#231 - Jon Albon | Wildstrubel by UTMB 50K Champion 🥇 [English]

Catching up with Jon Albon after his snowy victory at Wildstrubel by UTMB 50 K last weeekend.

Lenker:

• Føkk Asfalt corner on fjellsport.no
• Wildstrubel by UTMB 110K gear list on lighterpack.com
• Patreon / FØKK ASFALT

Transcript

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Jon Albon (00:00.462)

I've got this deep damn drive that I want to have the absolute best shape ever and that way I don't really want to race unless I have absolutely amazing shape and it's just kind of like I should actually just enjoy life as well like maybe not my shape isn't exactly what I want it to be but that doesn't mean I don't have to not race I can still go down and try and enjoy it and do my best and sort of like use it to gain more experience.

Tim Dunham (00:34.126)

Welcome to Now Is It Alvor with Hans Kistum and Friends. We're gonna be the best podcast that you ever did here and we're gonna thrill you, we're gonna teach you, we're gonna entertain you. Like Britney Spears once said, there are those of us who observe and those of us who are here to entertain. And we're here to entertain you, bitch.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (01:08.75)

Welcome to Føkk Asfalt, a Scandinavian podcast about running with everything but asphalt under your feet. My name is Hans Christian Smedsrod and today we're talking to Jon Alban, who won last weekend's Wildstrubel by UTMB 50k, which turned out to be 35 kilometers because of extreme weather conditions.

Jon needs no further introduction I think. He is one of the goats in trail running having won the trail world championships. OCC, CCC, Tromsø Skyrace, Hamperokken multiple times, Transvulcania, Marathon du Montblanc and in June he did one of the fastest debuts in western states ever finishing sixth in the time of 14 hours 57 minutes and one second.

And he also has a pretty impressive OCR background. Jon also happens to be a long time friend and also my almost neighbor, I would say. He lives just 10 minutes away from me here in Romstalen. So this is a very informal chat about his win at Wildstrubel or Vildstrubel by UTMB 50K. 

This episode is brought to you by Fjellsport.no. I ran the Wildstrubel 110k this weekend which turned out to be a 10k plus a 73k in snow and muddy conditions. In gear I mostly bought at fjällsport .no. I ran in the Adidas Agravic Speed Ultra shoes. I used a Garmin Forerunner 955 watch. I used some Oakley sunglasses and black diamond poles and Ingini socks.

I also taped my ankles with Leukotape P. I made a very detailed gear list on lighterpack .com which also links to the products on Fjellsport.no if you're curious. Thanks a bunch to Fjellsport.no. With that being said, let's hear what Jon had to say about this weekend's shenanigans in Switzerland.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (03:42.734)

Alright, Jon, do you want to... Let's just start. We can just pretend I'm your friend just calling you to catch up. That's the best format. 

Jon Albon (03:49.00)

Pretend you're my friend and you're calling me to catch up? That's difficult. Then take acting classes. 

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (03:58.000)

Congrats on your win at the Wildstrubel 50k. That turned out to be 37k. 35, I think.. Why did you do this race Jon? 

Jon Albon (04:07.000)

Couple of reasons why I like this race to doubt number one. It looked like a really nice area It looks like some really nice trails and I I saw some photos and video from the before and it just looked like a great sort of the Place to explore because I've never done a race in Switzerland and I've been meaning to try and do Different races around because like it gets a bit boring to do the same ones continually So it was always on the sort of like possible

list. And then I was also meant to UTMB, but then some minor injuries and niggles and stuff after Western, then that wasn't going to happen. So then I dropped down to OCC. And then the day before I saw a physio and he just said, you've got like an 80 % chance of DNFing because my knee was so bad. So, but thankfully like a few days after that, it really started to improve rapidly. then, we, became like, a real possibility and,

Yeah, we headed over a few days before and yeah, was in for the race. All right. What kind of knee trouble did you have? So I guess it's sort of like classic runner's knee started. I've got like a little problem, which has been for years now on the left foot and then after Western inside my left hip, like in the groin area wasn't the best. And the idea was to either train properly for UTMB or like get injured doing it. And I guess it went down the injury path. that

that groin thing then transferred over to the other side down in the knee. So I guess there was an imbalance there. And then I guess it tightened up like from the hips down the ITB and then into the knee. And then you get that sort of like classic outside knee pain, which normally if you take a few days off, if you stop running immediately, when you feel the pain, it can go away really quickly. It was actually when I was up in the mountains, when the pain came on. I had another two or three hours kind of tugging on that connection.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (06:09.302)

So then that meant that it kind of settled in and I had that knee pain then for like, was a month, at least six weeks of sort of, know, like limiting what training I could do. So I did very little flat, very little downhill, did still keep trying to sort of like go uphill and then take the lift down when I could and keep training along like that and do a bit of cross training still with some biking, do some heat training when I was at home. But then once we got to the out, it was more just like walking around,

walking downhill and stuff just to try and still train a bit, manage it. What has your summer looked like after Western States? Because Western States was the last weekend of June, right? Yeah, so the summer was like to begin with trying to do nothing and rest and recover, which for me was very difficult because I love to train and I felt too good too soon. So it was just 10 days after Western that I started to try and run a bit. And like I said, I tried to run enough to

trained properly for UTMB, which obviously my body wasn't up for. was the first hundred mile or like that I'd done. So I was unsure with how the body reacted and actually just got worse and worse from then on. The hips got like stiffer and stiffer, more like someone was just pumping glue into them every day, like a little bit more day on day. So I generally just got worse and worse throughout the summer. And then that's when I kind of had to then change hands, try and be very reactive with the training rather than sort of doing what I would have loved to do.

and concentrate on some other things in life. So crew ten retta for Kima was down there and tried to like a few nice scrambles even though like I can run, I'd still try and hike up and then just hike down again, which is a, experience in itself. Like actually hiking downhill, I got to see like a different side of people moving in the mountains. It's crazy. think like people were like trying to race me, but walking downhill and I found it so funny cause like, it was just there sort of like hobbling down.

And everyone's got this kind of like, who's moving faster than who, even at that slower pace. So I still got to have a lot of fun. And once I decided not to do a UTMB race, it was really fun because I got to do a bunch more activations with North Face, meet a load of people. I did manage to start running a bit by then. So was doing a few group runs with North Face during the week and then got to go and do some climbing with my sister in Chamonix and do some ridges and stuff. like I got to do.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (08:34.41)

some stuff like in Chamonix that I've always wanted to do. But whenever I'm there, I'm just resting for racing or racing or recovering after races. So it's really nice to actually spend some time down in the Alps and not have to think about our humongous race and get all serious about it. Yeah. Before we start talking about the Wilstrubel, I'm just curious how, if you can explain, how did you train throughout the winter and before Western States and how would you train differently?

if you were to combine Western States and UTMB and execute it perfectly next year? I think one of the main reasons why it didn't work out for me was because I had a bit of a hiccup going into Western, so I didn't train as well as I'd wanted to in the last sort of like training block into Western. So that meant I was generally on the back foot. But I think when you do these long races, number one, you get a lot of experience and experience counts, especially in recovery.

And two, your body does get used to it. So I'm sure that Katie's body reacts a lot differently now compared to when she did her first Western off, her first UTMB, for example, and the recovery is quicker. And she knows what signs to look for as to whether she's fully recovered or not. So I really think it was just like a bit of a lack of experience and also just lack of my body being happy to respond.

but then in the winter, actually think like my training wasn't that bad for Western if I was going to be racing a few years ago, but to race how people are racing Western now, it just wasn't, it wasn't extreme enough or wasn't good enough. Like I really do think that to run in the heat properly and run at altitudes, you're acclimatized to both is super important if you want to put together like an A -star race. And to do that in Norway is going to be pretty much impossible. Like I did my best with.

Heat sessions like on the treadmill or on the bike, wearing a bunch of clothes and stuff, but that's always going to be bare minimum. And it also takes a psychological toll. So just to be in the U S living flag stuff, running 38 degrees, 40 degree weather at altitude and just sort of like become efficient moving in those conditions and acclimatize is super important. And I think that's something that I'd have to do if I really wanted to go back to Western and do it, do it better. And then that way I'd have to.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (10:57.398)

I can run differently. I'd be like better climatized. I'd less use of like all the ice I was using. I guess I could take less ice on, which means less weight and just everything would be, would be better. But ultimately it's all about experience and that's something I'm going to gain year on year. Are you going back to Western States? No, that's a decision I haven't made yet. Like at the moment I'm not thinking about it. I'm actually thinking more. might try and do Trans Grand Canary.

Which being in February is extremely strange for me because normally I just ski all winter. but like I'm up for the challenge to try and do a long race through in the winter. And I think that will help my running during the summer to keep some running training there in the winter. And actually the best skiing in Norway is actually in March. So I can ski as part of my recovery and coming back to training after that. But I think the only reason to do a race like that is going to be possible for me in the winter is now cause we've developed this running impacts, training metric.

that we track through the apps. That way I can see what condition my running legs are in for taking the impact of running that far. And I can concentrate on training that well during the winter, even though I haven't got sort of the trails and the good weather that you just go out running naturally on. You're gonna have to force it a little bit more. And having that running metric is gonna make that possible. So if there's tons of snow in Rømstad this winter, and you're not, let's say you wouldn't

travel outside of Norway during the winter before Transgrancanaria. How would you train your downhill legs before Transgrancanaria? Like I think it would be almost impossible to train well enough to do a really solid race there without doing some downhill. And if all the down, all the trails are completely snowed down, you're going to have to find a downhill road to run down.

and do laps of that. And then it might even turn into like getting driven up and then running down something like that. we've got a few sort of farmers roads that we use to go up to parkings to go skiing. So I guess it would just end up being doing laps of those. And like I said, like before, I would never do that because it's just unnatural. It's not fun. This is not something I want to do. But if you do see like that, that does have an impact on, on the scores.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (13:17.206)

And you can use it sort of like some data to actually track that is very motivating and you can see it working and you can see where you want to get to and how you're slowly getting a sustainable rate. So like it wouldn't be the most fun training I've ever done, but it would be possible. I do think we're going to go away and we will spend a little bit of time in Spain, I think during Christmas and then maybe go out to go and canary a few, a few weeks before. obviously it's not just about the downhill and the.

Lack of trails I'm going to have here. mean, in the winter, I can go on a six hour ski and just drink 500 milliliter water. Whereas my body's going to have to be ready to drink almost a liter in the hottest times during the day racing a race like that. I have to prepare my body to actually be able, yeah, per hour. So work on my body's ability to actually absorb that amount of fluid and carbs, even though not used to it. Getting acclimatized to the heat again. It's like,

lot of the races at night, but it's still going to be a hell of a lot hotter than it is in Norway. Like at that time of year, it might be like minus 15 minus 20 here. So it's just going to be very strange to take the body from, from that to the heat. So I'm sure we are going to have to spend some time doing some training camps away, which is something I'm getting better at. Like I never used to travel well used to sort of just really like being at home, train best at home, become a best at home. But you used to travel a lot before.

Yeah, that would, but then it was more like small trips and I was never trying to train to give myself the absolute best shape. Whereas now the level of competition there is, you have to be in amazing shapes. You have to have really good control over your recovery and, and train well. And that was something I could only really do at home. But then since going to the U S for over a month this year and now spending over a month in the Alps, you kind of have to just settle in and your body does adapt and get better at being resilient.

and then being able to recover even if you're not in your perfect sort of, you know, recovery state at home and things do get better and you do sort of like learn to train well and recover even though you're not at home. Do you still make your own drink mix? Yeah, like I really do still believe that the majority of nutrition companies are just marketing sugars in different

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (15:36.684)

different concentrations and different forms. So it is pretty much just sugar you're buying just for very inflated price. So I have a mixture of buying different gels and different nutrition products, but then also still making my own. can get pure glucose and fructose super cheap. So if you would just want to mix that with water, it works great. And then if you want to mix a bit of pectin in there and make some gel works good to make gel out of it. And, you can add your own electrolytes. It's like, it is.

Super doable. It's really like not that complicated and they're of a lot cheaper Especially if you can be doing it for training, what's the ratio of fructose and glucose? I like two to one Okay, so one one glucose one fructose two glucose. Do you use any maltodextrin? Yeah use more texture is the glucose and then go for it for the Alright any flavors? No, I don't normally flavor it like for me actually

It goes down really well being unflavored. And then a couple of things I have learned this year is sometimes gel fatigue can come from just having sweetness in your mouth for the entire duration of the race. So it can be really good to take a big swig of gel and then immediately afterwards take some plain water, wash out your mouth and then swallow to try and sort of get rid of that sweetness in your mouth. And then also like, it can be good to say if you're doing a really long race, carry a tiny bottle of mouthwash with you.

So every three or four hours you could swig your mouth out with a mouthwash and sort of freshen up a little bit if you are trying to take on gel the entire time. And I'm sure that's something the dentist is probably going to be quite happy about because nutrition for sport these days is going absolutely mental in the amount of carbs we have to consume. And it is working. There is probably a limit to what's useful and what's not useful, especially having to carry all that extra weight with the carbs in the mountains.

But it's like, it's just, can't be healthy if people are aiming for 120 per hour in racing, but then also 120 grams an hour, trying to do that in training when you actually see the quantities of sugar that is, it's actually insane. And it's just, can't be, it can't be good for us. And there is probably going to be a limit. And it'll be interesting to see years to come, whether they look back and they think, my God, I can't believe we were doing that to ourselves because the longterm implications of this and this and that, but I guess.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (18:00.526)

At the moment, we don't really know or don't really care because winning and having good performance is maybe more important. So it's going to be interesting to see how it develops because people are really trying to push the boundaries. Like normally when I race, it's around like 80 to 90 grams an hour, really depending. But I mean, to go up to sort of 120, some people have had like extremes of 150 grams an hour. It's absolutely crazy. Are you thinking about more than dental health?

You're thinking about like diabetes type? I don't know, like dental health. I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not like a doctor. So I've got no idea what sort of like other issues like consuming that amount every day, day in, day out with the amount of training we're trying to do these days is going to have on us. But maybe nothing. Maybe there'll be some really horrid consequences for people that doing it for years on end.

And now guess younger athletes as well coming up into this world where it's a normality to have that amount of sugar in your diet for racing. It's going to be interesting to see how it Live hard, die young. Well, yeah, it's going to be, yeah, I don't know. We're learning year on year and competition and times are like, it's getting harder and harder to race and more competitive.

getting faster and I think nutrition is like a big part of that, especially like looking at Tour de France and stuff, the speeds they're going now. think that is partly down to training from a young age, more the heat training maybe, and also then the better fueling. So it is a big part of sport and it'll be interesting to see whether it takes another step in the next few years. All right, let's get into Vil Struberg. Sure.

So the initial course was 50k, right? Something like that. think 50 to 53k with, I 3000 odd climb was what it came out as when we analyzed the GPX. OK. And I was signed up to do the 110k. And for us, it was a bit chaotic. We ended up doing a 70k course, mostly out and back, very safe down in the valleys, mostly.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (20:22.446)

What was your course initially like? So initially it was going to be kind of like starting on the other side of the mountains. And then you do sort of like things like something like 20 K of running with two climbs in still like lower down paths, but you're still heading up into the mountains, up some ski slopes and stuff. And then we were going to head up on a 1 ,700 meter climb and then descent to the finish. So it was a really big climb in the second.

second half and they immediately even as early as last week said, we're not going to do the very top part of that course. So we'll just do the path over. So that big climb then got reduced to 1500, but still it was looking like that was going to be the most extreme race of the weekend. Cause pretty much all the other races were having bad weather courses like which was radically changing where people were going to be running. then,

I guess it was a bit chaotic for us as well. Like I woke up at 5 .30 ready to get like some food in, go to the toilet, you know, gets ready for the race. And I get a message from Henrietta that she actually sent the night before saying your star has been moved to 10 .15 or something. So I was up at 5 .30 eating some egg fried rice with honey on thinking, crap. So I went back to sleep for an hour or two, woke up, had another breakfast, had some coffee.

talked to a few people and they said that they'd heard about what was happening to 110k course where they like canceled it after having it run for like 30 minutes. So then we all kind of figured, well, our course is actually going to be more extreme because we're to go over this mountain pass. So there's probably not much of a likelihood we'll be racing. And then about 15 minutes before the start, I hear the course is now going to be something like 30k and only 1 ,700 climb.

And at that point I thought, like, can I be bothered? Like, I was just thinking, I've got all the equipment I need. I'm happy in my ability. Should I just run the old course end up in, in the finish and then be able to meet him retro and then, and then go home. I mean, like I thought, no, I'm, I'm here to race or race. And then they changed the course. So we were going to be running out towards that mountain pass, but then turning around and coming back and finishing in the valley. So it did end up being 35 K.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (22:44.142)

with 1600 climb, I think. And that just meant that the course was immediately quite a bit faster. But we did actually end up going through a lot of snow. And I was out front, I think I actually made a four minute lead whilst plowing through this snow, which for the most part was like shin deep, for many parts was like knee deep, and then some parts it was up to the waist of wind blown drifted snow. So it's really creamy kind of like hard packed snow.

which was really difficult to get through. So it's a kind of case of trying to sort of half roll, half crawl on top of it where you could really blast through. At some point I was hiking downhill in this snow pot holding, putting in the track, just following the GPX file on my, that I had on the watch, just following the route because the flags were like every hundred, 200 meters. So they would have been completely useless. So trying to put in this track in the right place.

blast through the snow thinking, well, I'm making a mistake here because everyone behind is just going to be able to catch up and I'm wasting all this energy. That's as it turned out, the second half wasn't that much snow. I was actually no snow. I managed to hold my lead and then come through and finish just under three hours. Amazing. Do you think your obstacle course racing background helped you here? I think definitely like three things. One was I had

a backup pair of shoes which had bigger lugs, better rubber and lower stack heights, sort of like just a shoe edge, even had a gaiter on it. So it was a shoe that was just much better for the conditions. I decided to wear tights and a long sleeve top from the start. So I was just kitted out ready for a snowy battle of a course. And I think that really helped. I think there are still some people in shorts. There are some people which still had their ultra shoes.

ready to go with next to no lugs and sort of like a higher stack height. So the experience and having the right equipment helped. think obstacle racing, being used to it being very cold and snowy and just not exactly what you're prepared for, just being able to react to whatever the course was going to be, even with the change right last minute. Really helped. But then also I think the thing that helped the most was having lived in Bergen for five years where you pretty much run in the snow all winter.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (25:05.164)

because there's not really enough for skiing, but then it does snow up there. And there's a route called Vidin where you run 20k up in the mountains, which is really famous. And there's a good snowy track that forms during the winter because people still run in the snow. So whenever I was sort of like getting frustrated trying to pothole through the snow, I just think back to all the hours I spent running in Snowenberg and it wasn't so bad.

Did you know that we have a guy in our, what's it called? Møre and Romstall. What do you call that in English? Not kommuner. Yeah, I guess there is a name for it, but I can't think of it right now. Area. We live in the valley Romstallen and this whole area is called Møre and Romstall. our fat weight, he won the 110K. Cool. Which turned out to be a 70K.

Yeah. And you won the 50 K or the 37 K and the Ingvild Kasper. Who also lives in this area won the 50 K. It's a good day for room star. Yeah, it's good. Cause, after Western States didn't really think it was the best day for I'm still, but like looking back on it was actually better than I thought. But me either and Petter all around there and there's actually like some incredible athletes that live in this area. And it's really cool to see them performing well.

on an international stage, because I have this theory sometimes, like there are a lot of really, really good Norwegians, but it's hard to travel to these races because you travel somewhere and normally it's like hotter and it's higher and it's different food. And it's just very hard to put in a really solid performance when you're that far away from home, especially considering the climate is so different to where we live. But then when you get some snow on a course and some cold weather, which would then impact how the French, Italians.

Spanish people and whatnot can race. guess it's sort of evens the playing field a bit and it was a good weekend for people up from Scandinavia. You don't have the best record of performing. Maybe you do, but I know you've told me that you don't feel very good in altitude. Yeah, like normally, I mean, we live at sea level. Yeah. So to go up to altitude always sucks. I don't have a childhood where I grew up at altitude. To be honest, I can almost count

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (27:28.468)

On one hand, how many days I've known one hand, but like the time I've spent over a thousand meters is not very much in my life. It's when I traveled to and done a race and then traveled home again. And then the odds of like training camp here and there, like it's, it's not many days and it makes a massive impact. not only when you, when you're racing, but when you arrive, how you feel, which impacts how you do our psychologically, like your sleep is reduced. Just nothing is good.

And people that live at a thousand meters say, you don't feel anything until you get to 2000 meters. Well, people that live at sea level, they feel something at a thousand meters. It's a thousand above where you live. So it does, does have a big impact, but I have really tried this year to sort of like spend more time at altitude to try and acclimatize, to try and do the heat training, trying to acclimatize and just try and

not get stressed out about it and just think it is what it is and try and not let it affect you. But I definitely do think, I mean, we were down in the Alps for a month before this race and how I felt in the week before was ridiculously different to how I would have felt if I just arrived a week before straight from sea level, having trained at sea level for the months before. Yeah. Because the way I feel the altitude living at sea level in the Romsdalen is that once I get above 1800 meters,

I start feeling, you know, it's classic headache and stuff, but I also get sluggish and I get a brain fog. And then I start getting just apathetic. I don't care anymore. Yeah. I think like the main thing I realize is not so much altitude sickness, just you breathe more and it just feels harder. Your heart rate will be a bit higher and it's just, you don't feel as strong as when you're, when you're at sea level, you just feel strong and powerful. And when you head up, you just feel weak and crap.

But then actually like there are a few tricks which can help even when you are running I've actually found that one of the big Feedbacks that what can make you feel more tired is hearing yourself breathe So if you hear yourself breathing loads because you're breathing a lot more at altitude It then sort of like has this feedback effect where you think you're really tired or you should be tired because you're breathing so much So then even just to listen to music while you're running like maybe some bone conducting headphones So they don't plug up your ears and you can still hear

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (29:49.73)

what's around you and hear people that want to pass you and whatnot. But that can actually then sort of allow you to not hear yourself breathe, which psychologically allows you then just to continue going at the same effort level, but not get sort of dragged down by it. So there are a lot of stuff you can do, but I really do feel like the heat training can have a big effect as well. And considering we live somewhere with a cold climate and at sea level, I think for us up in Scandinavia, we're some of the people that can get the most effect out of heat training.

So that's been really interesting to follow along with the research and other athletes trying and try myself. also Henrietta did a good three to four week block of heat training before Kima and she really found it had a big effect. So that's going to be great moving forwards if we can continue that and make the altitude less of a detrimental thing when we all go down south to race. Definitely. What's your plan for the rest of the season?

I think I'm going to go to Nice, which is in three weeks time. I was going to do the 110k, but now I'm thinking I might do the 55. Just so it's like less recovery time, a little bit shorter. And then hopefully that way I can get into a good training rhythm sooner ready for Trans -Ban can area. So after Nice, I think I'll take an early off season, take a few weeks completely off and then yeah, start training through to that big one in February. Why are you going to Nice?

Do you need the stones or what's the reason? I know, like I haven't raced that much this year and I enjoy actually racing. don't enjoy the time before the race, but there's something in me that says that I should race a bit more. And again, I've never raced down in that area. So it might be nice to go and see some new trails to practice racing a bit. also like I've got this deep down drive that I want to have the absolute best shape ever. that way.

I don't really want to race unless I have absolutely amazing shape. And it's just kind of like I should actually just enjoy life as well. Like maybe not my shape isn't exactly what I want it to be, but that doesn't mean I don't have to not race. I can still go down and try and enjoy it and do my best and sort of like use it to gain more experience. So it might, might be fun. It might be like still a lot more traveling and quite tiring and it might be nice to still stay at home. Then again, I'm a paid athlete, I'm paid to race. So.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (32:14.574)

go race. As to which races to do, that's always tough because there's always other races that would be more competitive. But then like Tom Plié is one of the other options I could do. It's just I've raced that race twice now. It would be a really good year to do it. And I just kind of want to go somewhere new and interesting.

What does the training look like the next few weeks then? Well, the next days I'm going to try and recover a bit. The next few days I actually feel really good, especially because the course was shorter and half. It was on snow, so the body didn't get quite spanged up. But then I was wearing thinner shoes and this still did actually quite a bit of like hard downhill and a little bit of road running. So I think the cars need a few more days to recover before I start running again. But I'll get on the bike soon, do some training.

maybe like do one week with slightly high load and one week with more quality and slightly less load than a tape a week and, head down a race. The most important thing really is to just be happy and healthy. And I'm in a really good place for that now. So I feel, I feel really good. And as long as I feel happy and healthy, the shape is obviously there because I did perform relatively well a few days ago. So it's about not trying to.

screw anything up. that shape's not going to disappear in three weeks. If anything, it should sort of have been a very good training, training run as like all races kind of are, if you can recover from them. So just try and remain a bit confident because that's the thing I normally lose the quickest and get down there see how goes. Awesome. And it's, it's at sea level. Mostly at sea level. Yeah. And that's always really fun for me. I, that's why I love Tom Plear.

Like you can go, you can feel strong. You can just feel like your normal self rather than this person, which is breathing twice as much. makes it easier to feel easier to know how much to drink because when you breathe more, you expel more fluid in your breath. So then it's like you kind of have to drink more and I everything is just feels a little bit easier to, to manage. So I look forward to it should be, should be fun. there's other things I could go.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (34:25.388)

and do instead like FKTs or just go and visit some nice places to go do some scrambling and some climbing and some running. But I don't know, like there's something that says to me that that could be a fun place to go. And it's still a UTMB race. should still be some relatively good competitions. So let's go and see how it goes. Yeah, nice. Speaking of FKTs, you know the route I planned for Romstal UltraTrade, the race that ended up not being a race this year?

I might do that in two or three weeks, maybe the weekend before NIS. Sounds good. I mean, it's a lovely, lovely route. It's not the fastest of trails. It's a really like cool places to run. You might see some cool like wildlife, like that's one of the reasons I guess you couldn't actually hold it as a race this year because you're thinking about like reindeer and sort of like the impact on the wildlife and on the nature up there. So to go and enjoy it yourself.

First is probably a better idea anyway. And hopefully the weather holds can have some really nice clear crisp days when it's not snowed yet, but they're grounded can be kind of hard from frost and ice and it can actually be a little bit faster maybe on the swamp. So hopefully you could put in a good time. Yeah. And my follow -up question was if you want to join, like if you need a last long run, not to do the whole course, of course, but maybe 20 K of the course.

Yeah, sounds good. Like if you're looking for a bit of a Bob Graham style pacing crew and people to sort of run different legs with you. Yes, that's what I'm looking out like into the week and I'm not already traveling or anything like that, then sure, I'll join you for a leg. It was really fun to help crew Henrietta and to be a part of that sort of like team when you know that you're going to meet new people on the next leg and there's people there that can help you navigate or...

carry some food for you and sort of get you around. And it turned into more of a team thing that is like a really cool aspect of how an FKT can be put together. And it can be really satisfying for everyone. And it's like a great community thing too. Yeah, I think we need this in Norway.

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (36:40.726)

I think like if then you do create like a rule that for this FKT, you have to be witnessed at certain points and have someone to run with you for the majority of it, then it can make it more of a team thing. People do really enjoy that. now once you've done the route, then you're going to have to then help someone else do it and then sort of like maybe pick a few quicker lines down or tell them where there was some rivers they could fill up from, which they might not have seen before. like everyone can help each other try and make the round go.

quicker and quicker. Yeah. I think we're onto something. All right, Jon. I'm gonna gonna let you go. Sounds good. And you have to tell me about your race. When we meet up next, maybe throw a coffee. Yeah, this week, I'm just gonna do loads of interviews with people that are Norwegians that did the race. Sounds good. Listen to their experience because it was quite quite chaotic.

Yeah, I know. The organisers did do as well as they could do. Obviously, there's always mistakes that are made, but actually considering the circumstances, they did a good job. It's super tough when conditions are like that. I mean, we do run in the mountains. So even if the races were cancelled, it wouldn't have been the end of the world because that does happen. We play in a dangerous playground, so the organisers understand that and we have to.

have to as well. It's just, I do think that maybe we should all go back next year because it's, looked like an absolutely insane place to run the places that we didn't get to some of little jogs I did in the week before they were super nice and to go and do the full loop I think would be, would be a crazy cool experience. So maybe we'd all have to go back next year. Yeah. I have to do the whole loop. Definitely. Definitely. All right, Jon, have a, have a nice day. Thank you for, for this.

30 minutes of quality. All right,

Hans Kristian Smedsrød (38:44.046)

I'm overwhelmed by comments and feedback from people who follow me and it's cool. It's also moving through nature and so on. There's a lot contact. Good, like no, it's nice. I think we are halfway. And it's pretty good. The weather is nice and it's like enjoyable to be up here with everybody. Yes, but then we wondering about and should we the color and the fjöss and the whole family.

The last descent is sort of yeah, rough technical, which is fun for me. It's always nice to finish with something you feel you're stronger at.

But if you manage to get yourself together during the last days. I didn't do anything bad today, I just asked if I could take a little walk and maybe do a little shake out, you call it. Restitution walk, as I call it. Running for almost two hours now. If you want to just do a marathon, you can out as often as If you to do that, it's as soon as you having some...

The goal with training is to ambitions. It doesn't have to be to win or something. It can be too many to fill out a B. You don't to get a few meters That initial experience at Leadville was just like at that point a peak life experience and inspired me to do more. I managed to through the and I managed to so much pain in my that I had wear a nail. If I didn't want to snort, I ran the last 8 kilometers with a nail.

I have never met anyone Kilian in any sport. But I have never seen anyone as athletic as Johannes Søstlått Klæbo. I have been looking for other challenges, both physical and mental.