A Champion’s Method | Kristian Blummenfelt: Uncharted

Kristian Blummenfelt conquered the world between 2021 and 2022, winning almost all before him – an Olympic Gold, the Ironman World Championship and the Ironman 70.3 World Championship.

However, there was still a race distance he was yet to claim – the 100k.

In 2023 Kristian would do all that he could to take victory on the PTO Tour, racing all three races in Ibiza, Milwaukee and Singapore. Despite a remarkable schedule, the Norwegian star finally landed the coveted win at the PTO Asian Open.

We filmed with Kristian and the Norwegian Method training camp in Font Romeu, France as they prepared for a gruelling month of racing including Milwaukee, Paris Test Event, SIngapore and Lahti.

In this series, ‘Uncharted’ goes behind the scenes with the world’s best triathletes in training as they prepare for the toughest, most competitive races in professional triathlon.

00:00 Uncharted Territory
00:51 Kristian Blummenfelt Training
25:49 Watch More

#PTO #Triathlon #TriathlonMotivation

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Every athlete has a defining moment. Where everything slows down. The moment you shape history. Become immortalised. You enter uncharted territory. This is not that defining moment. It’s the moments before. How far we have more? Two more Ks. Okay. When I was younger, I used to pretend like I won the races in training.

Celebrating with myself. Giving high fives. Having that victory feeling, even on my easy runs. Ay ay ay. Ay ay ay. That’s how it’s going to feel, winning Milwaukee, US Open. I’m coming for you. Now I’m listening to Imany, Don’t Be Shy. Don’t Be So Shy I think it’s called.

Perfect to get into the mood on the pool deck, you know, it’s like… Yeah. Gets you pumped up. Shall we see if we can trick it? Can you hear it? Maurten 320 in the bottle. It’s a tough session, and I want to finish it strong so maybe it helps to…

Yeah, getting help from the carbs, not just for the session today, but also for the session tomorrow. And training rest of today. So it’s a quick and short, quick and fast swim, hopefully. 3×300 metre opening speed and then 13×50 race pace and yeah, have to just simply lift up my…

Improve my speed in the water. So doing shorter reps now and trying to do a great job. I don’t want to be second pack in Milwaukee. I want to be there from the gun, in the front and maybe not lead out of the water, but I want to be in the first pack.

So I don’t have to spend all my energy on staying on DItlev’s, or just behind Ditlev, to save myself but I can actually use that energy to race aggressively instead, from the front. So we are measuring lactates and oxygen. And the reason for that is basically because

What it allows us to do is to see how the aerobic and oxidative and the glycolytic system is adapting as they progress through the sessions over weeks, days and weeks. Normally you don’t see that big changes from day to day. More like… that has more to do with training stages

And more fatigue or other things. But what we want to see is that the general trend shifts towards the direction that you want it to do. So obviously you can say but we want to get that answer in training. Yes. But on the other side, we want to be ahead

Of the game, meaning that we also have to see what kind of adjustments that we need to make. So if we have a plan, this is where we want to be. This is where we are. Then basically what we are trying to achieve is to…

We have an idea of what we want to develop, or what is needed to develop to get to that point. And you’re not going to do race like our full race simulation. Normally between, let’s say, between races. So then when we do the measurement what this gives us is an

Idea of very quickly is that all the intervals we can see what are the system or the energetic systems are shifting in the direction that we want them to develop to shift in order to be ready for the race. Just wait, Kenji. I’ll measure you as well. Okay. That was a okay session.

Short. Not too sharp but this is my biggest weakness. Short sets in the pool. But yeah, I think it’s going in the right direction. Altitude doesn’t matter. I’m a haemoglobin monster, so this is like sea level for me. 1800. When you have been living up in the African

Mountains in 2006 the whole winter then this is nothing. This is too much oxygen almost. I marked it from our last trip but we will line up. So one thing I noticed is that your saddle’s quite a bit further back on there than this. Is that how you want to run it?

I think that’s how… I only lifted it up. Is that how we gave it to you? You gave it a little bit lower saddle. So I took it up. But you didn’t move forward at all, okay? Is it lightning? It’s not lightning? No, it’s thundering. It’s pretty noisy.

Does that mean it’s most likely going to rain? Yeah, it already is. And we’re heading towards Les Angles in the rain? Timed it perfectly. Yeah. If it’s in the rain, then it’s not going to be on this bike. Because this leaks like a sieve. For now. For now. Time to roll.

Ay ay ay. First one. 3:97. Feeling good. Easy peasy. It’s something with the weather, you know. Just feel. Feel at home? Feel like home. In Bergen. And from 1 to 10, how do guys score Olav’s look? 1.6. 1.6? 3, 2, 1. Go. The shape was escalating quickly. It must be my dinner yesterday.

Thank you. Can I put on the floor? 402 and nose breathing. 1.3. 1.3. It’s going down. 3, 2, 1. Allez. 4:04. Seven, so just under threshold. 3, 2, 1. Go. I have to say, I’m quite happy. He’s putting out power numbers that we are starting to see now prior to Olympics,

With very controlled lactate values as well. So… it is really good. I can’t say much more than that. And then we have to see how it plays out in our next race. So I think, Kristian… what’s really fun with working with Kristian is that he has

A pretty good understanding of the data, the measurements we do. And I think that’s also one of the important things when you want to have an athlete on board, they need to be able to understand what you’re doing. And this is something that Kristian understands quite well.

So when we, for example, he’s out riding, he knows his power numbers, then he sees his lactate values. Then he knows also immediately, not only from the feeling, but actually also from the data points as well, or from the lactate that really he is strong.

I would say Kristian, Gustav, Kenji they are really well educated athletes. One of the things… I make the measurement now and I show it to Kristian, ask him, what does this mean? He would immediately say what it means. How many lactate do you think? 1.8. And what does 1.8 mean to you, Kristian?

We’re using a lot of oxygen. Yes. And also where are you compared to threshold? Under. Yes, exactly. 2.1. Brilliant. Yeah, the Tokyo thing, the Ironman thing, short distance thing. Now, the new 70.3 from last year, but there’s still space for something more. PTO ranked number one 2023. I want that one. Let’s go.

Wahoo. Wahoo. Wahoo. Welcome, welcome. None of them is up here, so… they’re all different. It’s getting to the point where it’s actually quite… Let me see if we can find a pair. Give us a room tour. So, you know, it’s not easy to live in baggage.

In a bag for a couple of months. So normally the whole… yeah, this is how it looks when I’m organising stuff. I have control. Here’s an old boys collection. Here. I found a set. Let’s go for a run. What people from the outside reckon is crazy and impossible and stupid, like

That’s something that’s been driving us and we’ve used that for motivation in training for like a decade. And I think we have, even as a junior, we’re always training more and, in our opinion, training harder than our competitors and having that self-belief that we are doing the job

Better than our competitors gives us maybe that confidence for race day and maybe that same sort of invincible feeling that we want to bring into the PTO distance. Shakira, live from Madrid. Triathlon and sport in general, like I think I could’ve gone into a lot of different sports,

Like endurance based, as long as it’s endurance involved and I can use my engine. It’s more like having something to work towards and yeah, use my body, like I just love being in activities and I guess triathlon is the sport where you can do as much training as possible.

Yeah, it is basically what I wake up for every single day is like to get as good training benefits from the day as possible. This is why I go to bed early enough to get enough sleep so the next day can be a good training day.

So I would rather have a good weekend of training than a good weekend of party. Because it really shows that it means something to me. It’s not just a routine that I go for training three times a day, but it’s actually something that means more. It’s not just a job.

It’s like my hobby and it’s my life and I just love the racing and the challenge.