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#052_ The Worlds Greatest Winter Olympian Shares What Makes Him the Bes. · INSPIRE STORY

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The amount of energy expenditure that is required for you
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: to do that has to be insane.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: I saw the video myself and I was like, that
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: looks pretty good.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: 13-time Olympic medalist, 11 gold medals, the most gold medals
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: won at a single Winter Olympics. most career gold medals
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: won by any winter Olympic athlete. Like it's insane what
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: you've accomplished.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I always had this mindset where I hate to lose.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: The feeling of winning a race is amazing. The feeling
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: of becoming second is so much worse. It is a
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: mental game. You are saying that, okay, we just go
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: over the next hill, the next hill. And then you
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: just continue to trick your head to just move a
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: little bit more.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: So a thousand hours of training, what does it look like?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Two and a half hours of.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, really? Oh, interesting. You're very much known as somebody
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: who's modernized your sport and brought it into 2026, which
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in the United States is, you know, it's a relatively
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: obscure sport. I would say that most people had almost,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: at least in the United States, like had very little
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: connection with this sport until they saw you essentially running
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: uphill in your skis at 10.3 miles an hour at
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: sub six minute pace. And just minds were blown when
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: that viral moment occurred. And that has probably done more
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: for the just awareness of the sport than anybody has
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: done in the last 30 or 40 years.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: That's probably true. And I think it's good that people
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: can actually see when you actually put in numbers on it,
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: you know, when you see like there is, cause we
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: are having kilometers per hour, but then you see like, okay,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: it's 18.2 kilometers per hour in the uphills. You see
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the incline just for people to understand and get to,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: get to know it a little bit more. Uh, cause
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: then it's easier for people to, to really understand how,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: how fast we are running those hills. Um, but yeah, I,
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: It was a cool moment to see that so many
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: people were paying attention to what we were doing. I mean,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: cross country skiing has always been a really small sport,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: but it's getting bigger. And I think that what has
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: been my goal is to tell people and try to
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: show people how healthy of a sport cross country skiing
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: is because you're using your legs, you're using your upper body,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and then you're also working your endurance. And those three
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: things you're Working out at the same time when you're
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: out there and it also is really, really low risk
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: of getting injured. Like in terms of when you're running
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: or biking or whatever, it's like, there is not that
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: many sports that are doing upper body, lower body and
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: endurance at the same time. And, um, swimming, swimming would
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: probably be the closest comp. That's probably the closest one.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: And I think. those two sports or in general sport
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: like that is it's really efficient for people to stay
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: in good shape and staying healthy. And what we see
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: over the last years is that, uh, people are paying
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: more attention to their health, trying to, uh, do the
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: right workouts, uh, eat the right things and stuff like that,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: which I, which I think is really cool. Cause I
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: think we are in a, it's a more healthier. way
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: we are doing things these days than we did before.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: There's this sense within the endurance community. If you're an
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: endurance athlete, it's one thing to be a runner or triathlete,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: one of these kind of sports. But the sport that
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: commands the most amount of respect among the people who
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: are steeped in endurance is cross country skiing. They're like,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that's where the fittest people in the world are. Like the,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: it's a different breed, like the degree of endurance and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: strength and agility that is demanded in order to be
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: at an elite level in this sport is incomparable to
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: any other endurance pursuit. Like it is like the, you know,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: kind of apex predator of fitness. And I want to,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I want you to like, kind of explain like the
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: rigor of this sport that you dominate. Like what goes
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: into being able to compete at the highest level in
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: cross country skiing?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think there is, uh, there's a lot of
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: factors that are, are important, but, uh, um, one thing
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: is you definitely need to have like the VO two max,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: like the VO two is, is important because you are, uh,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: we're doing so many up and downs in terms of
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: like a race it's say it's a 10k race it's
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: basically 22 minutes of full speed from start to finish
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of uphills a lot of downhills but
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: it's at the end the vo2 max needs to be
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: so high that you're able to uh if you're going
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: to perform at the highest level and then another aspect
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: of it is is the technical part um And I
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: think that is, uh, important in a lot of sports. Uh,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: and I think it is as important in, in cross
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: country skiing as it is in so many other sports.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Cause it's just, uh, it's important to have the right
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: technique in the right type of terrain, the right type
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: of hills, you know, cause if the hill is 5% incline,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: you need to use this kind of technique, but when
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: it's six, it's a little bit different and that changes
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: from seconds to seconds. So it's, it's really a hard
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: balance to find the right, um, technical part, every single
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: part of the, of the track. And then I also
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: think that just being well, uh, just having the endurance to,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: to be able to race over in, in the cold air,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: but also like, like we do, it's a race weekend
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: for me can be everything from. 1.3 kilometers which is
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: uh yeah i don't know how long it is in
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: miles but it's.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Probably just less than a mile or yeah just under yeah.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Just under a mile and then we have like the
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: 50k which is like two hours of racing and the
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: other the sprint is just below three minutes yeah and
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: then you have like everything in between there meaning you
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: need to have those fast muscle fibers to be able
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: to to perform in the sprints, but you also need
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: the endurance to be able to perform on a 50K.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And I think that's kind of the beauty of the sport,
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: which for me has always been the trigger to be
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: able to do everything.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So for people that are unfamiliar with Johannes, let's
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: just catch people up here. 13 time Olympic medalist, 11
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: gold medals. You hold the record for the most gold
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: medals won at a single winter Olympics. most career gold
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: medals won by enter any winter Olympic athlete. Like it's
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: insane what you've accomplished. And I think just as equally
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: impressive is the fact that you're winning at the sprint
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: distances all the way up to the 50 K. So
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the equivalent would be somebody who's winning the gold medal
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: in the 400 meters on the track. And then also
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: like winning the marathon, like it's just, it's, it's inconceivable.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: So how are you, able to have such agility and
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: dexterity to be able to be dominant in both the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: sprint distances and the longest races available all the way
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: up to the 50 K. I mean, it's just mind blowing.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think, I think it has been, it's
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: been a goal of mine since I was, it was
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: really young. And, uh, my granddad is my, my coach
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: and he's 82 years old now. Uh, and he has
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: always been my coach since I was. Yeah, he was
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: the one picking me up from school, bringing me to training,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: to practice. We were in the weekends, we went out
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: for skiing sessions every single weekend during the winter. So
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: he has been a huge part of my success. But
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: I would say that I think one of the key
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: factors is that we started with the goal of winning
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: a sprint race. That was where we started because we
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: saw that When I was 18, 19 years old, we
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: figured out that, okay, it's quicker for me to become
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: good in sprint than it is to become good in
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: distance skiing. So we decided to put some extra focus
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: on the sprint part when I was 17, 18, 19
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: years old. And when I then became a senior and
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: was able to race the World Cup, we were able
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: to perform in sprint from day one. And When we
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: were able to train a thousand hours, which is kind
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: of the limit for us, it's then we decided that
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: we're gonna start shifting the focus from sprint to distance.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: And that was about when I was 20. So we
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: slowly changed the focus a little bit more from sprint
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: specific training to more, uh, distance training. So we added
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: altitude training. We added. A lot more longer sessions, like
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: a normal sprint week for me would be like previous
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: was probably say between 18 and 21 hours. Now we
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: are doing more like if we're doing 21 hours, it's
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: a low week. yeah now we are more closer to
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: between 25 and 30 more or less averaging that the
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: whole year so we have kind of and we have
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: shift the focus in terms of just having more longer
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: sessions three hour sessions more or less every day just
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: to build that endurance over time and i think that's
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: has showed that it is actually possible to, to keep
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: the sprints part, but we also have developed, uh, the
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: distance part. So we now are able to, to do
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: both more or less.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: It's smart.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: It's patient and. It's the right way to do it
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: because you can, if you're fast and you have your
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: technique down with speed, you can always build endurance over time.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And you have plenty of years to do that. And
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: by taking your time and incrementally moving up and extending
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: those distances while maintaining your speed, that's a really smart
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: way to do it. You can't do it the other
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: way around. You can't specialize in the long distance and
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: then expect to develop speed later.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: No, because I think what we have seen over the
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: years is that you're getting slower by the age, you know,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: and that was important for me to use that momentum
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I had when I was 18, 19 years old, build
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the right technique, build the right strength to be able
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: to be quick and fast, and then shifted a little
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: bit more endurance, but then maintain the sprint parts more
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: than doing the opposite way, because then you are, it is,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: it is hard to, to work against that. You're actually
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: becoming older. And I think, uh, I think for me,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: that's so now I feel like these days I need
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: to have a little bit more focused on the sprint parts,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: just a few sessions here and there where I actually.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Need to maintain it a little bit better because. You
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: can feel like you're getting a little bit slower by
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: just getting older and older and older. So we're still
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: not in that time where we are too old to
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: do sprints, but it's a shift kind of coming around 32,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: 33 years old where you see that that is actually
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: really difficult.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there are other athletes in your sport that
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: have approached it in this same way. So this still
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't explain why you're so much better. Like it's a
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: rational approach, like a really good, like long-term approach to
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: excellence in your sport, but I'm sure there are other
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: people that are doing the same thing.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: That's probably true.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to get you, I want you to articulate,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I want you to say out loud, the quiet part
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: out loud, why are you so much better? What is
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the differentiator?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to It is really hard to say,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: cause I feel like there's so many athletes that are
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: doing the right things, but, um, I feel like I've
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: always had this. I always had this mindset where I, uh,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I hate to lose that much. I mean, I feel
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: like it's almost the feeling of winning a race is amazing,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: but it's just the feeling of becoming second. It's so
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: much worse. Is it because.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: You feel like you're letting yourself down? Is it in
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: an internal motivation or is it because you lost to
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: somebody else? No, it is.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: I always like to say that I'm, I'm raising against myself.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: It's always been about me and what I can do
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: against my own kind of head. Cause I feel like
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: when I'm raising a 50 K it's, it is a
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: mental game. You know, it is, it is about yourself
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: and how you are try or how you're able to,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: to trick your head in the way that you're saying that, okay,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: we just go over the next hill, the next hill.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: And then you just continue to trick your head to
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: just move a little bit more. And at the end,
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: you're crossing the finish line. And then you kind of,
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: if you did everything right, you're crossing it first. But
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: if you, if you are not able to, to trick
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: your head enough, that's like what I say to myself,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I feel like that's where I, where I let myself down.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: So For me, it's always been about myself and how
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I can play this game against myself. And that's kind
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: of the, for me, that's always what has been the trigger.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: You hate to lose more than anybody else.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: I feel like that.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: This is your answer.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: And it is like that. It's always been like that.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was like that when I was playing
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: soccer as well as a young kid, you know. It
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: was that when I, it's almost like that when we are,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: in the cabin with my family, just playing cards. You know,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: I just have that when it is a competition, when
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: there is something on the line, I feel like I
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: just love to life or death. It seems like that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: What's interesting about that is, is. It's not the story
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: most people might imagine. Yes, your grandfather has always been there. Yes,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: your mother was also a skier. Your grandfather gave you
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: your first pair of skis when you were like two
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: years old. But it wasn't like now I'm on the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: skis and it's just this clean path to success. excellence
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: without obstacles. I mean, you were pretty average, uh, in
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: your younger years. Like I read up on, you know,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the experience of you being in sports at around age
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: 14 and you were much smaller than everybody. There was no,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: there was a, there was a sense that you had
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: some athletic gifts, but you were pretty average in every regard.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I started out quite well when I
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: was really young. And then, uh, in Norway, we don't
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: have like the, um, we don't take the time on
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: the kids when they are racing until they are at
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: least 10, I think. So, but cause you are starting
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: going to practices, practices when you are like five, six
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: years old. That was when I started as well. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: then from five, six until 10, you, we don't take,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: we take the time, but you don't, you put it
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: in a random, random numbers. You don't kind of have.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: The one standing on the first of the result list
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: is not the one who was winning the race. That
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: was kind of randomized every single weekend when you, when
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: you were racing. And I think, uh, at that time
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: I was always, I was always looking at the time,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: like how, how did I do compared to my friends
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and everyone else? But, uh, when, when we became 14,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I was like, people started growing up a little bit more.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I was still really, really small. And, uh, Then it
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, double polling against a man. It was
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: a kid against a man, you know, it was huge differences.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: So I was in just my local area where we
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: were probably like 40 people racing. And I was probably
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: just around 20, just in the middle.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: How did that work with your hatred of losing?
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: No, it was, it was terrible. My mom always told
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: me every single week, like. Okay, we need to find
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: something else to do. Like this is not gonna, can't continue.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: But then we, I think I, together with my grandma,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: we find a way to, or we found a way
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: to work or look into what we could do. What
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: can I do to become better? Because at some point
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: I will start growing up a little bit more. So
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: we decided, okay, we're going to focus on the things
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: we can do something about, which is my technique. I can't,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: anything about that i'm small so we just need to
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: wait and that was when we started really focusing on
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: the technique like how are we double poling um the
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: running like all the things we are doing these days
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: and the balance on the skis has been the key
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: factor to to my success i would say and that
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: was something we developed from i was 14 until i
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: was 17 when I finally started growing a little bit more.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: At 15, you announced that you were going to be
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the best or you had set this goal for yourself,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: even though at age 14, there was no indication that
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that was a possibility. But there's some interesting things that
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: occurred around that time. First of all, it's set against
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: this cultural backdrop that much has been written about and
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: talked about recently. Like what's going on with Norway? Like
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Norway is just having this moment. Like look at the
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: exceptionalism that we're seeing at the Olympic level. We saw
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: it in the world cup over the past couple of weeks.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: We've got you, we've got Ingebrigtsen, we've got, you know,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Gustav and Christian in triathlon. Like we're just seeing just
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: such an outsized, um, series of, of exceptional, uh, athletes
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: like yourself that, is hard for the American brain to
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: make sense of like, how is this happening? And then
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: when you understand like, oh, they don't keep score until
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: they're 13, they have this whole different culture around winning
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and losing. And now like that's become almost a test
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: case for parents in youth sports, like how to do
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: this correctly, which I think is super interesting. And within that,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: you had a coach who came up with a whole
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: set of challenges for people like yourself, the Runes Challenge.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: think it's super interesting.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah, so so my coach at
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: that time was, um, his goal was to have as
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: many of the kids participate in as many of the
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: practices as possible. That was kind of his overall goal. And, uh,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: what it then started was like a challenge where you
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: got points and Every time you, um, was at a practice.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: So then you've got like one point and then on
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: every single practice, we had like some sort of relays.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: It was, it could be, we were picked in four,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: five different teams and then we had a relay, but
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: it was not to do, uh, back and forth the fastest,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: like regular skiing. It was with one ski.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Okay. We took off the one ski. It was with
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: one pole. was without polls, it was like so many
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: different ways of doing that kind of relay. And then
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: you got points based on how, how you perform on
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: that relay. And, uh, at the end of the season, when,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: when we were done, we kind of had like a
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: pursuit where we were starting based on how many points
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: you had, uh, collected over the last year. And then
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: you can see like, okay, people that have that have
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: been um at many practices they had an had an
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: advantage on the on the pursuit so uh for me
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: i was like it was a goal to to do
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: well on the ruinous challenge at the end of the
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: season because like that was a gave you a picture
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: of that you have been taking part a lot of
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: times but you have also been been showing up you
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: know and uh i feel like um It, for me,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: and when I look back at it, it's, it was
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: a perfect way of keeping as many of the kids to,
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: to join the practices as possible. And I think that's
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: kind of the culture in Norway. And like you said,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: the discussions these days has been in what are we
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: doing in Norway? Cause we have, so, I mean, we
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: are a small country in terms, we are 5.5 million people. Uh, it's,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: it's pretty small in like. in the big world, but
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: we're still having so many top athletes in so many
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: different sports. And I think what we are doing is
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: that the overall goal for so many of the local
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: clubs is that we want to have, and we want
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: the kids to try out as many sports as possible.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: And we want to keep them there for as long
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: as possible. And then when we are becoming 15, 16,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: 17 years old, and we are going to make the decision,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: if we're going to do. high school uh towards sports
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: or we're gonna do it towards uh other things that's
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: kind of when people start making their decisions yeah but
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: until they are 15 we try to keep as many
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: as long as possible and i feel like that has
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: been a key success and a key factor of the
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: culture in norway and i think that has worked out
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: uh really well but i also think that when you
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: speak to so many of the top athletes, everyone has been, uh,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: like they haven't, they, they really appreciate it these days.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Like looking back, how, how cool the practices actually, actually was,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: cuz we were so many kids every single time. Yeah.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And creating a culture where it's all about making sure
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: that the kids are, are plugged in, they're connected to
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the sport and that they're falling in love with it
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: so that they can have a lifelong. relationship with some
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: kind of movement rather than a negative memory of like
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: never getting picked and, you know, forget that I'm moving
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: in another direction. Like sports is not for me. Yeah.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: And I think, uh, just having the opportunity to try
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: different sports, you know, a lot of Norwegians are doing
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: cross country skiing. At least from when they are six
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: until they are 10. Yeah.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: There's like a thousand ski clubs in Norway, right?
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: Uh, it's so many, uh, just around my place where
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I stay. It's, uh, from my place to get almost somewhere.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: We had the world championship is five kilometers. It's three
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: clubs just from on those five kilometers. So it's, it's
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: a lot, but like I said, I think it's a
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: lot of people are trying cross country skiing for just
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: four years. but then they have developed the capability to actually,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: when they're getting older, they will remember how they are,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: how it is to ski. So they can, when they
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: are getting older, they can use skiing as a training form.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: You know, they can go in the cabins during the
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: winter and then they go skiing in the weekends as
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: a part of their, uh, staying in shape, uh, program.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: And they're trying soccer. They're trying track and field. They're
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: trying cycling. There is like goal is for the kids
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: to try out as many sports as possible because then
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: you are the parents are then like trying to let
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the kids decide is there soccer or is it cross-country
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: skiing or is it track and field you think is
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: the most fun you know and based on fun that's
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: where you make the decision more than just being put
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: on like a sport and you get kind of forced
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: a little bit more to just do it for some
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: years rather than just trying out different things. And then
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: you can decide for yourself. Yeah.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: It is the counterintuitive path to excellence though, over time,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: because there is this idea that if you want to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: be the best, you're going to have to specialize early.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: And the example that Norway is setting is that that's
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: an incorrect way of thinking about it. Have you read
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: David Epstein's book range? No. So it's all about this.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: I'm going to send you this book. basically we have
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: this idea that, um, the best people in the world
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: specialized early and they just, they were just focused and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: they put in their 10,000 hours. And that's, that's the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: only way you're going to get to the top. And
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: there are examples of that. You have the tiger woods and,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you know, those, those sorts of individuals, but by and large,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: when you canvas the best in the world in all
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: kinds of disciplines from science and academia to, you know,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: athlete athletics, uh, you will see that the people that
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: not only are the best, but have sustained long careers
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: of excellence are people that did lots of things when
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: they were young and then arrived into their specialty a
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: little bit later with all of this experience that has
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: contributed to not only peak performance, but sustaining that peak performance. Yeah.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: And I think that if you have tried out many
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: different things and you found that that soccer is what
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: I love the most, imagine how many hours and how
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: much energy you're able to then put into soccer. Cause
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: you know, that that's the sport you love the most,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: or if it's cross country skiing, it doesn't matter. But like,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I think just have been able to try out different
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: things and as a kid figure out that, okay, this
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: sport is where I like to put my focus and
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: this is where I like to spend my time. Then
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: you're able to spend thousands of hours. And those other
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: experiences aren't distractions. They're actually contributing to your success in
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: your specialty. Like you were a soccer player. I know
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: there was a moment where you had to make a
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: decision whether you were going to go into soccer or skiing,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: but your experience as a soccer player on the pitch
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: contributed to your success as a skier because it gave
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: you a different kind of fitness and a practice of
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: agility in a different context that has improved your technique
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: as a skier. Absolutely. And I think that's, um, it
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: is an interesting topic because I feel like everyone thinks,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: and a lot of people think that you need to,
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: to do it this way or the other, but I
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: think there is, I think we, Norway, we have at
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: least tried to found like a middle way here where
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: we keep as many of the kids to participate for
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: as long as possible. And then we hopefully then And
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: then that's at least what we have seen over the
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: years now that that has developed a lot of top
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: athletes in so many different sports.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I love the outdoors, but I'll admit ever since I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: started driving my Rivian, I find myself making even more
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: time to just hop in and take it to places
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: where I can live real experiences. I was recently able
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: to drive an R2 with RJ Scringe, the founder and
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: CEO of Rivian. And we talked about how this is
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: no accident. How does that idea of, like, how.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Are we creating this, you know, completely seamless connection with
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: the outdoors through a car that, you know, by definition
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: sort of has to seal you off from the outdoors?
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: And how do the design decisions inform, you.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Know, that perspective?
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: If you're in this car, you should feel like if
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: you want to go somewhere and explore a hike or
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: stay a little later, it's there. It's just, again, a
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: little nudge to say it's okay to explore.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Seek out the unknown. The front trunk has a drain
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: plug in it. And the rear, the glass dropping in
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: this car is a really nice feature because it allows
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: you to throw a surfboard in the back or you
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: can easily put your gear in the back. So it's
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: just all these little things that are, you know, that, yes,
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: they're features and they're on their own. They're maybe not
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: the whole story, but you put them all together as
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: a meal, that should feel like a product that's just
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: built for someone that wants to go live you know
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: a full adventurous life.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: To watch the rest of our conversation and learn all
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: about the r2 and the places it can take you
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: go to stories.rivian.com slash richroll This episode is brought to
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: you by WHOOP, the wearable health and fitness coach that
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  Speaker 1: turns insights about your sleep, your recovery, your strain, and
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: your overall health into better daily decisions. Here's a phrase
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• 30:08
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  Speaker 1: care about the second part. It's not just about adding time.
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  Speaker 1: slash roll for one month free of Whoop. I want
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: to talk about soccer a little bit. So you've been
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: supporting Norway. You've been going to the games. You're going
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to go to the final here, uh, this weekend. How
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: many of the Norway games did you go? Did you
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: go to all of them?
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: No, I didn't have time to do that. So, um,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: I came for the, the most important match, which was
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: against Senegal, uh, in the group stage. So I was
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: just here for three, four days. Uh, one of my
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: good friends is, uh, is playing. So I wanted to,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: to come out and, and share for them. And it was,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was cool experience and just seeing how much, uh, soccer,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's, we haven't qualified for the walk up
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: in 28 years. So in Norway now it's just been
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: complete walk up fever in Norway. Like we, it's like
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: we say in Norway, it's just been crazy. Everyone is
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: drinking beer.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: They are.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Staying up late because of the time difference and just
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: been completely... Out of their skulls. Yeah, I would say so.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: It's been all about the walkout.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. You're the absolute goat in your sport.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine you would trade it for anything, but
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: is there a small part of you that is at
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: these games, watching Norway play, thinking, that could have been me, man.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I could have been out there. Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: So many times.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Look at what's going on with Erling and how the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: world has just fallen in love with this guy. And
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: he's just become the most famous and celebrated athlete in
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: I know.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: And you're like, With, with good reason though. I mean, he's,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: he's a great guy and he has, it's so impressive.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Is he, are you mates with him?
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: I've been meeting him a couple of times in terms
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: of like some, we have some mutual sponsors together, but, uh, yeah, he,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: he is a great guy. I mean, it's just amazing
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: to see what he has accomplished over the last, I mean,
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: over his, so far in his career, but also especially this,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: this World Cup. I mean, it was so much fun. Yeah.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: And talk about somebody who understands social media. It's insane.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: So here's what you need to do. You need to
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: make a YouTube video with him where you make him
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: do a day in your life and then you live
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a day in his life, like in training and nutrition,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: et cetera. I think the world would go insane.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I agree. I think that could be something really cool because,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: like I said, a lot of my friends are soccer
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: players and it's just– Uh, I know, I mean, in the, um,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: in the summers, we all normally go to a week
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: of holidays together during the summer. And when we then
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: compare the trainings, like soccer player against like me as
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: an cross country skiers, like a couple of years ago,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: it was in Lofoten up North in Norway. And, um,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I was going out for three hours, double polling session
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: in the morning and I came back and then, um,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: They have been, or he has been out running and
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: been running like five kilometers. And then he had done
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: 10 times a hundred, 200 meters up a hill. That
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: was a session and it has been an amazing session,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: you know, and that was probably for say an hour max.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: And then I was out for three hours, came back
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: and knew that I was going out for another two
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: hours in the evening. while he was just having an
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: hour and it was super satisfied. And that was a
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: really good training day for him. So it's, it's really
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: like when you compare those in terms of hours, it's, uh,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: it's completely different of course, but, uh, they have a
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: way different, uh, like muscle, um, stress on their muscles
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: compared to what I have when I do three hour sessions. But, um, yeah,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: sometimes when I'm doing like three hours in, uh, mud
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: up in Trondheim, like it's raining and it's just terrible weather.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I wish I was like a soccer player could
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: do like an hour, hour and a half. And I
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: was like, that was good. But, uh, yeah.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Also in terms of like how much you're getting paid
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: by the hour is a big difference. One thing I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: didn't know about you is that in, I think it
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: was 2020, you signed a five-year, uh, professional. cycling contract,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: like you joined a professional cycling team. Are you still,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: it's not surprising that you would, uh, use the bike
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: to train for ski, but, uh, this is how good
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: you are as an overall, like diverse athlete.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, so the reason for, for me to do
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: that was that, uh, me and my granddad was, was
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: looking into how can we develop the endurance now? What
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: can we do to become a little bit better? And
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: then we went back to see what I have done
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: the previous years. And then I had one year where
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: I had broke my collarbone. So I needed to bike
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: for like four weeks until I was able to use
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: my upper body again. And that season I was doing
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: it very good on the skating races. So we went
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: back and looked into, okay, what can we do this
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: year to develop the endurance?
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: And then....
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Um, I knew the guy that was in charge of
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: the cycling team and I started texting them and we,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: we figured out that if I'm going to do more
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: cycling in my training, I want to learn cycling from
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: the best. And that's why I contacted them and we
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: decided that this is something we can work together on.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: And so I went from psych, I used the bike
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: 30 hours over a year. And change that to using
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: it a hundred hours a year. Um, but I just
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: wanted to, I wanted to learn as much as possible
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: from the cycling team in terms of how I can
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: use the bike and just fitting and everything. So I
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: do things properly. Cause I think that's always been one
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: of my key factors is that when I first started
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: doing something and first going to do something, I really
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: want to do well, you know, when I want to
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: go into the details and see. What can I do to,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: to do better? And that was actually why, why we
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: started working with, you know, X, which is now a
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: WorldTour team. They, two days ago had a stage win
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: in Tour de France, and they've just been crushing it
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: the last, last couple of years. So it's, it's cool to,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: to have taken part of that and actually learned from,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: from the best.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Are you still on the team?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still on the team, but. It is, they
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: have the season when I don't have the season, so
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: it's hard to, to combine those things. But the last
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: year I was been in the tour of France, uh,
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: just watching, taking part for some days. Uh, this year
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: I didn't have time, but it's, uh, did you race also?
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: I haven't been racing, so that's kind of, uh, I
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: wish I did, but I think, I think I started.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: I actually got a text from Tor Husold, which is
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: kind of the sports director of the team.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Absolute legend and director now.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And he wanted me to like, see if we
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: could quit skiing and start cycling. But I think, unfortunately,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: I think it's too late in terms of like, I
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: think building the endurance in the uphill would be possible.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Not against Tadej for sure, but like in a quite good.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Good way, I think it will be possible to have
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: good enough endurance. Cause I think we, the VO2 and
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: everything is, is very good, but I think the biggest
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: challenge will be just staying in the pack. Like imagine
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: how much, cause I don't have been racing, you know,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: and also the downhills. Yeah.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of that you can learn. There's
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: some aspect of it because you haven't been doing it
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: since birth that would probably be difficult, but you can
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: learn to ride in a pack. You could all, a
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: lot of that is trainable. Like it would be cool
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to see you jump into maybe a shorter stage race
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and see what you can do. And, and, uh, that
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: could be another career. Yeah.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's too late.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's too late. I think it's a
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: factor of like, there's a lot of things you could do.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: What should you do? You know, but the bike as
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: a training device is exceptional because it's almost like a
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: data extraction machine. Like the amount of data and feedback
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: that you can get, um, from the bike is probably.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: superior to what you get when you're skiing, right? Just
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: in terms of like wattage and like all that, all that,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: how you can like calibrate and dial in your training
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and you can spend, you can do back to back
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: eight hour rides. I don't know what it's like in
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: skiing and the toll that would take on your body,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: but as a vehicle to develop your aerobic engine, um, I.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Think, I think it's a lot of similarities. And I
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: think the biggest difference is, like you said, I think in,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: in cycling, you have the. all the data in, in skiing,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: that is actually difficult. I mean, the things we can
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: measure is, is the heart rate.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: You don't have a power meter in your, in your skis.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: So, so it's like, uh, I would say skiing is
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: way more feeling based, you know, when I'm going out
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: for a three hour session, I basically do it on feeling.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: And you have chest heart rate.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's, that's kind of the only measurement we
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: can use. Um, But when I'm racing, it's only feeling.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I don't ever look at my heart rate during a race.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: I just go there and take it step by step
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: by feeling.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Do you look at the data afterwards? Are you wearing
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: a Garmin or a similar type device when you're racing?
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: The last couple of years, I've been just using my
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: whoop here on the bicep. as kind of during the races. And, uh,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's accurate enough, I think. I mean, it's,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: it's better to use a Garmin in terms of like
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: getting the, but I get the picture and that's kind
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: of what I'm interested in because, um, for me, it
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: doesn't change anything. If my heart rate was one 90
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: or one 85, it doesn't change anything before the race
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: that I'm going to do the next day.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Cause.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: Routines the recovery parts the nutrition part is is still
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: more or less the same yeah.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Have you ever trained with christian or gustav no i
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: haven't have you met olav uh their their coach you
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: guys would get along he is a part of the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: he's part of the unix team as well now he
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: is okay cool uh but yeah he's a he's an
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: interesting guy and uh what he has done with the
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: yeah with triathlon in in norway and i mean I mean,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: he has the measurements and all the things and.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Data they have collected over the years. It's just insane.
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, for someone like yourself, who's an experimenter
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and is always trying to, you know, find that new
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: thing or that edge, you know, Olav's like catnip for you.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: You guys should definitely.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I think so. I think so.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Not to replace your grandfather. I'm sure he knows a lot,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: but like Olav is a different animal.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And he's, yeah, his vision and. everything. I
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: think it's, it is impressive to see what they have
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: accomplished as well.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: What's cool about you also is that this is a
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: family affair. You got your grandfather as your coach. Your
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: dad is your manager. Yeah, your mom handles the finances
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: and your brother is like your social media manager, right?
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Like he's he's driving the YouTube channel for you. So
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: it's all in the family.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we started when I was 18 and i decided
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: i wanted to do youtube i said to my brother
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: i'll need someone to edit it so he by himself
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: went on youtube and learned how to edit on youtube
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: you know and uh that was how it's how it
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: started and then when i started first started winning races
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: um my granddad has always been my coach so it
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: was very natural to to continue to have him uh
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: since uh We had made that success already when I
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: was 20. But when I first won a World Cup race,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: it was just overnight. Things changed back home. And there
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: was like a lot of interest in terms of sponsorships, media,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: all the things that kind of comes along to winning
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: a race. And I needed help. And my dad was
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: just able to... First, he started helping me 50%. And
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: then he worked 50%, but then over the last years,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: it's just that has developed to a hundred percent work.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: And that's the only thing he do these days. And, uh,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: I'm feel, I feel really privileged to have like the
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: family around me to, to be able to, uh, join
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: me on, to have my brother here, uh, join me
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: on a trip like that, to give him the opportunity
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: to see the walk up final on Sunday, to. to
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: experience the same things that I have been experiencing. That's,
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: it's really cool. And, uh, I think it has been, um, uh,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: a nice thing to have the family. And then you
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: also have like the, it's also comes with some challenging
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: for sure. Challenges, you know, when you don't want to
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: ruin like the family relationship. Um, so I feel like
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: that's kind of the balance we always have been, uh,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: trying to. to figure out in terms of like when
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: you have a Sunday dinner, you want to talk about
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: the family, not about me racing, you know, and that's
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: kind of the challenging part.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: In addition to your insane training regimen, you're also known
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: for having tremendous technical intelligence. You know intuitively like when
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: to conserve your energy, when to draft, when to make
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: your move. It's very strategic, this sport, the more I
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: dig into it. So I want to talk a little
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: bit about that as well as the origin of this
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: technique that you developed, this running uphill technique that has
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: become kind of your signature move.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I feel like the technical aspect has always
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: been something I like to talk a little bit about. Earlier,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: that was something we decided to do. at a really
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: young age, because I felt like that was important. But, um,
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: over the last years that, you know, uh, with so
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: many mass starts that we have and so many sprints,
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: I think I have developed like a, uh, way of
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: seeing things that I always been really curious about how
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: I can do things better. And I've always been very
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: analytic in terms of how I do things. And I
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: think I, I brought that into my sport as well,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: in terms of how I look to a sprint race,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: there is things that I want to, I kind of
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: set a plan in terms of what I can do.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: And then I, I really spent time looking back at, uh,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: what I did last year. Like, how did I, how
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: did I manage to do this? This turn, uh, always
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: been fascinating about watching. Formula one in terms of like
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: how they do the curves, uh, and, and stuff like that,
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: that I can bring into my own sport that hopefully, uh,
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: helped me to get a little bit of an advantage
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: against my, my competitors. And, uh, I think the tactical
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: and technical aspect is for me. What I think is
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: the most fun about my sport.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The only, like the closest parallel to me is watching.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: a bunch sprint and a cycling race. So if you're
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Mark Cavendish or you're some other sprinter, like it's not
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: who wins, isn't necessarily a function of who's going to
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: generate the most power out of their legs. Yes. It's
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: their lead out, but it's also this sixth sense of
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: like where to be, you know, there's so many people
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: like in that pack angling to be in the right
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: position to cross the finish line first. And. They're just
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: our people like Marquette. They know exactly where to be.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: They can see the future and they can anticipate where
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: everyone's going to move. And, you know, when you have
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: these mass starts and you're in these sprints, it's like
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: so much of it is like, where do I need
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: to be? Like right place, right time so that I
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: can set myself up to be in position to win
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: this race.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. And I think, um, I think if
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: we have done like a hundred meter sprint, just flat out,
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Like track and field.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: I think I would, I don't necessarily, I don't think
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: I'm the fastest one or at least not the one
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: that are having the most amount of power. But I
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: think if we take it at the end of a
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: race is different because then I kind of, when my
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: legs are, everyone is a little bit tired. I think
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: it is way different compared to when everyone is fresh,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: but also, uh, Just like you said, having, I have
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: done so many sprints that I kind of know where
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: I need to be at the right time. And I
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: think that is something you develop if you are a
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: little bit analytic, but also if you have done it
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: enough times, that's kind of something else. I think like
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: when you look at Mark Cavendish and see how many
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: wins he have, you know, He has over so many
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: years developed so much knowledge and so much experience in
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: terms of where he needs to be in all different
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: kind of finishes. You know, if it's uphill, if it's flat,
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: if it's slightly downhill, there is like, he kind of
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: knows it. And I think that's something you need to
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: work on. But also, I think some of the, it's just...
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: It's just the way you are, I guess.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: A sixth sense, but also a muscle memory that comes
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: with experience.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: The uphill running, the clabo run. So this is pretty revolutionary.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: We're used to seeing people go uphill on skis in
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: that kind of V motion, right? That's how everyone has
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: already done it. And the idea being like, this is
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: a moment to conserve energy. Like But instead you're like,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I'm going to burn all my matches and just go
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: flat out. Like the amount of energy expenditure that is
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: required for you to do that has to be insane.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: So it's a gamble, right? When you do it, like
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: you can't just do that all the time because you're
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: really redlining yourself to the absolute max when you do that.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: And I even read that you can't even train it
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: that often because it's so depleting. Yeah.
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: And I feel like, I think you saw it a
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: little bit during the Olympics, but There was a few
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: guys that were kind of burning their tank, uh, already
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: in the quarter final and semifinal. And when they came
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: to the final and we increased the speed a little bit,
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: it was just, they were not able to, to, to
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: do it. So, um, that technique came from me and
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: my granddad working on a session in Trondheim where I
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: was struggling with some, some bad grip on my skis.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: And instead of just putting on more and more grip,
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: we decided, okay, I'll just jump outside the tracks. And
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: I tried to run a little bit and I saw
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: that I was actually able to, to have a better grip, but, uh,
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: so I didn't need to put on more wax and
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: then we just decided, okay, let's, this is interesting. Let's, uh,
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: come back tomorrow. And then we, we take the time. Uh,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: we start running from the bottom with one pair of
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: skis with a little bit less grip run on the
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: side of the the hill and we take the time
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: and the time is uh say 50 seconds and then
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: we go back and put another pair of skis with
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: more grip and we go inside the track but we
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: are gliding kind of the more regular scheme and we
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: see that okay we're using 52 seconds okay then we
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: have like an edge here this is this is interesting
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: in terms of how we can how can we develop
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: this and This was how we started with a running part.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: And then over years, we have just tried to develop
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: it year by year. But like you said, we're not
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: able to do that very often because it just I'm
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: burning so much energy. And I, I know that like every,
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: the start of every season, we have like this race
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: in Finland where we have like this last uphill and
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Everyone is running the same way. Now everyone is right.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Everyone's copying you, but that just because they've seen you
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: do it doesn't mean they could do it.
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: No.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: And then you see like everyone is just at the
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: end of the race and the day after all the
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: people that have done the sprint is just completely destroyed
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: in their muscles. And it is the same for me
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: as well. But so you see over a weekend where
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: if you're going to do three races doing this on
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: a Friday. it is, it is brutal for, for the
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: next couple of days of, of racing. But on the
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: other hand, I think that is kind of something you
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: learn over years as well in terms of how, how
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: do I save as much energy as possible, but just
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: use enough to win. And, uh, but, um, yeah, it is,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: I would say it's an interesting story because it started
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: just a little bit, um, random on a training day
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: in Trondheim, but ended up being something that has really
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: changed the way we do uphill skiing.
• 54:13
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• 57:13
  Speaker 1: you're going to get 50% off your first subscription order
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: to Go Brewings Beer Club. When that clip of you
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: running uphill went viral at the Olympics, were you aware
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: of how that had caught fire or were you just
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: in your bubble?
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: I knew it when I came back to the hotel
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: and kind of saw that everything, I mean, my phone
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: was just blowing up. So Because I knew that during
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: the race and everything, when I was running up that hill,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: because I knew when I started the final, when I
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: started and put some speed on the first half part
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: of the final and I saw that people were struggling,
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: I kind of knew that, okay, today I'm going to win.
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: And then when I put my full speed on on
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: the last uphill, I felt like I was like, This,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: this is it now. I feel like I'm, I'm really
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: hitting every single push that I'm making. And I know
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: that no one else is able to, to follow this speed,
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: especially because we went quite fast the first half part
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: of the race and just turning your head on the
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: top of the hill and just seeing that you have
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: a huge gap. It was, I mean, that was an
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: amazing feeling, but I didn't understand it because I didn't
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: knew how it was looking before I was come back
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: to the hotel and I saw the video myself and
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: I was like, that looks pretty good.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: So it was like, and if you're in your world,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: like people have seen you do that before, but for
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the average person, it was like, what is going on? Like,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like that before. Yeah.
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, but, I think that's kind of the cool
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: part about the Olympics as well. Cause there is, you're
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: able to broadcast sports that over a world where people
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: normally don't pay attention to it. And I think it's,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: it is because it is every fourth year, but it
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: is something special. Olympics is something special. And, uh, even
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: though for me personally, just winning the year before, uh,
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: the six goals in Trondheim, which is where I grew up,
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: you know, and having hundreds of thousands of people in
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: the forest, watching me win the last race on the
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: 50 K in Trondheim. Personally, it was a big success
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: for me because it was in my hometown, but no
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: one out there is paying attention to a wall. world
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: championship in Norway. But when you come to the Olympics,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: you can just, you can just feel the difference. It's just, uh,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: way different. But, um, on the other hand, it was,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: it was cool to finally have like a Olympics in
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: Europe where it's a little bit easier for everyone to
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: pay attention. You know, uh, we have the, the one
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: in Pyeongchang and the one in Beijing. I mean, it was,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: those was cool Olympics as well, but it was, it's
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: harder because of the time zone and everything, but just
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: having it in Europe and knowing that it's in 2034,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: it's going to be in Salt Lake. It's just, yeah,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: I think that's special.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: My understanding is that you were much more nervous about
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: the world championships in your hometown the year before the
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Olympics than you were at the Olympics. And the fact
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: that you walked away from that with six golds allowed
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: you to relax at the Olympics. Do you think that, that, that,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: that having that experience in Trondheim the year before, like
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: allowed you to like, gave you the confidence and the
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: ability to just, you know, kind of be yourself at
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: the Olympics and not get caught up in all of
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: the anxiety and insanity of it. So you could, you
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: could unleash those performances.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Cause I think like for me personally,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: personally that the world championship was so, it was so huge.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: You know, it was, I was so nervous in front
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: of the, the world championship and I kind of was
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: isolated again with myself and my dad for, uh, months, uh,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: prior to the, to the world championship. And, uh, I
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: didn't see anyone. I was, uh, just really locked in
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: together with my dad and. when the world championship was,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: was finished, I felt like, okay, I'm super tired mentally.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm just really exhausted. And then I,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: over the, during that spring, I kind of figure out, okay, we,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: I need to do some changes in terms of who
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: I bring with me and how I do things. And
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: one of my friends, um, wanted to join before Olympics.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: And we were out on the, uh, altitude camps three times.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: During the fall and during the winter and just bringing
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: new energy in, just having like a friend where I
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: wasn't thinking that much about the Olympics, you know, we're
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: just having fun. I was doing everything right. I was
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: training while I was doing my recovery, eating a healthy,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: but it was, it was a factor where fun was
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: an important part of the daily routines. And I think
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: that really made. big difference because when i came into
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: the olympics i was like this is gonna be fun
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: you know i feel like i'm for sure i'm nervous
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: but is this is something i i know what to
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: do and then when the olympics was over you know
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: i was i wasn't that exhausted i was just nice
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: this was this was a crazy fun experience uh i
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: wish it lasted longer you know and instead of After
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: the world championship, I just stayed in my bed for
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: six days and was just completely, completely down. But after
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: the Olympics, it was just, I want to do this more,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: And that's an evolution from, was it some years prior
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: when you basically isolated yourself and you didn't want to
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: see anyone because you were afraid you were going to
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: get sick and you wouldn't go out to dinner and
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: you just basically like wouldn't let anyone come near you.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: I think that's kind of, Especially after COVID that was
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: something we, cause, um, for, for us as an cross
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: country skier, the worst thing that can happen is that
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: you just get a little bit sick, you know, cause
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: then you're not able to perform and you're not able
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: to race either. Uh, but after COVID and everything, it
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: was just so many, you started using the mask, uh,
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: you are traveling, you, you kind of save. you try
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: to just stay away from people.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, every person is an impending threat. That's not a
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: great mindset to walk around with for anybody.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: No, and it's not a healthy way of living your
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: life either. And that's why I think when the world
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: championship was over and I said to my dad, this
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: can't continue. We need to do some changes. I need
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: to have some other things in my life that is.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Pulling me away from being that strict because it is
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: not healthy. And, um, I feel like that's what we
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: did prior to the Olympics. And I mean, I was
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: traveling during the winter and I didn't even think about
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: the mask, you know, it was like, uh, I was,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have been here before the world championship, you know,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: now I'm here. I feel really relaxed. People are Coughing
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: on the street, coughing on the side of me when
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting on the.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: You're in the Petri dish of New York City right now.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I couldn't care, you know? And I think
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: that's just a way more healthy way of living. I'm
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: so glad that I've understood that now and that I can.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: Don't go back to that state.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Um, but you're still a maniac. Uh, like it's, it's,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: it's a rare individual who, uh, goes from the 14
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: year old who's getting middling results to the 15 year
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: old who says I'm going to be the best in
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: the world. So there is this, uh, constitutional degree of
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: self-confidence that you're equipped with. And I'm curious around your,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: like how you train your mindset. Like, do you have
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: practices for that? Like, do you pay attention to that?
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: Do you invest in mental game? Because we can get
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: into like a week in the life of your physical training,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: but I'm interested in how you think about your mind.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: I spend a lot of time practicing my mind. And
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things or where I spend
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: the most time is that I do a thousand hours
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: of training every single year. And I do so many
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: sessions where I just go out three hours by myself
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: and in the forest and I'm running in the mud
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: and it's just, um, for, for me, that's kind of
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: my therapy where I work on my mind. Cause that's
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: where I visualize the races. That's where I, uh, talk
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: to myself and try to like find a balance in
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: terms of, um, where am I going to use my,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: my energy and where. is it no point of, of
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: using it? And so without like saying that I go
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: to someone and talk to someone regularly, I would say
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: that I, I still are spending so much time. I mean,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: it's still in my own head, but it's like, I
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: still have some sort of plan in terms of when
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: I'm out on a three hour session, it's like, I
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: really want to go through some things like, okay, this
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: is something I would like to work on, like the
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: mental part. And, Um, I think the mental part has
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: shown me over the years, like before the world championships,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: I woke up the last two weeks, even though I
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: was sick four weeks before the, before the world championship,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: I was waking up two weeks before and I had
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: so much pain in my throat, like every single morning
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: and my data and everything was like completely good, but
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: I just I felt like I was thinking myself sick
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: every single morning.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: That's interesting.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: And that happened first time in 2018.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: Just the anxiety and the fear of getting sick.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: Created physical symptoms.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: Because for me, the worst thing that can happen is
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: to get sick. I'm not afraid of losing. I'm not
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: afraid of, uh, like that. It's not going to do well,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 2: but I'm the worst thing that can happen is that
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: I get sick and not be able. to be on
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: the starting line, starting line fighting for the victory. And
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: so that as, and it was better before the, before Olympics,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: because I feel like I have more, I'm more adapted
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: to it. And I feel like for me, when I
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: get the symptoms of having a sore throat before a
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: world championship, it is always also some sort of symptoms
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: that we're getting closer to something that is really important
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: for me you know and i feel like i'm building
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: up that kind of energy so when i'm on the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: starting line in a world championship i know that okay
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: i've had the pain in my throat because it's part
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: of my routines now and i am really motivated and
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: i feel like i'm i'm so nervous and when i'm
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: getting nervous that's where i also perform at my highest
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: level because when it means something for me it makes
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: it a little bit better you know and uh i
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: think compare that to a world cup race where i
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: mean i've done 200 world cup races and i don't
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: get this nervous as i get before the world championship
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: or the olympics and I think that's, it happens first
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: time in 2018 and it has happened every single championship
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: from that year until almost, it was not that much
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: this year, but like until up on the world championship
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: last year.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: I think the mental game is even more important for
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: you now because things are different. Like you've been to
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: a couple of Olympics. You've been at the top of
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: your game for a while, but because of your performance
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: at this past year, there's a white hot spotlight on
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: you right now. You're in New York City. You went
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: to the ESPYs last night. You're going to get feted
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: at the Time 100 event this evening. A lot of attention,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of sponsor obligations, and that comes with expectations.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: Now you're the guy who's expected to win. You're no
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: longer the guy who's out to prove that you're the best.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: Now you got to hold on to it. Now you
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: got to continue to maintain that level of excellence. And
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: that's a different kind of pressure that requires um even
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: more attention to how you're nourishing your mind and and
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: making sure that your mindset is dialed yeah.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: I agree yeah and uh i think uh you know
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: just by remember how it was when you were i
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: would say a kid but when i was 20 and
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: came into the world cup no one expected me to
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: win you know and it was like Just having the
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: mental feeling that you are attacking, you know, more like
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: now it's defending. It's more like defending.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: And, um, it, it does something to you and you
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: need to, you need to be aware of it. And
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: you also need to do some adjustments mentally to be
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: able to, because at the end, it's, uh, like my
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: granddad always said, it's, it's just a race at the end,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: but it's not that easy, you know? And it's. It
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: is the mental part is for me as important as
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: the physical part, because the physical part, I, I've always
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: been very, um, motivated to do the, the physical work
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: that kind of required.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's about the train. You're going to
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: always train hard. Yeah. That's not the issue. I think
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: the secret is what contributed to your success at this
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: past Olympiad, which is. enjoying it and, and making it fun.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of, um, conversation that I had with John,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: John Florence on the podcast, the world champion surfer. And
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: he struggled once he was the best and, you know,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: he won the world championship. Like the expectations were like
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: so daunting to him. And his way back was developing
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: this visualization practice where he would, he would visualize every
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: aspect of the wave and how he was going to
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: ride it, but not, from the perspective of riding it perfectly,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: but more from the perspective of the emotions he wanted
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: to feel when he was on the wave, like the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: same emotions that he had when he was a little kid,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: like the more you can kind of inhabit that joy
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: and that like love for the sport, it alleviated the
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: pressure and allowed him to then kind of get back
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: on top.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: And I think it all makes sense, you know? Uh,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: and I think for me, that's what the last Olympics showed.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: was like having fun when you're out there racing. And
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: like every day upon the race, it makes life so
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: much easier, but it also makes it better. I don't
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: think I would have been able to win those six
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: races if I didn't have a lot of fun on
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: the road until the Olympics, because it's just made... I mean,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: I have 268 days away from home. That was the
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: amount of days I had away from home last year.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: And then you need to find the right way of
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: treating yourself on the road. And I think fun is
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: probably the best ingredients to having the best life you
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: can live. And for me, that's something that I learned
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: last year. Mm-hmm.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: And you have a girlfriend, right?
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: I have a girlfriend, so we have been away from
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: each other for a long time. So we have been
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: kind of used to that, but I think like that we,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: and I feel like that's something I learned as well
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: last year was that we need to, and she's now
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: joining me for a little bit more. And I think
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: that just makes sense and it's just easier and it's
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: way better because I think I will perform better as
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: well when you have everything more in balance.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: And are you still going to split time between Norway
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: and park city?
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: That's the plan.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: So park city is basically your second home.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: I would say, I would say so. So I I'm
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: you're renting the same house every year, uh, going back
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: end of August staying for a month and, uh, a
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: little bit over a month. So, um, Utah and park
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: city has been. So great. I mean, it's, it's been amazing.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: Just having eight hours time difference from Norway. Amazing. You
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: can just, you can.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: Just call people back right away.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: It's two o'clock there. And you know that when you
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: are done with your hour, when you're going out for
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: your second session, everyone is back. at home, they're sleeping.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: So you're training when they're okay.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: So when you're like in your evenings, it's completely quiet.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: You can just relax, chill and do the things you like. So, uh,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: park city has been some place that I really like,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: and I, I have said it and I wish, um,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: I have said it to my, my dad as well
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: as that, if it was more money into cross country skiing,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: like I would have, uh, love to have a home
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: in park city just because I love the place. It's
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: an exp it's a really expensive, but my physiotherapist lives in,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: in midway, uh, just beside the park city. And, uh, so, um,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time there and, um, yeah,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: soldier hollow where the Olympics is going to be in 2034.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: It's a place where we do a lot of the
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: roller skis intervals during, uh, The period when we were there.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: So, um, the appeal is what at the altitude, the community.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Just, you know, it's really high cause it's 2,300 meters, uh,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: which is in Europe, which if you're going to a
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: place where it's 2,300 meters, it is more or less
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: on top of a pass. So if you're going to
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: do a roller ski session, you need to either drive
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: down the Valley and then do the training there and
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: then go up at the end of the session. But
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: in Park City, I put my roller skis on in
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: the garage and then I can just go out. I
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: can do a flat lap. I can do uphills all
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: the way up to 3,000 meters. And I can do
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: hilly laps. So there's so many opportunities and possibilities to
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: train well there.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: And I.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: Mean, it's in August, September. It's a quiet place. It's
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: not many people. And the weather, compared to Norway, is
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: just amazing, you know. Being able to go in shorts
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: and t-shirts in September, it's when we're used to go
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: in long sleeves in Norway and it's raining.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: Most of the time. Yeah. So 1,000 hours of training
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: a year. Break down a typical week of training when
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: you're in heavy training. How much of it is strength?
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: the roller ski thing, like how much of it is
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: you on the snow? Like, what does it, what does
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: it look like?
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So if you take a regular week, uh, during
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: the summer, which is where we have the most amount
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: of training, uh, it's from the 1st of may until
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: end November, it's kind of the peak months of, of
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: training volume. Uh, but for example, last week I had
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: 32 hours of training. Um, I have. two and a
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: half hours of intensity three training, which is threshold. I
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: have two hours of strength during a week. And then
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: I more or less have 50%. Just zone two. I
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: barely do zone two, actually.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, interesting. That is an interesting part.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk to me about that.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: So what we have figured out is that if I
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: do zone two, that's kind of what's destroying my fast
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: muscle fibers. So, for me, I do my intensity one
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: is really.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: Zone one.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: Zone one is where I do 88% of my training.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: And then I do... Like last week, we, I do
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: three hours in the morning, someone go out to two
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: hours in the afternoon, someone that can be a day one,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: day two. It's a, I do 30 minutes, warm up,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: do an hour, hour 15 of threshold.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: Uh, and then these are like on the, on the, um,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: the roller skis mostly, or is it on the bike?
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: Is it like, yes, I would say.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: On a 32 hours weeks, like I had last week,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: I probably do, uh, three, four hours of running three,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: four hours of four or five hours of biking. And
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: then the rest is roller skis.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: And the roller skis are like, they're almost like, like
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: these roller blade type.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Longer roller blades basically. So we have one pair,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: which is skating, which you. It's similar to when you're
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: skating and then you have classic, which you also have,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: it's really similar to doing classic, but then you have
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: grip so you can go diagonal, you can double pole. Uh,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: so you have two different pairs of roller skis, one
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: for each, um, discipline basically. Uh, so the majority of
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: the training during a week is, is roller skis. And
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: then we add on, uh, like last week I didn't
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: run that much cause I knew that I was going here.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: When I'm here, I didn't, I didn't bring my roller skis.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: So here I'm doing just running. So I tried to
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: prior prior, make it like prioritize it a little bit.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: So last week was more rollers skiing than normal this week,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: more running than normal. So it's at the, at the
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: end we do, I would say 10% of my training
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: is cycling 20%, 25% of my training is.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: Um running okay that's a lot that's wow more running
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: than cycling.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah so more running than cycling and then uh five
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: percent of my training is or between five and seven
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: percent of my training is strength and then the rest
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: is roller skis and skis during summer and winter.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah there's a lot of confusion around zone two it's
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: interesting that you say when you focus on zone two,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: it's eroding your high end speed. It's a threat to
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: your high end speed. But I think what might get
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: confused in this is the fact that when you're as
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: fit as you are, your zone two is nothing like
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: what people think zone two is because zone two is
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: actually quite taxing when you're super fit, like to be
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: at that level that's just below threshold and sustain that
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: for a long period of time. is going to have
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: an impact on recovery more so than somebody who's less fit.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: Like a lot of people who are getting into endurance sports,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: they're like, zone two is so slow, I don't feel
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: like I'm doing anything. It's because you're not fit. Like
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: if you're, you or Tadej Pogacar, for them to go,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: you know, for you guys to go out and do
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: four hours of zone two, like you're gonna pay a
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: toll for that in a way that a lesser fit
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: person will not.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the recovery aspect is kind of the most
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: important part here, you know, because it's, probably it just
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: makes the total, uh, volume a little bit too heavy
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: for me in terms of that. I, cause when I
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 2: go doing a 50 K I do more or less threshold,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: you know? So I try to prioritize having like an
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: hour and a hour and 15 minutes each session on
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: threshold instead of going out and do three hours of
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: zone two, you know, because threshold is more similar to
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: where I'm going to race while you look into cyclists
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 2: where they do a lot of their race for them
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: is a lot in zone two, you know? So for me,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: it's always been about looking into what do you do
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: or how is your sport or what requires to do
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: your sport, you know? So for me, I'm doing it
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: based on what I believe is the right way for
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: me to do this, uh, cross country skiing. And, and
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: I know that is plenty of other ways to, to
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: do it, but it's, um, for me, it's always been
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: about looking into the total package about how much does
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: it require of, uh, recovery for each session and just
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: my morning session this morning when I was running an
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: hour on the treadmill, I mean, I was running seven. uh,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: miles per hour. Uh, and that is like really easy.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: So one, and then imagine just having the impact on
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: the muscles. If you're going to run nine miles per hour,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: just because that's, um, that's on too, you know? So
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: the impact on the body as well is, is important
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: to calculate into the, to the total amount of training
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: and recovery you're doing.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: And you have to be able to check all the
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: boxes and excel in all of these areas. You have
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: to have that explosive speed that you need that aerobic capacity,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: not just for the longer distances, but your aerobic fitness
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: is going to dictate how long it takes you to
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: lower your heart rate after you've run uphill. You know
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: what I mean? Like if that's in the middle of
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: a race, how quickly you can get down to baseline
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: in the aftermath of like a, you know, like, like
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: lighting a match like that is going to dictate your
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: overall performance in that race.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's true. And I feel like compared to running,
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: it is easier to do, uh, cross-country skiing. I mean,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: you do it way harder in the uphills, but then
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: you have like the downhills and the downhills is where
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: you recover and charge your energy before the next uphill
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: because you are in a 10k you're basically going full
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: speed in every single uphill and then you just need
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: to use the downhills really smart to be able to
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: keep the speed up but also save and charge your energy.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: Why more running than cycling i would think cycling would
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: be a better, as well as a safer way to
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: build your aerobic engine because without the impact. Yeah.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: And then running, we are, it's kind of running is
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: really similar to classic skiing. I mean, it's more similar than,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: than biking. So when I'm doing like a three hour
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: running sessions in the mud, it's like, uh, It's really,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: it's tough terrain, so it's, uh, it is really hard
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: to run and we are running with poles. So then
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: it's yours kind of, uh, simulating, simulating a little bit, uh,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: skiing more with running. So I think that's why, but
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: I don't think running is necessarily very important to, to
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: do well on skiing because one year I had a
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: year when I was injured in my hamstring and I
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 2: was not able to run. Almost at all. So, and
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: that is one of the years that I've done the
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: best in terms of like results in the World Cup.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: So, um, who knows, are you doing regular lactate testing?
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So we were testing the lactate more or
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: less every single threshold, uh, session we have just to
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: make sure we are in, in, in the line on
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: what we want to be. Yeah.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: And what is the recovery practice?
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, so the recovery practices, uh, it depends a little
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: bit in terms of if you are home or not,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: because some of the things is, I mean, like here,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: it's not always easy to bring all the things you
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: would like to have, but I mean, I'm, I'm a
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: huge fan of using my sauna and cold plunge. So
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: back home, I have that.
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't be Scandinavian if you said otherwise.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: No, I know.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: It would be a betrayal.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: So I use my sauna and cold punch quite a lot.
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: And then I've also been using my red light therapy.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: And then I think just sleep, you know, sleep and
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: healthy food is one of my key factors to my recovery.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: Basic, basic things.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: Basic things.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Do you use like the... compression uh like the the
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: what are they called the boots yeah yeah the hyper
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: ice those things i.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: Have those things but it's not that i use it
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: every single day but i have them as a part
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: of it and sometimes i fail to do it but
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: sometimes it's just good to go back and sleep you
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: know just an hour in the middle of the day
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: after a hard training session it's just easy to lay
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 2: in the bed and sleep for an hour. And I
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: think that's kind of the best recovery you can do
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: more than just all the other things you can, can
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 2: add on. But I think the, the kind of the
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: add ons is, is good to has or to use
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: a little bit, but I think also, I think sleep
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: is the most important part.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: the record that you broke for most decorated winter Olympian
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: was previously held by Eric Hyden.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: Uh, the American speed skater who burst onto the scene
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. I'm old enough to
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: remember when he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: in the full gold suit with his like just gigantic legs.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: And to me, I mean, now he was my hero.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, I just, what he did was mind blowing.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: Before that, I didn't know anything about speed skating and
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: I was like obsessed with this guy. But he later
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: became an orthopedic surgeon and I believe he lives in
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: Park City. So I'm curious, have you guys connected?
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have. So a couple of years ago, we
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: had a, I think it was two years ago. Yeah.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 2: We had a dinner at my physiotherapist's home. So, and
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: he was there. So it was, it was cool to,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: it's cool to, to talk to him and catch up
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: and like, just hear about how, you know, how they
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: were preparing their skates, you know, for, for a race
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: and like, uh, when they sharpen it, you know, and,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: and all those kinds of things, it was, it was
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: really interesting. And I mean, he has a, you can,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: you can tell that he has a competitive mind, you know? And, um,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: so it was a really, it was a cool chat
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: and a cool, cool opportunity to meet him. And yeah,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: that was, uh, at that time I didn't kind of,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: cause that was about, it was before the world championship
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: in Trondheim. So at that time, no one had won
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: six out of six.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: Uh, So at that time I didn't understand I was
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: actually possible to, to do something like that, but, uh,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: maybe I should invite him for a dinner in, uh.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: I think so. I think so. I think that you
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: guys are similar in that he introduced this obscure sport to,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: you know, the, the kind of Western audience. Um, and
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: I think it changed, it forever changed the sport. And
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: I think that you're doing the same thing for. for
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: cross country skiing in a very cool way. Um, there
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: are plenty of people out there, uh, speculating on how many, uh,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: gold medals you're going to win before you hang it up.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: Is there going to be one more Olympics, two more Olympics,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: you know, could it be 20 goal, you know, like,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: could we get near Phelps?
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: We can get, you know.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: 11 versus 23. We're going to approximate it a little bit.
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, are you willing to.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: If you say that if you maximize everything and you
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: do two more Olympics, then you can end up.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: If you have two more perfect Olympics.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: Then you can end up with 23, but.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: You're the all-time Olympic goat. I mean.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 2: That's heavy, though.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: That's pretty heavy.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: That's pretty heavy. I think that's going to be tough.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: But first of all, I said that I will do
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: one more first. But if I know myself well, but...
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: the next one after that one is in salt lake
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: so it's going to be in park city or in
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: soldier hollow close to park city where i've spent so
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: much of my time so for me finishing up my
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: career in park city would be some kind of a
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: dream but it's still eight more years uh so it's
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 2: i don't know if it's realistic but i will do
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: everything i can in terms of staying in shape, taking
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: care of my body and everything. And then we'll take
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: it year by year. But, um, I don't think I will, uh,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: I can't promise right now that I will do 2034, but, uh,
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: I think I have some sort of a, it's a
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: sort of a dream to, to do that, but, uh,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: I'm going to take the first four years and I will,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: we'll see, but for sure, the goal is to, to
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: get a little bit closer to FOBs, but, uh, 23
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: is going to be hard.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. there's only so much of this you can control,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: you know, but to the extent that there are things
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: you can control, I'm pretty confident you're going to control them.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: At least I'm going to try my very best.
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, well congrats on all your success, man. I'm a,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: I'm a fan and, uh, I'm, I'm here to cheer
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: you on, man. Uh, you're one of the good guys
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: and it's nice to see you out there. Um, not
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: only winning, but comporting yourself with an admirable amount of
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: like integrity and dignity. And I think that you are
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: a shining example for many young men around the world,
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: you know, in an aspirational sense. And I salute you,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: my friend.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate it.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: and enjoy New York City.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: I will. Thank you.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: All right. Cheers.