Lisa Norden

Grown up in a smaller Swedish town I was the typical horse girl who was good at sport. I rode my bike everywhere (most times quicker than the bus) and learnt about hard work and responsibility in the stable. I wanted to go places with my competing but with limited finances horseriding proved to be a difficult venue.

In the summer of 2000 I rode my bike to Italy together with my mum. The day she turned 40 we put our feet in the Mediterranean having been on the bike for 19 days, most of these in a heavy rain... I had an old steel bike 5 sizes to big, gears down on the frame and bags attached both front and back. It did the work, but I can't say I was sold on the sport.

The turnaround was a few weeks after the return to Sweden when I signed up for a local triathlon event in my hometown. I had to breastswim all the 400m in the pool and was 2nd last out of the water... With a solid bike base in my legs I managed to overtake a whole bunch of people and win my age group.

Another year down the road my horse got injured and I made the decision to learn to swim and put some more time into my own training. This paid off and in 2002 I won the Swedish Junior Champs, the Nordic Junior Champs and qualified for Europeans. FUN! Finally I found a sport where you get rewarded for your training and commitment , not by the size of your familys wallet. ]

I still have all my family and friends back in Sweden. The horses are swoped for dogs but my mum is still active and have done three IM's since the cycling trip to Italy.

I'm currently based in Australia training with Darren Smith, my coach since 2007. I'm living the dream, riding my bike and training hard day after day. My ultimate goal is to found out how good I can be and how fast I can get.

The challenge will be to time this with the day if the triathlon event in London 2012...

Davos Specialized Concept Store

June 25, 2010

I am very lucky that Davos not only is host to great mountains and fantastic cheese, - but also a Specialized Concept Store!

I got to know Ivan in 2007 which was my first trip to the mountains, and my very first camp with coach Darren...

Back then, in true Darren style, we stayed in a pretty old, very low budget place, near the train station. Ivan happened to have his little cycle shop in the building next to ours and he became our bike mechanic of choice.

Today the whole area is a big hole. A construction site and most probably the future foundation of new nice buildings and holiday accomodation.

Ivan's cycle shop has moved up the road and turned into a shiny stylish Specialized Concept store.

Apart from a shop filled with beautiful bikes he also have a great coffee machine. One of the reasons every trip to the bike shop tends to take a lot of time...

Earlier this week I took crazy chicka Barb into the shop to introduce her to Ivan. It's good to have her back at camp and exciting to get the inside stories from Madrid WCS and Des Moines WC.

Made it start to itch in my fingers...

I think it's starting to be time to get back in the race suit now.

The past weeks I have really been able to do some work. Link week after week together, recover from fatigue within the heavy training block. I really do like training at altitude. The constant fatigue, the two naps a day, the completely smashed feeling.

I have started to add some speed to the mixture and getting myself ready for Europeans next weekend. It's quite exciting really!

Some more days of work before it's time to go down to sea level and see what the body can do.

Stats for Lisa Norden are coming soon.