h ang gives us a lot of data that we use in training. And to really now what is right intensity we do a lot of lactatetesting. Both in the lab bust mostly out in the field during training. I think that we do around 100tests with each athlete at an altitudecamp like that we had in march-april.
You dont do intervals at 3 i lactat mmol/l when your indivdual lactatethreshold is 2,3 mmmol/l. That is far more important than what you pace is and what power is during training. So when training at your right lactace threshold ( measured individually for you in the lab) you get the best Results.
And With a lot of testing we learn the athletes to know what their limits are and how they should train With the right intensity.
Hi Gustav, don’t really have a question but just wanted to say congrats on two great WTS races to start your 2018 season!
Can you take Adrien (Briffod) with you on a breakaway in Yoko
Stort grattis! Veldigt bra kort av er alla!
Im a bit curious how is triathlon scene and support are in Norway.
Can you tell us a bit about sponsors and how big the sport is ?
Thank you. Eller skal jeg si Tusen takk
The support are getting bigger and bigger. But it is still a quite little sport in Norway and we have around 10.000 member of the federation. Out of these we dont have so many young athletes. Maximum 1000 in total.
When we started to organize the sport and put together a talent program the founding was very limited and we could only afford paying me for a 50% postion as the sportdirector and coach. That was in 2012. But then we started to get some result and the Olympic comitee was starting to support us. Both financially and also with Resources like specialist within altitude training, nutrition, motoric/strength training and so on.
Today most of our founding is direcetly from the federation, Olympic comitte and the athletes and their clubs. The sponsors play a minor role in that in terms of money, but they are good sponsors that belive in us and in our program. Our sponsors will do the best for us, and for instance our cloth sponsor ( Trimtex) make a hugh effort to make the best racingsuit in the market. and they do that with working closely with athletes and myself so they can make the best suit available on the marked today.
just wanted to say great job, I very briefly cycled with those 3 podium winners in fuerteventura and they spoke very highly of you when i asked them why norway is doing so well.
the other thing that really impressed me was how down to earth and funny they were.
the one question i have, i cant even remember how old gustav was when he won haugsund a couple of years ago but i’d be interested what you think he learned from that experience ? ( i have no idea , but he is probably the youngest 70.3 winner ever)
I think Herbert know how to get in touch with us
And since I coach all on the podium from the Bermuda race, I think I can provide some Insight in our training and how we build the team if its interesting.
Still hoping you might field this one too. Thanks!
Arild,
Thanks so much for stopping in and answering some questions. Would you say that your athletes follow a 80:20 polarized training program as characterized by Stephen Seiler? That is to say 80% of the sessions easy zone 1 efforts and 20% of sessions containing very hard zone 3 efforts.
Best Regards,
Hugh