Written by 09:17 Pro Cycling Story • One Comment

Let’s run a marathon in the off-season with 7 days of training.

I wanted to try. I’ve done “some” running but not much. I thought it would be fun to run a marathon and see how fast I could do it. I told one of my teammates and he said he actually had the same idea. There was a marathon in his area. The only problem? It was in 9 days. We only had 7 days to train. What could go wrong?

Some called it crazy. I agreed. It’s stupid. But you are only young once. During the race, my teammate and I quickly turned to cycling tendencies. There was a group that got away and we were taking turns to draft “on the front” to bring them back haha. I am not sure if drafting works in running but that was our tactic haha… There was a strong headwind so we were desperate.

Photo: Anders Iversby

The last hour was just pain. But I pushed through. My official time was 3 hours 1 minute and 30 seconds.

After the marathon, I was on crutches for a week. I could not get on the bike for a week. A marathon is something a lot of people want to do so I’m glad to have done it but I don’t think I’ll try it again anytime soon.

Maybe I’ll stick to cycling for now because I feel I am starting to get good at it. At first, it took me a few years to get results. The area in Norway that I come from, Tromsø, is very small and doesn’t have many cyclists. The summer is very short. I needed to leave home if I wanted to become better. So, I moved from home when I was 16. I moved south to a cycling college. Moving from home at that age is quite a big step because family is so important to me. But it was a sacrifice I had to make.

In some ways, it was easier being away from home because in my family I am the only athlete so eating healthy is very important to me. At home, there’s always pizza around. Living alone meant I could be more focused, eat healthy food, train and recover. My family were very supportive.

Photo: Odin Sleen

I’ve had some really good days on the bike this year. In the under 23 national road race, I was solo for almost 120 kilometres. I only got caught with 6 kilometres to go then my teammates took 1-2-3. A few days later, I started in the elite time trial and was only 7 seconds behind Edvald Boasson Hagen to win the silver medal. I was so close to the victory. I remember I was very relaxed at the start of the day. After waking up I had some eggs and porridge for breakfast, then I went for a 30 minute ride. The race was only at 7pm so I was relaxing in bed for the rest of the day.

I was one of the first riders off in the TT and quickly set the fastest time. Eddy was the last rider as the defending champion so I was in the hot seat for 40 minutes. People around me were following the splits and I could tell they were getting excited. I was already on the rollers and focused on the road race in a few days.

My result was a big surprise. Edvald usually wins by over one minute to second place and I was expecting to be beaten by 2 minutes. A lot of people ask me if I was annoyed because it’s just 7 seconds but for me, it’s ok to be so close to a champion like Eddy.

Earlier I said family is the most important thing. My father actually inspired me to start cycling. When he turned 40 he got a bike because he wanted to be active. I was doing cross country skiing, but I was not so good at it haha. My sister started cycling too and when I was old enough, it looked like more fun so I started too. I don’t know what my cycling career will become but for sure I want to honour my family. My father was diagnosed with cancer this year and that is by far the biggest challenge for us. It’s harder than any hard day on the bike. My family also allowed me to move from home at such  a young age. They are my biggest supporters and I want to honour them with this sacrifice.




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Last modified: Jan 20, 2020
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