Hi all,

I’m currently staying in 1.800 meter’s altitude in Italy. I’m with the rest of the triathlon national team and actually also the Danish national team in rowing. It is the second year straight we are on cross country skiing camp with the best Danish rowers. I’m skiing and I’m in the zone!

I have kept a high, stabile level in my training and it feels great. I train hard and long and I’m recovering well and I’m ready for more every day. I had half a rest day on Wednesday with only 2,5 hours of training early in the day but I didn’t really need the rest even though we have trained for 5-6 hours for five days straight.

It seems that I can take the pressure I put on my body, and I haven’t felt fatigued yet. Some of the others have been really tired from the training and have also been sick, but luckily I haven’t dealt with that yet.

Formidable recovery

Here in this training camp I have had great focus on my daily recovery. The past six months I have used a nail mat from time to time and here I have spent 20-30 minutes lying on it every night, usually before I go to sleep. It loosens up my back and also speeds up different processes in the body that are good for recovery. I have also got a device sponsored called NormaTec . Click the link for a picture, it makes it easier to understand what it is.

I brought it with me to Italy and I’m using it one hour every evening. It feels really good for my recovery and my legs haven’t been fatigued in spite on the heavy load of training so the effect seems to be really good.

Lots of skiing

In training we have focused a lot on the cross country skiing and have skied about 200-250 km the first five days. E.g. on Tuesday we had 44 km of skiing with a lot of altitude meters. I love to ski and I know that it’s amazing for my form, so I really enjoy working the tracks down here.

Swimming is kept to about 3 sessions a week. The transport is too long since we have to go to the valley to swim, so I’m just maintaining my swimming form.

The weather changes a lot. We had a blizzard one day with almost zero visibility where we both went out skiing and running with snow directly into the face and eyes. Not my favorite. The next day I was out on my bike in good weather and 8-10 degrees Celsius. What a contrast.

Super Specialized

I have chosen to make my bike training a priority so I will be ready for the Abu Dhabi race on March 13 where the bike segment is 200 km.

I’m happy to have my new Specialized TT Transition bike with me to Italy. I have rode it twice on the turbo trainer and also took it out for a 4,5 hour spin at the valley where I could spend a lot of time in the aero position to make me all set to go for Abu Dhabi.

So far I have the Transition model but later on I’m supposed to get the Shiv model (the one Cancellara won the world TT championship on last year) which should be even better. I’m quite happy about the one I have now though, it runs really smooth and everything about it is perfect. So I look very much forward to racing in Abu Dhabi.

It is kind of an experiment to come almost directly from skiing camp and to 30 degrees Celcius racing but it is interesting to see what happens. I don’t think it matters not to be heat adapting for several reasons: Usually I’m in good shape early in the year, my form gets a big boost from skiing and I don’t have problems with racing in heat at all. My coach Michael Krüger and I will head for Abu Dhabi Wednesday before the race which is Saturday March 13.