Latest / Easy Double podcast / Andreas Almgren: Breaking European Records & Medalling on the World Stage

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Andreas Almgren: Breaking European Records & Medalling on the World Stage · Easy Double podcast

• 0:02
  Yeah, lace them up another way. Another easy double.
• 0:32
  Hello and welcome back to the Easy Double podcast.
• 0:34
  I'm absolutely delighted to welcome one of the most
• 0:37
  decorated and versatile distance runners in the world right now.
• 0:40
  A Swedish icon right up there alongside Spangle and Ericsson
• 0:43
  and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. A2 time European record holder
• 0:47
  in the 5000 meters with 1244 and the half marathon in 5841.
• 0:53
  Former European record holder over 10K on the road, but three
• 0:57
  of the four fastest times ever by a European running 2645 not
• 1:01
  once, but twice. He's the Swedish national record
• 1:04
  holder for eight different events.
• 1:06
  Ten time national champion and in terms of major honours, he's
• 1:09
  the proud owner of a World Championship bronze medal from
• 1:12
  Tokyo last year. Welcome to the podcast, Andreas
• 1:15
  Almgren. Thank you very much.
• 1:18
  That was some introduction. Yeah, I didn't think I would get
• 1:22
  to finish. Maybe if we have this chat in
• 1:24
  another couple of years I'll still be going that.
• 1:28
  Was the first time I've ever been like, compared to slaughter
• 1:30
  in some kind of sentence so. That was big for me.
• 1:36
  Yeah, I was going to, I was going to do Mondo and I thought,
• 1:39
  no, it's too. We're already in the niche of
• 1:41
  athletics. We'll go outside of athletics.
• 1:46
  I'm happy about that. Well, I'm joined by Owen as
• 1:50
  well, and we're thrilled to have you on board.
• 1:52
  I know time is of the essence and I think Owen and I could
• 1:55
  probably sit here all day and pick your brains, so I'm sure
• 1:58
  it'll be a fun hour. Yeah, we'll see about that.
• 2:05
  And where are you dialling from right now?
• 2:07
  You're in Sweden, Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:09
  And then in Stockholm, in Sweden, and I'll be here for
• 2:13
  about a month, a little, a little less than a month now.
• 2:18
  Then I go back to altitude in Sierra Nevada to prepare for the
• 2:23
  upcoming track season. Yeah, so you've been there.
• 2:26
  Post the camp after cassion or straight from cassion.
• 2:33
  Yeah. So I wasn't Sierra Nevada before
• 2:36
  Castillon, then I had to cancel that camp a little bit early
• 2:43
  because I saw my back issues. So I went to Sweden, then to
• 2:47
  Castillon and then back to Sweden.
• 2:49
  So I've been here for the last few weeks and it's probably
• 2:54
  going quite well. Quite happy that it's not like
• 2:57
  -15° anymore. So it's quite enjoyable to run
• 3:02
  outside now. Does would the Swedish climate
• 3:05
  track quite closely to what happens in Norway, or could they
• 3:08
  be like, could it be a lot worse in Norway at the same time?
• 3:13
  I think it depends a lot on where you're staying.
• 3:17
  So Sweden, it's kind of like a long country.
• 3:20
  So if you're in the northern part, it's the winters can be
• 3:23
  quite horrible. Here in Stockholm is usually you
• 3:25
  get like a few weeks that can be pretty bad.
• 3:31
  I think in Norway's like if you're in the western part of it
• 3:34
  near the coast, it's more like not cold.
• 3:38
  So it's more like a chill climate.
• 3:40
  So usually not a lot, a lot of snow.
• 3:43
  So it varies quite a lot with you.
• 3:46
  It's never warm here during the winter, let's just say that.
• 3:51
  That's why you have to go and find the training.
• 3:53
  Well, yeah, go to the training camps where there's snow.
• 3:56
  Yeah, exactly. Feel like home?
• 3:59
  You mentioned you you're preparing for the upcoming track
• 4:04
  season. Will that be with a focus
• 4:05
  towards European outdoors? Yeah.
• 4:10
  So as you mentioned in the introduction, I got the bronze
• 4:13
  at the world's, but I've never had a medal at the Europeans.
• 4:16
  I've had four fourth places in four different events.
• 4:22
  So I was like 4 at the European in person 800 11 years ago and
• 4:28
  then I was 4th at the three 3K indoors last year.
• 4:32
  I was 4th at the 5K four years ago and four at the 10K two
• 4:38
  years ago. So I think it's time to step up
• 4:40
  on the podium there as well. So that's obviously the main
• 4:43
  focus this year. And will you be trying to double
• 4:47
  as well there or too early to say yes?
• 4:51
  It's a bit too early right now. I think I'm only going to go for
• 4:58
  the 10. Like I, I feel like the 10 is my
• 5:02
  my best event and at the Europeans 5K is before the 10K.
• 5:09
  So I I'd rather have a shot at the gold at the 10K than like
• 5:14
  going for two medals. But the European running scene
• 5:20
  is quite, quite good right now, so it's it's very hard to just
• 5:26
  just get a medal. There are a lot of guys who
• 5:29
  could run with sub 27 in a 10K so it's going to be a challenge
• 5:33
  to say the least. Yeah, I'm quite differing
• 5:37
  conditions compared to Tokyo when you'll be standing on the
• 5:40
  start line in Birmingham, UK. Yeah, watch the the leagues from
• 5:47
  there and remembering Kate said like let's say five years ago.
• 5:53
  Yeah, those collisions can be quite depressing.
• 5:56
  But it's it's good that I've heard Sweden, so I get used to
• 6:00
  it. Oh, OK.
• 6:04
  Well, usually we kind of on these interviews, we go back
• 6:07
  through people's journeys and stuff.
• 6:08
  But with you, I think it's 2025 is kind of like a massive
• 6:12
  standout year. So maybe we want to focus on
• 6:15
  that. But just before we get there,
• 6:17
  we'll do some quick fire questions if you're you're OK to
• 6:21
  give us some 5050 answers. Absolutely.
• 6:26
  The first one, Andres, is we know you're a big Namio man.
• 6:31
  Are you? Do you take Namio and bicarb or
• 6:33
  is it just one or the other? Are you talking about races now
• 6:38
  or workouts? Races, races.
• 6:40
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, both. Both.
• 6:42
  OK, nice, nice. But then in training you would
• 6:46
  just you've used non meal all the time and only use bicarb for
• 6:49
  the specific stuff. Yeah, so I used Gnomeo before
• 6:54
  like LT2 threshold work and above and then use bicarb for
• 6:59
  the more specific stuff and I really want to push it a bit
• 7:02
  higher. And your favorite?
• 7:06
  You go to post race mail if you've raced well.
• 7:14
  Probably pizza. Is it just simple?
• 7:18
  It's also it's like usually we race in the evening, so it's not
• 7:22
  a lot of places that are open. When you're finished with doping
• 7:26
  control and everything that's usually usually there's a pizza
• 7:28
  place that's open. So it's quite.
• 7:32
  Nice, now it's going to say so. Then you find yourself at the
• 7:37
  absolute peak performance like one of the best athletes in the
• 7:41
  world one minute and then half an hour later you sat there like
• 7:43
  anyone else, shoveling a slice of pizza down you.
• 7:46
  Exactly. It was quite fun two years ago
• 7:50
  at the 10. It's like what was it like 7
• 7:54
  guys running sub 27 and we started like 10 in the evening
• 8:00
  or something and then that's like 12:30 or something.
• 8:04
  It's just all the guys were in and out close.
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  So it's just like half the restaurant or like that's the
• 8:10
  place where people come in from a party like drunk or high and
• 8:14
  half of them were like world class on business runners.
• 8:17
  Runners just run some 27 at 10K. It's quite a quite a nice mix.
• 8:23
  We're two different worlds collide.
• 8:25
  Exactly. Outside of running, is there a
• 8:30
  team you like to do or like? You have a favorite sport
• 8:32
  outside of running. Football.
• 8:35
  So like, not American football. So European football, Soccer.
• 8:40
  Yeah. So I played football until I was
• 8:43
  80 years old. Wasn't the National Youth team.
• 8:50
  So when I was 18, can I have to choose between the sports?
• 8:54
  Like she was running for some reason.
• 8:57
  OK. So you're, you're not sort of
• 8:59
  like Jakob, who was a runner since he was like straight out
• 9:02
  of the womb. You sort of well, 18 is it?
• 9:05
  Is it late nowadays? Is it?
• 9:07
  Yeah, it's quite late, but it's like I was a runner at the same
• 9:10
  time. So I did like running and
• 9:13
  football you parallel. So like when I was 16 years old,
• 9:17
  I was at National Youth camps in football and I also run the
• 9:22
  national the the World Youth Championships in 800 meters like
• 9:27
  in 2011. So I was one of you guys to like
• 9:32
  parallel sports up until I was 18 years.
• 9:37
  Does that mean with the endurance stuff you're like a
• 9:40
  centre mid player? I was mostly a winger and like a
• 9:46
  like a wing back. So it's running like up and
• 9:48
  down. So during during those years, it
• 9:53
  was like Danny Elvis kind of guy.
• 9:58
  I wasn't maybe the best defender, but I I was fast.
• 10:01
  I could run up and down all the time.
• 10:03
  If someone ran past me, I could always get back to it.
• 10:07
  Must must have been an easy job for the midfielders.
• 10:10
  They just chip it in behind the defense knowing that you're
• 10:13
  going to beat the defender to it from like a 50 yard deficit.
• 10:17
  Exactly. They're like jokingly my team
• 10:19
  called me like the team bitch like where we tell Andreas to
• 10:22
  run. He'll he'll run.
• 10:28
  So then do you have a favorite Swedish team and or a Premier
• 10:32
  League team? Yeah.
• 10:34
  So the Swedish team obviously say OK, but I I guess you you
• 10:39
  don't really know about that. Like the Swedish Football League
• 10:42
  is not the best one. I think it's ranked like 20th in
• 10:45
  Europe or something, but Premier League team, I'm an Arsenal fan
• 10:52
  when I was young, when this player, Freddie Youngberg
• 10:55
  playing for them. So yeah, they kind of become my
• 11:00
  team. No recency bias towards Alex
• 11:04
  Alexandria is. I couldn't turn you into a
• 11:06
  Liverpool fan. No, no.
• 11:09
  But obviously I like Isaac. Yeah, he comes from the same,
• 11:13
  same club as me, AIK, but he's four years younger, so I never
• 11:17
  got a chance to play with him, unfortunately.
• 11:21
  That's. Cool footwear wise, are you a
• 11:26
  vaporfly or alpha type guy or alpha fly guy?
• 11:29
  Or do you mix both into your training?
• 11:32
  I use both, so it's just completely depends on on what
• 11:36
  I'm doing. For your for your 10K races.
• 11:42
  So in Valencia I did Vaporfly and in Casteon I did a
• 11:47
  development shoe. Yeah, I guess that's what I'm
• 11:52
  allowed to say. But it's been like earlier I've
• 12:00
  done like Vaporfly for 10K and when I did my half marathon,
• 12:05
  then afterfly and they usually like when I do treadmill stuff,
• 12:11
  I usually do alpha fly. When I do track stuff it's
• 12:14
  Vaporfly. So quite my big mix.
• 12:18
  Nice. What I was you can say whilst
• 12:21
  not breaking any rules about the development shoe, are you
• 12:25
  allowed to offer your opinion on what that development shoe may
• 12:28
  have felt like on 4th? I mean, obviously I like it, but
• 12:35
  it's a bit hard to say since I've had the issues before the
• 12:39
  race, so I didn't really get the best preparation.
• 12:41
  So my body didn't feel as good in Castillon as I did before
• 12:46
  Valencia. So it's quite hard to give an
• 12:48
  like, honest review of it. But yeah, it seems promising.
• 12:53
  Please. And did you go to university?
• 12:58
  Did you study? Yeah, So studying in Stockholm,
• 13:04
  so I have like two courses and a master's thesis from an
• 13:09
  engineer. So a bachelor's in industrial
• 13:13
  engineering and management and almost a master's degree in like
• 13:17
  applied mathematics. So optimization as systems
• 13:22
  theory. Do you have plan to go back to
• 13:25
  finish the master's after running or?
• 13:28
  Yeah, I think so. It's like it's nice to have it
• 13:32
  finished. But yeah, I took a break from it
• 13:36
  after the Olympics last year and since then I've basically had no
• 13:44
  problems. So no injuries and very few
• 13:50
  illnesses. So I think like I both studied
• 13:55
  and worked part time in parallel.
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  But now when I get the the recovery I need, I think I get
• 14:02
  the results. They're kind of desirable.
• 14:05
  So up until the LAMP last Olympics, you were training,
• 14:08
  working part time and studying. Yeah, so I ran.
• 14:13
  So in the middle of May in 2024, I ran sub 13 for the first time
• 14:20
  and then a little less than two weeks after that they had like
• 14:24
  finals. So I had a 5 hour math exam in
• 14:29
  applied non linear optimization and then two years two days
• 14:33
  after that I ran 1251 in Oslo down the league and during that
• 14:37
  time I also worked part time so. We really have to stop moaning,
• 14:44
  Ryan. We've no excuses.
• 14:48
  It's interesting that you come from that background because
• 14:50
  Owen, you would maybe be familiar with this.
• 14:53
  Our coach here, Raph, he loves working with engineers and
• 14:57
  accountants because he says that they're very like process
• 15:00
  orientated people. Like they don't get carried
• 15:03
  away, they just follow things. Everything's like kind of black
• 15:06
  and white. And yeah, so I guess it does
• 15:09
  lean towards being a good endurance athlete, doesn't.
• 15:13
  It, yeah, there's kind of like that one.
• 15:17
  Obviously after that period, I had some problems and which
• 15:22
  eventually led to a stress fracture, which mean I missed
• 15:25
  the Paris Olympics. But it was like after that, when
• 15:29
  I decided that, yeah, I'm not going to be able to run, I just
• 15:33
  brought up like 14th of September 2025 in a, in an Excel
• 15:39
  spreadsheet, select the date for the 10K in Tokyo.
• 15:42
  And then just like backwards engineering, what do I need to
• 15:44
  do to be able to perform at that date?
• 15:48
  So then I kind of like made the whole plan because at the follow
• 15:52
  the coming year, just to be able to be at my very best at that
• 15:55
  moment. So it's a lot of things like my
• 16:01
  mindset is always like, what can I do right now to be able to be
• 16:05
  better at that specific date when I want to perform.
• 16:10
  So process oriented orientated, that's that's a good word to
• 16:14
  describe me. And with the recovery, like how
• 16:18
  do you recover? Is it like just as simple as
• 16:21
  getting more sleep and eating the correct food?
• 16:23
  Or is there something that you've like added in that you
• 16:26
  find really benefits you're like recovering from the training?
• 16:33
  So a little bit, as mentioned with Big Noble Guy, I think I'm
• 16:39
  able to do a little bit more training while still recover
• 16:42
  using that. But then it's just getting more
• 16:47
  like quality recovery between workouts.
• 16:50
  I mean, to just be able to let lay down and not to do anything.
• 16:55
  Instead of just sitting down and doing some coding or doing math
• 17:01
  problems or whatever. I think I just get more like
• 17:06
  quality, quality recovery. And I think the major parts like
• 17:13
  I kind of like doing something in between, but deadlines is
• 17:17
  probably the things. The other thing that kind of
• 17:20
  ruins it for me when I had to deliver something in work or
• 17:24
  when I had to study for a final or something like that.
• 17:30
  So now that I can just purely focus on the running game, kind
• 17:35
  of like shut up my brain in between, I think that's the most
• 17:39
  important part. The stress, yeah.
• 17:44
  Yeah, get away from that as much as possible.
• 17:49
  With the no Mio, do you use it in the evening as well and on
• 17:52
  the really intense days? Yeah, so like if it's a really,
• 17:57
  really big day, I take it before I go to sleep as well.
• 18:03
  We had a funny story. Side note, Owen tried it for the
• 18:07
  first time and he thought the double dose where it's meant to
• 18:10
  be applied in the before the workout or race and then on the
• 18:13
  evening after for recovery Owen double dosed beforehand.
• 18:19
  So it was like before Irish national cross country and it
• 18:24
  was an absolute mud bath. So I was like our biggest race
• 18:27
  to the year. I'll double dose.
• 18:28
  I mean, now me. Oh and I'll be unbeatable and
• 18:32
  yeah I felt didn't feel the best but I've learned now.
• 18:36
  So I take it 3 hours before the race and then if it's hard after
• 18:39
  I just take it before bed as well because it does have that
• 18:41
  sort of recovery aspect as well. Yeah, exactly.
• 18:45
  No, I think like you should never really double dose
• 18:48
  anything. I have a friend who also works
• 18:52
  at Morton and he tried to double those like big Bicarp those just
• 18:56
  like for for science in the lab. So it wasn't the best choice.
• 19:05
  Wouldn't have been sunken in I. Don't know, I think they are in
• 19:10
  good terms now, but they were they were not friends for for a
• 19:13
  few weeks. I wanted to mention a couple of
• 19:19
  Swedish cultures or traditions to you which come up.
• 19:22
  So fika, is that like having a coffee and cake every day?
• 19:28
  Yeah, like coffee and some kind of pastry.
• 19:31
  Usually it's kind of like a snack after lunch, but it's it's
• 19:37
  really nice. We are, we are like a very into
• 19:44
  cinnamon bounce here in Sweden. So like coffee in a cinnamon
• 19:47
  bong. That's perfect stuff.
• 19:51
  Actually had one yesterday. That kind of leans nicely into
• 19:55
  running like the culture and community, doesn't it?
• 19:57
  Because often you'll go for a run, then you'll have a coffee
• 20:00
  afterwards with like the people who you've run with anyway, so
• 20:03
  it goes hand in hand. Yeah, Yeah, I really like that.
• 20:08
  Also like in kind of in cycling, you know, when they do like a
• 20:12
  coffee ride, easy ride and then stopping for a cafe and having
• 20:17
  coffee and some kind of pastry. That's kind of like the Swedish
• 20:22
  thing with the just you don't really do the the training
• 20:25
  before. And then another one that came
• 20:31
  up was like, I'm going to say this wrong.
• 20:33
  Free loft slip. Philips Live.
• 20:38
  Oh yeah, yeah. It's kind of like in Sweden we
• 20:43
  had this, this thing called Alemansthrt and I don't really
• 20:47
  know how to say it in English, but it's like all basically if
• 20:51
  it's used not in someone's garden, like all the forests and
• 20:55
  everything, it's just open for everyone.
• 20:58
  So Philips Live is kind of like outdoor life.
• 21:02
  So you can like do hiking, you can like bring a tent and just
• 21:06
  put it up in the forest. They go over and do yeah,
• 21:09
  identity. It's kind of like a big thing in
• 21:12
  Sweden. And also like cross country
• 21:15
  skiing and everything in the winter.
• 21:17
  So yeah, that's really nice. And the last, the last one was
• 21:22
  called lag on. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:26
  Lag on the kids just enough. So not too much, not too little.
• 21:31
  It's just like exactly what you need.
• 21:35
  And when I read that, I was thinking how perfectly it's kind
• 21:41
  of like almost a Moss. So for endurance training and
• 21:44
  thinking about like long term goals and stuff, like can you
• 21:48
  relate to that? Yeah, it's kind of like you
• 21:52
  shouldn't be too greedy. The important part for an
• 21:58
  endurance athletes obviously to be able to do this for many
• 22:01
  years and then you have to do long gone amount of training.
• 22:07
  That's for us. Yeah.
• 22:09
  And before we go to 2025, then just like kind of your
• 22:13
  background as a kid, you've touched on playing football or
• 22:17
  soccer for the Australians. TuneIn, At what point did it did
• 22:21
  any of your coaches ever say to you, like Andres, you probably
• 22:25
  better suited running or like, how did the transition occur?
• 22:28
  You touched on it. No.
• 22:32
  So no one really pushed me into any direction.
• 22:37
  I'd say I was very lucky to have the the coach I had in my
• 22:41
  football team because I think like usually in the like big
• 22:46
  team sports, they're usually like pulling you into their
• 22:49
  direction. But it was like if you're a fast
• 22:53
  runner, you're going to be a better football player.
• 22:57
  So I was allowed to go do my races, do my, do my training,
• 23:03
  and I was still allowed to play in the matches because obviously
• 23:07
  I was quite an ambitious kid, so I probably did a little bit too
• 23:13
  much during those years. That's kind of like why I had to
• 23:17
  choose when I was 18 because when I was 18, I had my like
• 23:22
  second stress reaction and stress, my first stress fracture
• 23:27
  when I was 16 years old because I did a bit too much.
• 23:33
  And then again when I was 18. And then I was like, no, now I
• 23:36
  had to choose. But I say I wasn't very support,
• 23:40
  supported from like both from the athletics or running
• 23:45
  community and from from my football team.
• 23:49
  I was, I was very lucky. So then I see even on your World
• 23:55
  Athletics, you've got like a 200 meter time on there, but I think
• 23:59
  at first you started with the 8 hundreds properly.
• 24:03
  Yeah, so I was kind of like a long sprinter, short min
• 24:08
  distance runner during my teenage years.
• 24:14
  So I tried and like when I was when I was really young, I did
• 24:20
  like everything. I think when I was 14 I did like
• 24:24
  a 12/15 triple jump or something.
• 24:28
  So I think I like a six or seven long jump when I was 15 or
• 24:34
  something. So I did a lot of those things.
• 24:38
  But yeah, when I was 16 I ran 100 and 200 in a race.
• 24:42
  So I think what is it like 1165 and 2288 or something?
• 24:48
  Yeah, I think the the 200 might be a little bit better. 20 to 80
• 24:54
  something, but yeah. Yeah.
• 24:57
  So that maybe if you isolate those two in themselves, that
• 25:01
  suggests straight away that you you have a bias to the distance.
• 25:05
  Yeah. I mean, I think I averaged about
• 25:07
  2 1/2 tenths of a second faster every 100 meter in the 200 race,
• 25:15
  or 2/10 faster. So I was like, yeah, I think I
• 25:20
  was like maybe 15 or 16 in my age group in Sweden in the, in
• 25:26
  the 100. And then like fifth or sixth in
• 25:28
  the 200. I was quite a clear number one
• 25:31
  in the 400 and I was like best in my age group with like 6 or 7
• 25:36
  seconds in 800. So what?
• 25:40
  What sort of time are you running over 800 when you first
• 25:43
  start? Then what?
• 25:44
  What's your first PB if you can remember?
• 25:47
  Oh, to 48, maybe to 40 something.
• 25:53
  That was when I was like 10 or 11 or something.
• 26:00
  I think I run some 2 for the first time when I was 14, I
• 26:06
  think. And then when I was 16 I joined
• 26:11
  11. I run 151 something in the in
• 26:16
  the world youths got to the semis.
• 26:20
  It was quite a big year. I mean for there was a Kenyan
• 26:25
  guy called Leonard Kirva Cosencia who won in like and
• 26:29
  this is the under eighteens, SO144-O5 I think.
• 26:34
  And then Mohammed Amman was second.
• 26:38
  Timothy Kitum got bronze at the Olympics year after he was third
• 26:43
  Hams and Ryush again. He was also been like in
• 26:45
  semifinals at worlds and Olympics was 4th and I July Amos
• 26:51
  was fifth. So it was quite a big year.
• 26:56
  Also basically Vasquez is like a fourth at the world
• 26:58
  championship. So it was kind of an eye opener
• 27:01
  for me how how good the rest of the guys were.
• 27:04
  And they're damn guys still running today.
• 27:07
  Like, I feel like I'm looking here.
• 27:08
  Your word, the Latics goes back to 2010, like 20 out of 2010.
• 27:12
  Yeah. Like, you've been running at
• 27:14
  such a high level for so long. And I feel like they're so
• 27:17
  you've so much more to go. Yeah, I don't really know.
• 27:22
  I think that Haggis Gibberwitz might have been at that the
• 27:28
  championship. Apart from that, I don't really
• 27:32
  know. A lot of guys are still there.
• 27:36
  But that's the thing, like for me it's I've climbed up in
• 27:39
  distances. I mean, it's quite a big
• 27:42
  difference running 800 meter half marathon.
• 27:48
  And at what point did it become apparent that you would go up
• 27:51
  the distances? Because I think even though you
• 27:53
  were racing so often, there's no 5K debut until 2021, is that
• 27:58
  right? Yeah, so I tried to do like 8
• 28:03
  and 15 up until 2019, but I still got so, so many injuries.
• 28:12
  I mean, I had a metatersol stress fracture, 2 stress
• 28:16
  reactions in my vehicular bone, a stress fracture in my
• 28:19
  vehicular bone, 2 tibial stress reactions, A femur stress
• 28:23
  reaction, a sacrum stress fracture, pelvic stress
• 28:27
  reaction. So it was like a lot of those
• 28:30
  things. And then in 2019, I had a
• 28:35
  Swedish running Fern called Caliberland who made it to the
• 28:38
  finals at the Doha World Championships in the 1500, and
• 28:42
  he had tried to do the double threshold Norwegian style
• 28:46
  training. And so I was home there in 2019
• 28:52
  doing rehab for my sacrum stress fracture.
• 28:56
  I was like, yeah, I'm going to try this and when I get back
• 29:00
  into running. So later that year started
• 29:05
  running again, trained for like two or three months with that
• 29:08
  new type of training, decided to skip indoors but just run our
• 29:13
  nationals in a 3K just to see for my fitness was that.
• 29:18
  So it was my first three key race ever and I run a national
• 29:22
  record in that race. So then I was like, OK, yeah,
• 29:26
  I'm probably going to have a bit better at the longer distance.
• 29:29
  So you said that you sort of switched to the double threshold
• 29:32
  in like 2019. Before that, was it just more of
• 29:36
  the traditional training, like training on a Tuesday, Thursday,
• 29:40
  Saturday, long run Sunday, or how did that look in your early
• 29:43
  years? Yeah, exactly like that.
• 29:45
  And not a lot of control in the workouts.
• 29:50
  It was like head to the wall in most of them.
• 29:54
  So I think my body can handle a lot of mileage, but it's it has
• 30:01
  a harder hard time handling like the intensity stuff.
• 30:07
  So I think that's also one thing that I that really clicked for
• 30:12
  me last year. How are they?
• 30:15
  You can better manage going from like mileage to intensity stuff
• 30:18
  and the recovery in between everything and do like a smooth
• 30:22
  transition from base training to race specific stuff.
• 30:26
  So it took some time to figure that out.
• 30:31
  What is actually your coaching setup?
• 30:33
  Do you have one singular coach and you do a lot of your
• 30:37
  training solo? Is that correct?
• 30:40
  Yeah, so I have the same coach as I had when I was an 800 guy.
• 30:49
  But I think like for all runners, it's kind of like you
• 30:53
  develop over time and realize and like figure out what works
• 30:57
  for you. So now he's kind of more of like
• 31:03
  a support person, someone I discussed the training with.
• 31:10
  So I kind of like write the program, but discuss certain
• 31:15
  stuff with him. And he gave me like some some
• 31:19
  valuable input for mostly when you come into the more race
• 31:22
  specific period. Because in the base training
• 31:24
  like every every day is like every week is basically the same
• 31:28
  anyways. And I think I'll say it's very
• 31:32
  important during especially than during the race specific stuff
• 31:35
  to make sure that I don't do too much.
• 31:37
  It's like, Andreas, we don't have to do this last interval.
• 31:41
  You've done enough now. And like, just like, yeah,
• 31:49
  question me. Like how are you feeling?
• 31:52
  So like actively think like, do I really need to do or do I
• 31:56
  really need to push, as we said, for this last Rep or this last
• 32:00
  few reps? So it's very valuable to me, but
• 32:04
  I kind of like write the program for me right now.
• 32:09
  And in what capacity is or was Jordan Donnelly in your corner?
• 32:17
  So he I can say it was kind of like a performance kind of
• 32:23
  helper. So especially like for Tokyo, we
• 32:28
  discussed a lot of like kick training since I've not been
• 32:33
  able to be able to, yeah, closed very well in slow races.
• 32:40
  And also a lot of heat training because, yeah, most of the guys,
• 32:49
  like everyone followed the Tokyo Olympics and realized how how
• 32:54
  hard that could hit with the heat.
• 32:57
  So we can like set up a very like good heat training program
• 33:04
  during like most of 2025 to make sure that I was really prepared
• 33:08
  for, for Tokyo and it seems to have turned out well for me.
• 33:15
  Because yeah, because in in transparency, I messaged him
• 33:19
  ahead of this and said can you leave a question, a question for
• 33:22
  Andreas? And he said ask him about fussy
• 33:25
  and also ask him how he does all of his training solo.
• 33:30
  What was the first one asking about?
• 33:34
  Football, we've kind of we've covered that, yeah, we we don't
• 33:38
  need to talk about his team Everton, because they're they're
• 33:41
  not too. I quite of like a good banter.
• 33:51
  No, but it's like since every type of training I do is
• 34:01
  supposed to be so controlled, I think it can be quite nice to do
• 34:05
  it so low to just make sure that you hit the right intensity.
• 34:11
  Like I know a lot of people like to ask me about how it is to
• 34:18
  train with Jacob since we did that not in like Sierra Nevada.
• 34:22
  And when you do like higher the threshold stuff, it can be quite
• 34:28
  challenging because it's so freaking good.
• 34:32
  So then you like just have to put your pride aside.
• 34:34
  And just like now I have to adjust my, my workouts, like if
• 34:38
  we're doing 6 hundreds, then after some time I need to step
• 34:41
  up, step down to five hundreds because otherwise my lactate
• 34:44
  just spikes. And so when you're doing it
• 34:46
  yourself or with just like a bike pacer, it's easier to find
• 34:51
  just the right intensity. And then you have to do like you
• 34:56
  can do like the social stuff, like outside of track, like
• 35:01
  yeah, after workouts. And sometimes I feel it's nice
• 35:06
  just to do like a warm up together with someone else.
• 35:08
  And if we're having different, different setups, it's kind of
• 35:13
  like where I'm in Sweden, there's not a lot of guys who
• 35:16
  could actually join me for, for the workouts.
• 35:20
  I mean like I did 5K reps before, before Malaysia half
• 35:27
  like my last fight. It was quite a hilly loop.
• 35:30
  I did the last one in like 1358 or something and my bike page
• 35:35
  and I was like how many other Swedish guys could do this?
• 35:38
  It's like one single all out Rep was like maybe one or two other
• 35:42
  guys. Would you have measured like low
• 35:46
  lactate on that as well or you out there?
• 35:50
  It was. It wasn't an all out, but I did
• 35:54
  an initial active for that one actually, but I would assume it
• 35:57
  was quite high. I didn't buy car before as well,
• 36:01
  so it would probably have been like 15 or something.
• 36:04
  But I can I can push really highlighted levels.
• 36:08
  I did a workout for European interest last year when I
• 36:11
  reached reached 24/7 my electric metering.
• 36:15
  So I think that's quite unusual for a long business runner.
• 36:20
  In that M5K session, in that 5K, how many 5K reps did you have?
• 36:25
  In that session, 4 by 5K with three minutes recovery in
• 36:29
  between. Yeah, So that's why I was quite
• 36:33
  confident going into balance. I had done some pretty good
• 36:38
  workouts before that. I mean for for most people maybe
• 36:43
  definitely recreational recreational runners, maybe even
• 36:46
  some sub elites. 4 by 5K is like a solid marathon workout, so
• 36:51
  you're not flat and on marathon territory there.
• 36:57
  No, it's definitely in the mindset for the future.
• 37:02
  But for me, it's like I've had so many injuries.
• 37:06
  So I've had I'm still haven't been on the start line at the
• 37:11
  track in Olympic Games. So like before, before Rio
• 37:15
  Olympics, I got a stress fracture in my navicular bone
• 37:17
  and had a surgery. Before Tokyo Olympics, I I had a
• 37:23
  tear in a meniscus. So surgery in the knee and then
• 37:26
  I'll be start out of that. And then in Paris, I got the
• 37:31
  stress fracture in my in my tibia.
• 37:34
  So I want to focus on the track up until Los Angeles to make
• 37:40
  sure that I can really just be on an Olympic track.
• 37:44
  And I feel like I have had more to give on the track as well.
• 37:52
  But I think like the transition for me going into marathon would
• 37:55
  probably be, I'm a quite naive now probably, but it would
• 38:00
  probably be easier than for most other like 5-10 K guys because I
• 38:04
  do so much mileage mileage already.
• 38:08
  I would probably have to do a little bit more of that like LT1
• 38:11
  stuff and hard long runs. But I think I'm like doing 200 K
• 38:16
  weeks already. I think I'm quite quite well set
• 38:20
  up. I I would have said that as
• 38:23
  well, but then perhaps this weekend gone was a reminder that
• 38:27
  you elite athletes aren't actually just robots.
• 38:30
  Like Grant Fisher's debut at the half.
• 38:33
  I thought he was going to run sub 60 easily and it just is a
• 38:36
  reminder that it's not every distance isn't the same as it.
• 38:41
  No, exactly. It's kind of like you always
• 38:43
  have to figure out like what type of training have you done
• 38:45
  and what are the bottlenecks for performance in that next type of
• 38:50
  stuff like next distance. And I think for marathons, like
• 38:56
  being able to do hard reps at the end of like a long period of
• 39:00
  work is probably like the, the thing that I'm missing right now
• 39:07
  because I'm, I've never really done a hard long run.
• 39:11
  And I mean, everything is relative.
• 39:16
  So I mean, I'm done like 30K in 335 pace, but it's like for me
• 39:22
  it's still relatively easy. I mean, it's like more than half
• 39:27
  a minute slower than I would actually do during a marathon.
• 39:33
  So I would probably need to do a lot of like hard and long run
• 39:38
  type of stuff, but it's like I don't really have to increase my
• 39:44
  mileage that much. Meaning it's not not like I need
• 39:49
  to go from 200 to 250 Ki think I'm still like already in kind
• 39:57
  of like the right mileage. So just need to like get the
• 40:03
  durability instead of like the anaerobic capacity that I have
• 40:06
  for the tracks. With you mentioned in there
• 40:10
  about that long run at like 335 being pretty comfortable pace
• 40:14
  and I've seen you do shake out. So like whatever it is, 3
• 40:17
  forties, 340 fives. What pace do you actually run on
• 40:21
  like literal easy day then? Do you still run those paces or
• 40:25
  a little bit slower? No, I'd say like probably
• 40:33
  somewhere between 3:50 and like 4 or 5 something.
• 40:37
  It's usually where I'm where I end up.
• 40:41
  So before my shake shakeouts, it's basically just that when I
• 40:47
  finally take right, it feels so easy.
• 40:50
  So I don't really look at the watch, I just go by feel and
• 40:52
  suddenly I'm done. Like running 335, but when I'm
• 40:58
  like in base training, like hard training period, I always also
• 41:04
  go by field and usually it's like you have the first K at
• 41:09
  4:25 or something in the second one at four or five, and then we
• 41:13
  just lying there somewhere between 4:00 and 3:50.
• 41:18
  And do you monitor your heart rate on runs?
• 41:22
  Like do you have like highway monitor when you're training?
• 41:26
  Yeah, I don't shake the heart rate a lot.
• 41:33
  Like near the easy runs, I don't check my heart rate that much.
• 41:37
  It's usually I shake it afterwards more.
• 41:40
  But sometimes it's like if I feel quite good and then I
• 41:43
  suddenly know that OK, now I'm running quite fast, then I
• 41:47
  usually shake my heart rate to see like, am I pushing it now or
• 41:50
  am I just having a good day? And also like I use it a lot
• 41:57
  when I do the heat training stuff because I do my heat
• 42:00
  training on easy days and I don't want my, I don't want to
• 42:05
  be in like threshold. So when I do those days.
• 42:07
  So then the heart rate is very important.
• 42:11
  So like on them easy runs like I do, like do you want your heart
• 42:16
  rate like below like a certain level, like 14130, whatever, or
• 42:21
  like what normally is it when you're just cruising on that
• 42:24
  like 4 minute kilometer pace? Yeah.
• 42:26
  So I don't have like the highest maximum heart rate.
• 42:30
  So I think I like my Max is somewhere just shy of 190 or
• 42:35
  something. So that's like every time I post
• 42:39
  erase that or something from a 10K, it's like, oh, it's just
• 42:43
  doing it in like 185. Yeah, but kind of like my Max.
• 42:49
  Yeah. So like when I do easy runs,
• 42:51
  it's like I don't really want it to be about 1:35, but like if
• 42:58
  it's like just an easy 10K, it's usually more like 125 ish.
• 43:04
  So when I do, but it's mostly when I do like long runs because
• 43:07
  you get into a flow when it's usually I just run a bit faster.
• 43:11
  Then I check it to make sure that I'm not like 143 ish.
• 43:15
  Obviously I can be in in an in a running uphill or or something,
• 43:21
  but just to make sure that I stay in reasonable, comfortable
• 43:26
  zone for most of it. This might be a hard and a long
• 43:33
  answer, but last year when you look at it on paper, you've run
• 43:37
  a European record 3 times, although you you only have two
• 43:40
  of them now. And you had you got the bronze
• 43:42
  medal in Tokyo. So there's obviously some clear
• 43:45
  peaks throughout the year there where you've kind of dialed
• 43:48
  training in. But obviously what underlies
• 43:51
  that is the training that happens all year round.
• 43:54
  You've built a base, you've got specific, you've reset and gone
• 43:57
  again. So can you, because I've heard
• 43:59
  you speak to it before, can you kind of walk us through some of
• 44:02
  the process and the planning and theory that goes into those
• 44:06
  training periods? Yeah.
• 44:08
  So first of all was like I plan to be to do my absent peak in
• 44:14
  Tokyo. I wasn't maybe at my best hanky
• 44:21
  shape there, but I knew that it was going to be a slow race
• 44:25
  since like Tokyo heat, everything, no one's really
• 44:29
  going to take it on. So I just tried to build as good
• 44:35
  of a base as possible for the like weeks leading into that and
• 44:39
  do a lot of like kick training pace changes and everything for
• 44:46
  the last like six weeks of the preparation.
• 44:52
  But just the beginning of the year was just building a base,
• 44:55
  just stacking weeks I think was like in the middle of October or
• 45:01
  something. I was completely back from my
• 45:03
  Olympic injury. So just stacking weeks in the
• 45:10
  beginning of like from October to the beginning of January
• 45:15
  until I did my first. Double threshold Tuesday What's
• 45:20
  how many times doing double threshold and stuff in a base
• 45:22
  period? So it's in double threshold on
• 45:25
  Tuesday, Thursday yields on Saturday, an easy threshold on
• 45:30
  Sunday evening as well. Then like 2 weeks or three weeks
• 45:38
  out of Valencia I think. Yeah, I started doing some race
• 45:40
  RIP stuff and obviously I ran my first European record, so it was
• 45:48
  a good start of the year. Then I continued to build and I
• 45:53
  just gradually decreased the intensity because I was already
• 45:58
  qualified for European indoors. And I just felt like it's good
• 46:01
  for me to get some like long distance championship practice
• 46:07
  because yeah, I'm, I've missed out on so many championships due
• 46:12
  to my injuries after the European Dorothy was like, now
• 46:18
  I'm going to focus on the stock on timely because yeah, I really
• 46:24
  want to do like a good performance on my own track.
• 46:28
  And I was once again just stacking weeks.
• 46:34
  So I I was around like 195 K per week or something during that
• 46:39
  period. And then just like was sincere
• 46:43
  Nevada for altitude training at that time.
• 46:47
  And then in the end of the camp in in May, I started to decrease
• 46:52
  the mileage, increase the intensity into more specific
• 46:55
  stuff just to prepare and just to just go for for the five
• 47:01
  killers Stockholm. And I felt during like a base
• 47:06
  training like, yeah, I'm fitter than ever now.
• 47:09
  And then I did some great prep stuff that was that were very
• 47:13
  good. One of the workouts went quite
• 47:16
  viral after the Stockholm, Stockholm race.
• 47:21
  And then just going into Stockholm was like, yes, I have
• 47:24
  my chance now. I'm in very good shape.
• 47:28
  I'm in control of the wave lights and Pacers and other
• 47:32
  things. It was like, now you're just
• 47:33
  going to go for the European record and see if I can manage
• 47:35
  it or not. And oh, I did.
• 47:41
  And to ask you about that, can I ask what the like?
• 47:47
  Often emotion stuff is overlooked and we just look at
• 47:50
  numbers and achievements and as what they are on paper.
• 47:53
  And like me myself, I struggled to speak about emotions.
• 47:56
  But what? What does it actually feel like
• 47:58
  running that European record on your home track in Stockholm?
• 48:04
  I was such an like insane 10 minutes because like during the
• 48:10
  4th or 5th left or something, Mondo broke the world record in
• 48:13
  the folds. So like the audience was, they
• 48:20
  were already like busing. And then when they realized that
• 48:25
  I was on track for the European record, it was just such an
• 48:27
  insane atmosphere. And like, I don't really have a
• 48:35
  lot of memories like from when I crossed the finish line.
• 48:38
  I'm like a few minutes after, but I know that like I just kind
• 48:44
  of like celebrated with with everyone there at the arena.
• 48:48
  Firstly, my my long term coach came there and just we hugged it
• 48:54
  out and then had some family and friends Understands.
• 48:57
  I want to understand that I want to and celebrate it with.
• 49:00
  And then I was just like, I remember when I was like 12
• 49:05
  years old going into to that meet, like watching all workers
• 49:11
  athletes. So I just felt like everyone
• 49:15
  who's here who wants a autograph or a selfie or anything to get
• 49:20
  it. So like my lack of honor to like
• 49:23
  1 1/2 hours. I think I just like slowly just
• 49:28
  went forward and like on the stands there was like 20m line
• 49:36
  like kids wanting the autoburst like then South eastern.
• 49:39
  So I guess like, enjoy. That's class.
• 49:43
  So is is the overwhelming feeling like relief or joy or?
• 49:49
  Oh, so it was mostly just joy. I mean, you can never like, it's
• 50:01
  not like I knew that knew that I would break, break the record.
• 50:08
  Kind of like in Valencia for the half marathon.
• 50:10
  It was like, I if I have a terrible day, I'm going to break
• 50:14
  it. If I have a good day, I'm going
• 50:16
  to crush it. So it's like, yeah, then I was
• 50:22
  in Valencia. I was more happy.
• 50:23
  It was like, yes, I did it. But in Stockholm was mostly just
• 50:29
  joy and yeah, everything took a lot a long time.
• 50:35
  And then like with the, it was quite hot there.
• 50:38
  It was like 27° or something during the race.
• 50:40
  And so I was quite dehydrated. So the doping control took quite
• 50:44
  a long time. But when I was like finally
• 50:48
  finished, I just jumped down to the hotel with, with Jordan on
• 50:53
  an electric scooter with my bag. So just like running through
• 50:56
  Stockholm during the like a summer evening, just like
• 50:59
  enjoying life. It was quite nice feeling and
• 51:02
  just trying to take everything in.
• 51:07
  But after that, it was mostly just focusing on on Tokyo,
• 51:14
  trying to continue to build a base and then going to the
• 51:17
  period when I did like all the championship started training.
• 51:24
  Just before you get to Tokyo you ran a 3K in August and you was
• 51:29
  like 731 and I can't remember what country it was and on.
• 51:35
  My home track in Stockholm. How was it?
• 51:38
  Yeah. The guy who was second Seth
• 51:40
  O'Donnell, is it true that you kind of help him with some like
• 51:43
  coaching or like bouncer ideas off each other now?
• 51:48
  It's not like I coach him in any kind of way, but during the
• 51:52
  cooldown there he asked me a lot of like my philosophy during
• 51:57
  training. And he sometimes message me ask
• 52:03
  me like when he wonders something and he had some
• 52:08
  questions about some kind of like maybe race specific stuff
• 52:10
  or something in the base training.
• 52:13
  He just asked me what I think about it and I'm quite open with
• 52:18
  my training. So I just share what I usually
• 52:21
  do and what I think. Thank you.
• 52:25
  I I'm being kind of like the go to guy to do the cool down with.
• 52:29
  A lot of people just go with me. I just ask you about training.
• 52:35
  Yeah, yeah, Like, I just want to slope off and just go and do my
• 52:38
  15 minutes and everyone's like peppering you with training
• 52:41
  advice. I think most people believe that
• 52:46
  I do like something like very scientific and like
• 52:51
  revolutionary and but I wouldn't say that it's something that's
• 52:57
  special. Like the philosophy just built
• 52:59
  such a good base that you can do a lot of very specific stuff
• 53:01
  when it matters. But like, I feel like like
• 53:06
  you're the first like non African to break the 59 minute
• 53:09
  barrier. You're literally like paving the
• 53:12
  way for like Europeans to like show it is possible to like up
• 53:17
  against these like East Africans and all.
• 53:19
  Like you're just like an idol in like distance running.
• 53:23
  So I I can see why people just, whenever they get a chance to
• 53:26
  like ask you a question because you literally are like paving
• 53:29
  the way for everyone. You're showing It's possible.
• 53:32
  Yeah, I feel so weird to be in that position.
• 53:35
  I still feel like I'm like always injured guy.
• 53:40
  But yeah, it's quite a nice position to be in.
• 53:46
  But it's basically, it's just, you say it's doing quite hard
• 53:52
  work for a long time. And obviously I'm quite
• 53:56
  talented. I mean, it would be nice says
• 54:01
  like, you know, it's only hard work everyone can get here.
• 54:03
  It's like, I think a lot of people are doing, yeah, at least
• 54:09
  what they think is the best train a lot train hard.
• 54:13
  They don't reach reach the level unfortunate enough to be able to
• 54:18
  both work hard and be talented too.
• 54:21
  So then I get the results. So then obviously when you get
• 54:26
  to Tokyo and all the focus is on the 10K, which is the race comes
• 54:30
  first and you was sticking to the rail when everyone was going
• 54:36
  crazy. Was that a deliberate thing to
• 54:37
  do or was that just lucky that you can just stayed there?
• 54:42
  No, I wanted to have to run as short as possible.
• 54:48
  I had obviously done a lot of heat training before so and
• 54:54
  during that heat training I deliberately stayed away from
• 54:57
  water for the 1st 30 minutes. So like I didn't need to go out
• 55:01
  to take water during the race because I felt comfortable
• 55:07
  during the whole time. And then when it was so slow, I
• 55:11
  just went into the front and just thinking like if it's so
• 55:15
  slow, it doesn't matter if I'm in the front or if I'm in the
• 55:19
  back end. If I'm in the front, like then I
• 55:20
  get a clear run and and the short run and then when it was
• 55:26
  like 600 meters to go or something.
• 55:28
  Then Paraga came up and when I realized someone was coming up
• 55:35
  next to me that I did a quick glance and I felt like it's
• 55:39
  Paraga, he's probably going to be there till the end.
• 55:42
  I can let him pass and take his back.
• 55:44
  If it was someone who I thought was like, this guy is not going
• 55:48
  to be able to be up there, I would have probably defended my
• 55:53
  lead, but I thought it was quite nice to kind of get a lead out
• 56:00
  as elastic celebrate. So the goal going into that race
• 56:06
  was the gold to medal and was strategy all around getting on
• 56:10
  the podium. I'd say that I want, I wanted to
• 56:16
  be in a position to go for the gold, but I was quite happy with
• 56:21
  the medal as well. But now I was like 25 hundredths
• 56:27
  of a seconds shy of the goal, 100th of a second per lap.
• 56:35
  So honestly, my first, like my first reaction passing the
• 56:43
  finished lining was fuck. And then I did like a quick
• 56:50
  glance to my right hand, so I thought I was just Jimmy and
• 56:54
  Jeremy ahead of me. I was like, OK, yeah, I got a
• 56:56
  medal at least. But the actual first is a
• 57:01
  reaction when I crossed the finish line.
• 57:03
  It was disappointment. And then I was like, like the
• 57:08
  happiness gradually came during the coming minutes.
• 57:13
  I'm quite good friends with Mohammed.
• 57:17
  So yeah, he came up to me and hugged me and it was like, man,
• 57:20
  we're so proud of you. And probably you were.
• 57:23
  You worked so hard for this. Just enjoy this moment now
• 57:26
  because yeah, you really deserve it.
• 57:29
  And then started to get like tear in my eyes.
• 57:32
  Like now I'm just going to enjoy having this metal around my my
• 57:36
  neck. And he's getting a tear in your
• 57:39
  eye. Quite a rare occurrence.
• 57:42
  Yeah, it's never, I had it after Valencia 10K, like the first
• 57:48
  European record. It's like shit, I made it here.
• 57:53
  But apart from that I've never really had been that emotional
• 57:57
  after a race. So yeah, it was obviously a very
• 58:02
  special moment for me. If it had been another fourth,
• 58:06
  it would have been a different kind of emotion, I'd say.
• 58:10
  Yeah, I mean, I've been like on the like just outside spot for
• 58:16
  so many times, like in in Budapest in the five Ki was 9th
• 58:21
  in my heat, 2 hundredths of a second after Narvaez got the 8th
• 58:26
  spot. So it's all of like that, yeah.
• 58:28
  First one out from the final and then after that 2 Spanish guys
• 58:36
  got to like a token ban. So I've been I've been in that
• 58:41
  4th or like just office but so many times.
• 58:43
  So it was nice to finally be be on the podium.
• 58:50
  So then do you celebrate immediately or you trying to
• 58:54
  stay switched on for the 5K And how hard is it to like stick to
• 58:58
  the plan during those couple of days between the races?
• 59:02
  Yeah, I tried to switch focus to to the 5K but I simply couldn't
• 59:08
  recover. I slept so bad the coming days
• 59:12
  and just was like, I wasn't drowning in messages, people
• 59:18
  reaching out to me, and other things.
• 59:19
  Like if I do the same thing in the future, I'm probably just
• 59:24
  going to shut off my phone. It was quite fun.
• 59:28
  It's like the the athlete cafeteria were was closed when
• 59:32
  we went back to the hotel. So like in like 2 or 3:00 in the
• 59:37
  morning, me and Jimmy Kiaz had a pizza together done in in
• 59:42
  restaurants at the hotel. So it was quite a nice moment
• 59:47
  having both of us there, like celebrating another and pizza
• 59:52
  together. Where's Jimmy?
• 59:53
  Is he like partying by this point or something?
• 59:57
  I I don't think so. It's kind of like there's
• 1:00:02
  there's a guy who's like Swedish Ethiopian manager, so both of us
• 1:00:09
  know he was like, oh, just you should come with us.
• 1:00:11
  Come, come, we have pizza. Yeah, sure.
• 1:00:14
  And I guess like if Jimmy was partying, I think I need to do
• 1:00:18
  the partying as well since he got a medal of the 5K should be
• 1:00:24
  the best preparation. Well, congratulations on on the
• 1:00:31
  medal anyway. We, as I'm sure you felt through
• 1:00:35
  all the messages and social media, everyone was so happy for
• 1:00:38
  you and yeah, great results. Yeah, I mean, it was actually
• 1:00:42
  the first Swedish like male Mandel ever in running at the
• 1:00:50
  World Championships. So yeah, it was.
• 1:00:54
  It was quite big here in Sweden. As well do you, do you feel that
• 1:01:00
  when you come back to Sweden the next time?
• 1:01:04
  Yeah, I mean, it was like night and day before and after.
• 1:01:09
  Suddenly I was stopped in the streets in Stockholm.
• 1:01:11
  That had never happened before. And it's like, as you said, it's
• 1:01:20
  not just in Sweden now. It's like all around Europe,
• 1:01:24
  like I'm in a training campaign, Sierra Nevada, the same where
• 1:01:29
  it's like kids coming up to me and yeah, if I if I'm at a track
• 1:01:37
  somewhere, it's like always someone coming up to me wanting
• 1:01:39
  to take a photo. So it's quite a huge difference
• 1:01:45
  for me now compared to what it was a few years ago.
• 1:01:51
  That's crazy. And then you you burn the year
• 1:01:54
  didn't stop there when make you go into it anymore, but then you
• 1:01:58
  still went on and ran the European record and over the
• 1:02:01
  half marathon later in October. So the question being, did you
• 1:02:05
  just use all of the fitness and the shape from Tokyo and kind of
• 1:02:09
  like stay on it rather than back off and go again?
• 1:02:14
  Yeah. So I knew that I was like very
• 1:02:16
  anaerobic if it's coming into Tokyo and having done like all
• 1:02:22
  the speed work. So I felt like now I have 5
• 1:02:26
  weeks. So everything I really need to
• 1:02:28
  do is just do a lot of threshold now to get that back up to like
• 1:02:37
  good levels again and done some more half marathon race specific
• 1:02:44
  stuff. So those like 5K reps So I did
• 1:02:49
  like 3 by 5K the first week and then four by 5K for two weeks.
• 1:02:55
  And apart from that, I just did like the double threshold stuff
• 1:03:01
  was actually better than ever coming into Valencia, like in a,
• 1:03:06
  in a threshold, threshold region.
• 1:03:08
  I didn't really think I should be able to like improve it that
• 1:03:16
  much. But like I did 12 by 1 K like 10
• 1:03:21
  days before in like threshold efforts averaging 243.
• 1:03:26
  So I was like, OK, yeah, I'm going to run well here.
• 1:03:31
  It's like running the second Rep in 241.
• 1:03:33
  I was like, OK, I should probably back down a little bit
• 1:03:35
  now that. Is wild.
• 1:03:38
  Yeah, yeah. When you're in that shape, it
• 1:03:42
  just, it feels so weird. Like everything just feels so
• 1:03:45
  easy. You get kind of shocked.
• 1:03:48
  It's like you're feeling your wrap.
• 1:03:50
  Just look at your watch and it goes like oh shit.
• 1:03:54
  Because it genuinely feels so good as well.
• 1:03:58
  Yeah, it's like, I'm probably going to do like 246 when you
• 1:04:02
  don't check the watch during the wrap and it's like, OK, I left 5
• 1:04:06
  seconds too fast, too quick. It's weird.
• 1:04:14
  And last question about a race, because I know you can't, were
• 1:04:18
  probably over the deadline already with Valencia in January
• 1:04:22
  this year where again you run a European record in the 10K.
• 1:04:27
  Did you think the finish was sooner than what it actually
• 1:04:30
  was? No, it's kind of like a
• 1:04:33
  misconception that a lot of people have.
• 1:04:36
  It was the third time I run Valencia, so.
• 1:04:38
  So I knew that there are like a lot of recall them.
• 1:04:44
  Yeah, a lot of things like that looks like a finish line ahead
• 1:04:47
  of it. The thing that confused me was
• 1:04:49
  like there was like an official standing in the middle of the
• 1:04:55
  street, like waving like hell to the left.
• 1:04:59
  So he's still his left, my right.
• 1:05:01
  Like you want me to turn here? What?
• 1:05:04
  Like what? But he was like waiting for the
• 1:05:07
  motorcycles, like here you're going in here so.
• 1:05:11
  So like when you're full of lipstick, you don't really like
• 1:05:18
  think a lot. So it's like obviously I always
• 1:05:21
  just kind of keep running because I knew the finish line
• 1:05:23
  was like ahead of me, but I was like, what what the fuck are
• 1:05:27
  you? Why are you waving?
• 1:05:31
  Do you want me to turn? It's like, of course you don't
• 1:05:39
  like I, I have a screenshot that I sent to actually an Australian
• 1:05:44
  plan from Luke Matthews and you can see him standing like this
• 1:05:51
  with your hands going out like, oh, so it was a bit confusing.
• 1:05:59
  But like the first time I ran Valencia, I actually believe
• 1:06:03
  that the finish line was a lot earlier.
• 1:06:06
  So those last like 152mm, they were really painful.
• 1:06:11
  So I ran Valencia for the first time this year as well, and that
• 1:06:14
  caught me. I seen the first time, I was
• 1:06:16
  like, all right, I'm nearly there.
• 1:06:17
  I'm nearly there. And then you see people keep on
• 1:06:20
  going. You're like, no, just hang on
• 1:06:22
  for a little bit more. The trick is to to look at like
• 1:06:26
  the opposite streets where the starting line is.
• 1:06:30
  So you see like the barriers where we're starting because the
• 1:06:33
  start and finish are mixed with each other.
• 1:06:35
  So you look at that time and see which one is the real finish
• 1:06:38
  line. Yeah, I'm just looking down at
• 1:06:47
  my list of questions. I think we've kind of covered
• 1:06:49
  everything that I I had noted. Did you have anything you wanted
• 1:06:52
  to go into and? I'm actually, I've won just it's
• 1:06:57
  just a sort of relevant for running.
• 1:06:58
  But like how do you do you switch off from running?
• 1:07:01
  Because like I know like I every decision, I'm not that good at
• 1:07:06
  running, but every decision I make, I sort of focus it around
• 1:07:09
  running. I feel like everything I do is
• 1:07:10
  geared towards my running and I don't know if that's good.
• 1:07:13
  Well, it probably is good in a way, but it's sort of bad
• 1:07:15
  because I'm always like running, running, running.
• 1:07:18
  Do you find yourself like that or how do you like switch off?
• 1:07:23
  Umm, it's kind of like a habit like in my backbone bone, what's
• 1:07:29
  like good for running and what's not good.
• 1:07:34
  So I obviously sometimes switch off thinking about running, but
• 1:07:41
  I kind of know like I don't do things that like obviously bad
• 1:07:46
  for it. So it's like I can go out and
• 1:07:49
  have dinner with my friends and everything, but then I make sure
• 1:07:53
  that I don't have a tough workout the day after.
• 1:07:55
  So it's like just just like shooting my battles at the right
• 1:08:00
  time. And then like in Valencia half
• 1:08:05
  when I knew it was the last race of my season, I had a couple of
• 1:08:08
  friends there. So just basically just when I
• 1:08:11
  finished the the race, they were standing there with champagne
• 1:08:15
  just pouring it over me. And then we had like a really
• 1:08:18
  nice night out there. So it's like, I think like it's
• 1:08:26
  hard to be completely switched on all the time.
• 1:08:30
  And I don't really think that's healthy for a long period of
• 1:08:34
  time. Like if you want to be good at
• 1:08:35
  running, you need to do it for like 10 years at least.
• 1:08:39
  And I think it's easier to do it if you're doing everything at
• 1:08:42
  like 98% or 97%. If you do it's 100% all the
• 1:08:47
  time, it's probably going to burn you out.
• 1:08:52
  Then it's like for me, I, I kind of enjoy this life lifestyle.
• 1:08:56
  So it's not, it's not too bad for me, but sometimes you
• 1:09:03
  obviously have to be a bit picky.
• 1:09:05
  I really like like hanging out at a bar and having like 3 or 4
• 1:09:09
  beers, but I know that my sleep is going to be so bad after
• 1:09:11
  that. So and let's keep it during
• 1:09:15
  during most of the year of. Course.
• 1:09:18
  Thank you. Last, last question from me with
• 1:09:24
  obviously I'm English. Owen is Irish and the other host
• 1:09:28
  we have, Dean is Australian. So our listeners are kind of
• 1:09:31
  like attached to those three countries.
• 1:09:33
  So obviously we know you're racing in the United Kingdom for
• 1:09:37
  European outdoors. Hopefully.
• 1:09:39
  Is there any chance you'll race in Ireland or Australia in the
• 1:09:42
  future? I don't really know about
• 1:09:49
  Ireland. There's not much air, man.
• 1:09:53
  There's not much air. What's there like the European
• 1:09:56
  cross country a few years ago, but we'll see how how long I
• 1:10:03
  managed to stay in running. But in obviously at the Olympics
• 1:10:08
  in Australia after LA could be a marathon there.
• 1:10:12
  And if I do the transition to marathon, you obviously have a
• 1:10:17
  major now as well with Sydney. So I think it would probably be
• 1:10:24
  one of those two options for Australia.
• 1:10:28
  We see. I think like for me, I right now
• 1:10:33
  usually focus on the roads during the winter, otherwise it
• 1:10:36
  wouldn't be nice to do like a training camp in Australia and
• 1:10:38
  then do some continental tour goals meets there.
• 1:10:44
  I think that's behind me now. It's, it's definitely doable
• 1:10:49
  because when was it like 2024 Jake Whiteman came out with a
• 1:10:53
  couple of his training partners and have like a a European
• 1:10:57
  winter, Australian summer season race some track and there are
• 1:11:01
  some like bronze level, maybe even silver level meets out
• 1:11:04
  here. So yeah.
• 1:11:06
  Isn't it again like a gold label now like in in March or
• 1:11:10
  something? Yeah, Marie Plant might be in
• 1:11:14
  Melbourne. It's coming up.
• 1:11:16
  Yeah, yeah. But Jake didn't have a very good
• 1:11:22
  Olympic year there. In Paris as well, so.
• 1:11:25
  Maybe not the best preparation. Now we're like doing a false
• 1:11:32
  creak and then going down and racing.
• 1:11:34
  At least that's obviously something that would be would be
• 1:11:38
  possible. All right, well, we shall let
• 1:11:43
  you go. Thank you so much for giving us
• 1:11:44
  your time and being so transparent.
• 1:11:46
  It's it's very fun to talk to you.
• 1:11:50
  Worse, it's. Always nice to postpone the
• 1:11:52
  training a little bit. Thanks, Andreas.
• 1:11:55
  You're paving the way for Europeans.
• 1:11:57
  Thank you very much and I appreciate you coming on.
• 1:12:00
  Thank you for having me. See ya.
• 1:12:04
  Great. Big dreams but we take it slow.
• 1:12:07
  If you know then you know the code.
• 1:12:09
  Easy pace for the chat goes hard.
• 1:12:12
  Easy double let it roll. 3 mates 1M1 come and go from 5 tapes to
• 1:12:16
  the marathon Rd. training talk to the outro closes Easy easy
• 1:12:19
  double every week. Runners talking way too deep
• 1:12:23
  here. Play lock in your part of the
• 1:12:24
  crew. This is easy double, welcome to
• 1:12:26
  you. This is easy double welcome to
• 1:12:34
  you. This is easy double.
• 1:12:42
  Welcome to you on shoes and carbon plates.
• 1:12:44
  Is it threshold or just steady pace?
• 1:12:46
  World champs trials, Who's in shape, who's peaking early,
• 1:12:49
  who's late to the gate? Stories from sessions that
• 1:12:51
  nearly broke us and races that taught us patients and focus.
• 1:12:54
  Serious goals. But we keep it light cause run
• 1:12:56
  is better when it's shed, right? No egos, no smoke, just miles
• 1:12:59
  and truth from club runners up to the world class music.
• 1:13:02
  You're chasing times, you're just chasing fun.
• 1:13:04
  You're already winning if you started the run.
• 1:13:10
  Easy double right there, running alongside you.
• 1:13:14
  Easy double. Same old crew.
• 1:13:16
  Deanie joined Ryan's walking the dude from the first warm up to
• 1:13:18
  the final bell. This is easy double, and you're
• 1:13:21
  doing it well. This is easy double.
• 1:13:28
  Welcome to you. You're doing it well.
• 1:13:40
  Brain enough. Check.
• 1:13:44
  Go. Run.