How long till we see the old guatav? Or is that flame gone? Looks like he ran a 1:19 today, he doesn’t post much anymore either, like he’s not a playful. Hopefully he comes back
How long till we see the old guatav? Or is that flame gone? Looks like he ran a 1:19 today, he doesn’t post much anymore either, like he’s not a playful. Hopefully he comes back
What race???
70.3 Poland
.
Everyone today had worst run than usual. Course and conditions weren’t the best for good run. Me and my wife participated as well.
wow, 28 minutes behind the winner. hopefully he is on his way back to his previous form
wow, 28 minutes behind the winner. hopefully he is on his way back to his previous form
Nah man, he was 4th OA in 3:39:51, and 11:39 behind his countryman Casper Stornes. https://www.ironman.com/im703-warsaw-results
How long till we see the old guatav? Or is that flame gone? Looks like he ran a 1:19 today, he doesn’t post much anymore either, like he’s not a playful. Hopefully he comes back
I was invited to conduct an in-person interview on Gustav on Friday before the race and you can easily imagine that I jumped at the opportunity as any fanboi would. The interview was conducted in English, obviously, but the published version is in Polish - link to a google translation.
In short:
-
He’s still recovering from his Achilles injury. The week before the race was test week for Gustav, and it was the first time that he actually managed to complete the test (don’t know what the exact protocol was). His run volume is 40-50% of what it used to be when he was 100%.
-
Nonetheless, he’s optimistic as he’s finally making progress in workouts. For a long time last year the numbers were declining instead of improving, now they’re improving, and Achilles pain is subsiding (there is also a Triathlete Magazine interview where he discusses this).
-
He’s planning to reach 100% run volume by the end of August, and then continue to add intensity so that he can run the marathon in Kona in 2 hours and low thirties.
-
In 70.3 Warsaw, the goal was to finish. He finished. His Strava workout title simply says “Finisher”. He was 3rd out of the water and biked in the leading 3 most of the course, got dropped towards the end and lost a bit more time in T2; started the run a couple of minutes behind. On the run, a Dutch guy overtook him in the latter half.
-
To address the run time directly: he was aiming for a 1:17 or better (run at 1:17 half marathon pace for 3/4 of the course, then try to accelerate). He faded towards the end a bit, but also the course was 500-600 m (550-650 yards) long. So his average pace was almost on point.
-
As a small trivium, Gustav was confident that his countrypeople Casper Stornes and Solveig Lovseth would win, and sure enough they did. Lovseth demolished the field by 12 minutes. Stornes was very safe, too, with a 7 minute margin. The people they beat were no world champions but no slouches either, as the field included Kacper Stepniak and Challenge Gran Canaria gun-to-tape winner Marta Lagownik.
I was invited to conduct an in-person interview on Gustav on Friday before the race and you can easily imagine that I jumped at the opportunity as any fanboi would. The interview was conducted in English, obviously, but the published version is in Polish - link to a google translation.
- He’s planning to reach 100% run volume by the end of August, and then continue to add intensity so that he can run the marathon in Kona in 2 hours and low thirties.
- In 70.3 Warsaw, the goal was to finish.Well done!
I assume Iden will race another 70.3 (by 20 August) to validate his Kona AQ slot.
Edit: Two 70.3s **by 30 June **(and Warsaw was #1 after the DNF last month)
Rule(s) for IMWC (Nice/Kona) validation: two 70.3s by 30 June or one IM by 19 August.
2024 IRONMAN® WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE QUALIFICATION & VALIDATION
4b. Pro Athletes who are eligible to compete in the 2024 Championship Race because of the Exemptions will be required to complete a Validation Race.
“Validation Race†means finishing at least:
one (1) Qualifying IRONMAN (excluding the 2023 IRONMAN World Championship) ORtwo (2) Qualifying IRONMAN 70.3 (not Lahti) Pro events
during the 2024 IRONMAN Qualifying Year. (Period ending August 19, 2024, for IRONMAN events and period
ending June 30, 2024, for IRONMAN 70.3 events).
wow, 28 minutes behind the winner. hopefully he is on his way back to his previous form
Nah man, he was 4th OA in 3:39:51, and 11:39 behind his countryman Casper Stornes. https://www.ironman.com/im703-warsaw-results
my bad, looked at the wrong column. still 12 minutes is not great for him. hoping for better results in the future
Good swim/bike for him. He had said before his previous 70.3 attempt that his run fitness wasn’t there yet. How were conditions and how challenging was the course? Run times across the board don’t look super fast. He also landed in between the 2nd/3rd finishers in 3:35 & 5th in 3:41. Maybe he just dialed it back when he knew he was running alone & the best he was going to do was 4th. Good to see a finish from him regardless of how it went down.
Seems like Stornes was very impressive today.
wow, 28 minutes behind the winner. hopefully he is on his way back to his previous form
Nah man, he was 4th OA in 3:39:51, and 11:39 behind his countryman Casper Stornes. https://www.ironman.com/im703-warsaw-results
my bad, looked at the wrong column. still 12 minutes is not great for him. hoping for better results in the future
Did you not read the analysis from above? This is clearly a (re)building effort… and from the looks of things, he achieved exactly what he set out to do.
My assumption is he will be right on marathon point for 2:3X in Kona.
Good swim/bike for him. He had said before his previous 70.3 attempt that his run fitness wasn’t there yet. How were conditions and how challenging was the course? Run times across the board don’t look super fast. He also landed in between the 2nd/3rd finishers in 3:35 & 5th in 3:41. Maybe he just dialed it back when he knew he was running alone & the best he was going to do was 4th. Good to see a finish from him regardless of how it went down. Seems like Stornes was very impressive today.Pro Tri News shared that the bike course was 85km and the run course was 500m long.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pro-tri-news/id1559781865
So something more like a 1:18 run. Bike split faster than it should be but he pretty much rode the same as the leaders. Swim/bike is front pack competitive or close. Maybe some truth to get being too far out of 2nd/3rd & having 4th locked up & maybe not wanting to push for a 1:15ish type effort to the converted 1:18. Still not anywhere close to his best but it’s something.
How long till we see the old guatav? Or is that flame gone? Looks like he ran a 1:19 today, he doesn’t post much anymore either, like he’s not a playful. Hopefully he comes back
I was invited to conduct an in-person interview on Gustav on Friday before the race and you can easily imagine that I jumped at the opportunity as any fanboi would. The interview was conducted in English, obviously, but the published version is in Polish - link to a google translation.
In short:
-
He’s still recovering from his Achilles injury. The week before the race was test week for Gustav, and it was the first time that he actually managed to complete the test (don’t know what the exact protocol was). His run volume is 40-50% of what it used to be when he was 100%.
-
Nonetheless, he’s optimistic as he’s finally making progress in workouts. For a long time last year the numbers were declining instead of improving, now they’re improving, and Achilles pain is subsiding (there is also a Triathlete Magazine interview where he discusses this).
-
He’s planning to reach 100% run volume by the end of August, and then continue to add intensity so that he can run the marathon in Kona in 2 hours and low thirties.
-
In 70.3 Warsaw, the goal was to finish. He finished. His Strava workout title simply says “Finisher”. He was 3rd out of the water and biked in the leading 3 most of the course, got dropped towards the end and lost a bit more time in T2; started the run a couple of minutes behind. On the run, a Dutch guy overtook him in the latter half.
-
To address the run time directly: he was aiming for a 1:17 or better (run at 1:17 half marathon pace for 3/4 of the course, then try to accelerate). He faded towards the end a bit, but also the course was 500-600 m (550-650 yards) long. So his average pace was almost on point.
-
As a small trivium, Gustav was confident that his countrypeople Casper Stornes and Solveig Lovseth would win, and sure enough they did. Lovseth demolished the field by 12 minutes. Stornes was very safe, too, with a 7 minute margin. The people they beat were no world champions but no slouches either, as the field included Kacper Stepniak and Challenge Gran Canaria gun-to-tape winner Marta Lagownik.
Are you a sports writer in Poland???
I am in Poland but I’m not a sports writer. I’m in finance/capital markets (something like investment banking). What I do for the site in question is maintain and update the race calendar and I get free race entries in return. Occasionally I’ll do something extra, but before Iden it was literally one article I wrote about Kienle and three very short pro athlete interviews after a local race.
I was first asked to help the editor in chief with his Gustav interview because the editor liked my previous (extremely limited) “journalistic” work for the site and he wasn’t confident about his English. Then he asked me to prep some questions. Then it turned out he had a scheduling conflict with the interview, and of course I said I could do it. The 20 minutes were divided between me and another interviewer, a guy from a mainstream sports site (a triathlete himself though - finished the Oly in 2:10 despite the run being 1 km long). We decided to do it together instead of “10 minutes for you, 10 minutes for me”. It was interesting to listen to the other guy’s questions as he was trying to tell a story and shape a narrative about a guy coming back from adversity without delving into as much detail as myself.
I treat the whole thing as a hobby (which it is).
How long till we see the old guatav? Or is that flame gone? Looks like he ran a 1:19 today, he doesn’t post much anymore either, like he’s not a playful. Hopefully he comes back
I was invited to conduct an in-person interview on Gustav on Friday before the race and you can easily imagine that I jumped at the opportunity as any fanboi would. The interview was conducted in English, obviously, but the published version is in Polish - link to a google translation.
In short:
-
He’s still recovering from his Achilles injury. The week before the race was test week for Gustav, and it was the first time that he actually managed to complete the test (don’t know what the exact protocol was). His run volume is 40-50% of what it used to be when he was 100%.
-
Nonetheless, he’s optimistic as he’s finally making progress in workouts. For a long time last year the numbers were declining instead of improving, now they’re improving, and Achilles pain is subsiding (there is also a Triathlete Magazine interview where he discusses this).
-
He’s planning to reach 100% run volume by the end of August, and then continue to add intensity so that he can run the marathon in Kona in 2 hours and low thirties.
-
In 70.3 Warsaw, the goal was to finish. He finished. His Strava workout title simply says “Finisher”. He was 3rd out of the water and biked in the leading 3 most of the course, got dropped towards the end and lost a bit more time in T2; started the run a couple of minutes behind. On the run, a Dutch guy overtook him in the latter half.
-
To address the run time directly: he was aiming for a 1:17 or better (run at 1:17 half marathon pace for 3/4 of the course, then try to accelerate). He faded towards the end a bit, but also the course was 500-600 m (550-650 yards) long. So his average pace was almost on point.
-
As a small trivium, Gustav was confident that his countrypeople Casper Stornes and Solveig Lovseth would win, and sure enough they did. Lovseth demolished the field by 12 minutes. Stornes was very safe, too, with a 7 minute margin. The people they beat were no world champions but no slouches either, as the field included Kacper Stepniak and Challenge Gran Canaria gun-to-tape winner Marta Lagownik.
this is really cool - thanks for the insight.
Good swim/bike for him. He had said before his previous 70.3 attempt that his run fitness wasn’t there yet. How were conditions and how challenging was the course? Run times across the board don’t look super fast. He also landed in between the 2nd/3rd finishers in 3:35 & 5th in 3:41. Maybe he just dialed it back when he knew he was running alone & the best he was going to do was 4th. Good to see a finish from him regardless of how it went down. Seems like Stornes was very impressive today.Pro Tri News shared that the bike course was 85km and the run course was 500m long.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pro-tri-news/id1559781865
I checked a couple of friends that races yesterday and it was probably more 86k than 85, but it was even flatter than expected, less than 200m elevation for the whole thing.
Run was roughly 21.7k
Definitely wouldn’t draw any conclusions from PRO athletes’ (or anybody else’s) finishing times. This is a general principle for me, but especially on point to point courses like Warsaw. Wind seemed to be completely neutral on the day, but on another day it could easily take 5 minutes off bike times. The bike course was obviously well short.The swim had a relatively long running component and may have been a bit short. The run was long. Don’t even get me started on how transitions vary, or such fine detail that the transition bags in Warsaw were of shit quality and some people were inadvertently tearing them apart and then having to tie the cord around the bag before dropping it off, losing time.
The gap to Stornes and Stepniak would be a better indicator of fitness (as would be the fact that Gustav ultimately got dropped on the bike - if his bike volume is at 80%, that’s not exactly a huge surprise). Then again, Gustav talks about how patient you need to be with Achilles injuries. He’s very weary of the risk of becoming another Alistair, racing with a bad Achilles for 10 years. In his view, he could get really fit and win a race or two after one month of big load, but he doesn’t want to rush things.
I’m not writing anything to any page, but can echo Kajet’s take (I was there collecting my bike & bags after 5150 race while Gustav was racking his bike and going out of T2): Gustav is certainly on his improving way. His run isn’t there yet and his race sharpness isn’t there yet either (made a few back & forth movements when looking for his bike rack and then went the wrong way through the AG bikes in T2). He didn’t look like he was determined to fight for positions.
It looks like he’ll validate the Kona slot with another 70.3 and then focus entirely on himself. I keep my fingers crossed.
The dude lost his mum this can have a big effect on people who are very close to their parents. Losing parents can be energy zapping and can also lead to losing passion for things which ultimately makes the difference between great and exceptional.
He has also had to deal with a Achilles issue which can be draining as well because it can one step forward two steps back with these things
Time is more then likely the biggest healer here