The Rich Roll Podcast - The Most Decorated Winter Olympian Ever: Johannes Klæbo On Training, Mindset & Reinventing His Sport

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Johannes Klæbo is a Norwegian cross-country skier, an 11-time Olympic gold medalist, and the most decorated Winter Olympian in history. Johannes caught the world's attention with his signature sprinting on skis, sweeping his events and winning the most gold medals ever at a single Winter Olympics. But it wasn't always so; this conversation explores how he got from the middle of the pack at age 14 to the top of Olympic history. We get into Norway's philosophy of raising top athletes, the training mishap that turned into his uphill technique, his 32-hour training week, and his competitive spirit that never switches off. He also tells me the one thing he changed before the Olympics, and it has nothing to do with training. At only 29 Johannes is already one of the greatest Olympians of all time, and it was an honor to have this conversation with him. Enjoy. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Rivian: Electric vehicles that keep the world adventurous forever👉🏼https://stories.rivian.com/richroll  WHOOP: Join now and get one month free👉🏼https://www.join.whoop.com/Roll  Go Brewing: Use the code Rich Roll for 15% OFF👉🏼https://www.gobrewing.com  Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors  Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There goes Clabo! The amount of energy expenditure that is required for you to do that has to be insane. I saw the video myself and I was like, that looks pretty good. 13-time Olympic medalist, 11 gold medals, the most gold medals won at a single winter Olympics. Most career gold medals won by any winter Olympic athlete. Like, it's insane what you've accomplished. I always had this mindset where I hate to lose. The feeling of winning a race is amazing.

The feeling of becoming second is so much worse. It is a mental game. You are saying that, okay, we just go over the next hill, the next hill, and then you just continue to trick your head to just move a little bit more. So a thousand hours of training. What does it look like? Two and a half hours of... Oh, really?

Oh, interesting. You're very much known as somebody who's modernized your sport and brought it into 2026, which in the United States is, you know, it's a relatively obscure sport. I would say that most people had almost, at least in the United States, like had very little connection with this sport until they saw you essentially, you know, running uphill in your skis at 10.3 miles an hour at sub six minute pace and just minds were blown when that viral moment occurred. And that has probably done more for the just awareness of the sport than anybody has done in the last 30 or 40 years. That's probably true. And I think it's good that people can actually see when you actually put in numbers on it. You know, when you see like there is, because we are having kilometers per hour. But you see like, okay, it's 18.2 kilometers per hour in the up hills.

you see the incline just for people to understand and get to get to know it a little bit more because then it's easier for people to to really understand how how fast we are running those hills but yeah i was a cool moment to see that so many people were paying attention to what we are doing i mean cross country skiing has always been a really small sport but it's it's getting bigger and i think that what has been my goal is to tell people and try to show people how healthy of a sport cross-country skiing is because you're using your legs, you're using your upper body, and then you're also working your endurance. And those three things you're working out at the same time when you're out there. And it also is a really low risk of getting injured. Like in terms

of when you're running or biking or whatever. It's like there is not that many sports that are doing upper body, lower body and endurance at the same time. Swimming. Swimming. Swimming would probably be the closest comp. That's probably the closest one. And I think those two sports or in general, a sport like that is really efficient for people

to stay in good shape and staying healthy. And what we see over the last years is that people are paying. more attention to their health, trying to do the right workouts, eat the right things, and stuff like that, which I, which I think is really cool because I think we are in a, it's a more healthier way we are, or we're doing things these days than we did before. There's this sense within the endurance community. Like if you're an endurance athlete, It's one thing to be a runner or triathlet, one of these kind of sports. But the sport that commands the most amount of respect among the people who are steeped in endurance is cross-country skiing.

They're like, that's where the fittest people in the world are. Like it's a different breed. Like the degree of endurance and strength and agility that is demanded in order to be at an elite level in this sport is incomparable to any other endurance pursuit. It is like the, you know, kind of apex predator of fitness. And I want to, I want you to like kind of explain like the rigor of this sport that you dominate. Like what goes into being able to compete at the highest level in cross country skiing? Oh, I think there is a lot of factors that are important. but one thing is you definitely need to have like the V-O-2 max,

like the V-O-2 is important because you are, we're doing so many up and downs in terms of like a race. It's say it's a 10-K race. It's basically 22 minutes of full speed from start to finish. It's a lot of uphills, a lot of downhills, but it's at the end that the VO2 max needs to be. be so high that you're able to, if you're going to perform at the highest level. And then another aspect of it is the technical part.

And I think that is important in a lot of sports. And I think it is as important in cross-country skiing as it is in so many other sports. Because it's just, it's important to have the right technique in the right type of terrain, the right type of hills, you know, because if the hill is 5% incline, you need to use this kind of technique. But when it's six, it's a little bit difference. And that changes from seconds to seconds. So it's really a hard balance to find the right technical part, every single part of the track. And then I also think that just being well, just having the endurance to be able to be able to race over in the cold air, but also like, like we do, it's a race weekend for me

can be everything from 1.3 kilometers, which is, yeah, I don't know how long it is in miles, but it's probably just less than a mile or just under, yeah. Just under a mile. And then we have like the 50K, which is like two hours of racing. And the sprint is just below three minutes. Yeah. And then you have like everything in between there, meaning you need to have those fast muscle fibers to be able to perform in the sprint. But you also need the endurance to be able to perform on a 50K. And I think that's kind of the beauty of the sport, which for me has always been the trigger to be able to do everything.

Yeah. So for people that are unfamiliar with Johannes, let's just catch people up here. 13-time Olympic medalist, 11 gold medals. You hold a record for the most gold medals won at a single winter Olympics. Most career gold medals won by any winter Olympic athlete. Like, it's insane what you've accomplished. And I think just as equally impressive is the fact that you're winning at the sprint distances all the way up to the 50K.

So the equivalent would be somebody who's winning the gold medal in the 400 meters on the track and then also like winning the marathon. Like it's just, it's inconceivable. So how are you able to have such agility and dexterity to be able to be dominant in both the sprint distances and the longest race is available all the way up to the 50K? I mean, it's just mind-blowing. I mean, I think it has been, it's been a goal of mine

since I was really young. And my granddad is my coach. And he's 82 years old now. And he has always been my coach since I was, yeah, he was the one picking me up from school, bringing me to training to practice. We were in the weekends. We went out for skiing sessions every single weekend during the winter. So he has been a huge part of my success.

But I would say that I think one of the key factors is that we started with the goal of winning a sprint race. was where we started because we saw that when I was 18, 19 years old, we figure out that, okay, it's quicker for me to become good in sprint than it is to become good in distance skiing. So we decided to put some extra focus on the sprint part when I was 17, 18, 19 years old. And when I then became a senior and was able to raise the walk-up, we were able to perform in sprint from day one. And when we were able to train a thousand hours, which is kind of the limit for us, then we decided that we're going to start shifting the focus from sprint to distance.

And that was about when I was 20. So we slowly changed the focus a little bit more from sprint specific training to more distance training. So we added altitude training. we added a lot more longer sessions like a normal sprint week for me would be like previous was probably say between 18 and 21 hours now we are doing more like if we're doing 21 hours it's a low week yeah now we are more closer to between 25 and 30 more or less averaging that the whole year so we have kind of and we have shift the focus in terms of just having more longer sessions, three-hour sessions, more or less every day, just to build that endurance over time.

And I think that has showed that it is actually possible to keep the sprints part, but we also have developed the distant part. So we now are able to do both more or less. It's smart. It's patient. And it's the right way to do it because you can, you can. If you're fast and you have your technique down with speed, you can always build endurance over time. And you have plenty of years to do that.

And by taking your time and incrementally, like, moving up and extending those distances while maintaining your speed, like, that's a really smart way to do it. You can't go, you can't do it the other way around. You can't specialize in the long distance and then expect to develop speed later. No, because I think what we have seen over the years is that you're getting slower by the age, you know. Yeah. That was important for me to use that momentum I had when I was 18, 19 years old, build the right technique, build the right strength to be able to be quick and fast. And then shifted a little bit more endurance, but then maintain the sprint parts more than doing the opposite way. then you are it is it is hard to to work against that you're actually becoming older and I think

for me that so now I feel like these days I need to have a little bit more focus on the sprint parts just a few sessions here and there where I actually need to maintain it a little bit better because you can feel like you're getting a little bit slower by just getting older and older and older so we're still not in that time where we are too old to do sprint, but it's a shift kind of coming around 30 to 33 years old where you see that that is actually really difficult. I'm sure there are other athletes in your sport that have approached it in this same way. So this still doesn't explain why you're so much better.

Like it's a rational approach, like a really good long-term approach to excellence in sport, but I'm sure there are other people that are doing the same thing. That's probably true. So I'm going to get you. I want you to articulate, I want you to say out loud, the quiet part out loud, why are you so much better? What is the differentiator? I mean, it's, it's hard to, it is really hard to say because I feel like there's so many

athletes that are doing the right things. But I feel like I've always had this, I always had this mindset where I, I, I always had this mindset where I, I hate to lose that much. I mean, I feel like it's almost the feeling of winning a raise is amazing, but it's just the feeling of becoming second. It's so much worse. Is it because you feel like you're letting yourself down? Is it an internal motivation?

Or is it because you lost to somebody else? No, it is. I always like to say that I'm raising against myself. It's always been about me. and what I can do against my own kind of head. Because I feel like when I'm raising a 50K, it is a mental game. You know, it is about yourself and how you are try,

or how you're able to trick your head in the way that you're saying that, okay, we just go over the next hill, the next hill. And then you just continue to trick your head to just move a little bit more. And at the end, you're crossing the finish line. you kind of, if you did everything right, you're crossing it first. But if you are not able to trick your head enough, that's like what I say to myself. I feel like that's where I let myself down. So for me, it's always been about myself and how I can play, play this game against myself.

And that's kind of the, for me, that's always what has been, has been a trigger. You hate to lose more than anybody else. This is your answer. And it is like that. It always been like that. I mean, it was like that when I was playing soccer as well as a young kid, you know. It was that when I, it's almost like that when we are in the cabin with my family just playing cards. You know, I just have that when it is a competition, when there is something on the line, I feel like I just love to.

Life or death. It seems like that. What's interesting about that is it's not the story most people might imagine. Yes, your grandfather has always been there. Yes, your mother was also a skier. Your grandfather gave you your first pair of skis when you were like two years old. But it wasn't like, now I'm on the skis and it's just this clean path to excellence without obstacles.

I mean, you were pretty average in your younger years. Like I read up on, you know, the experience of you being in sports at around age 14 and you were much smaller than everybody. There was no, there was a, there was a sense that you had some athletic gifts, but you were pretty average in every regard. Yeah, I mean, I started out quite well when I was really young. And then in Norway, we don't have like the, we don't take the time on the kids when they are racing until they are at least 10, I think. So because you are starting going to practices when you are like five, six years old. That was when I started as well. And then from five, six until 10, you, we take the time, but you don't, you put it in a random, random numbers.

You don't kind of have the one standing on the first of the result list is not the one who was winning the race. That was kind of randomize every single weekend when you, when you were racing. And I think at that time, I was always looking at the time, like how, how did I do compared to my friends and everyone else? But when we became 14, I was like people started growing up a little bit more. I was still really, really small. And then it was like, yeah, double polling against a man. It was a kid against a man, you know, it was huge differences. So I was in just my local area where we were probably like 40 people racing and I was probably just around 20 just in the middle.

How did that work with your hatred of losing? No, it was terrible. My mom always told me every single week like, okay, we need to find something else to do. Like this is not going to can continue. But then we, I think I, together with my granddad, we find a way to. or we found a way to work or we look into what we can do, what can I do to become better? Because at some point I will start growing up a little bit more. So we decided, okay, we're going to focus on the things we can do something about,

which is my technique. I can't do anything about that I'm small. So we just need to wait. And that was when we started really focusing on the technique, like how are we double pole? the running, like all the things we are doing these days and the balance on the skis has been the key factor to my success, I would say. And that was something we developed from I was 14 until I was 17 when I finally started growing a little bit more.

At 15, you announced that you were going to be the best or you had set this goal for yourself, even though at age 14, there was no indication that that was a possible. But there's some interesting things that occurred around that time. First of all, it's set against this cultural backdrop that much has been written about and talked about recently. Like, what's going on with Norway? Like, Norway is just having this moment. Like, look at the exceptionalism that we're seeing at the Olympic level. We saw it in the World Cup over the past couple weeks.

We've got you. We've got Inge Britson. We've got, you know, Gustav and Christian in triathlon. on, like, we're just seeing just such an outsized series of exceptional athletes like yourself that is hard for the American brain to make sense of, like, how is this happening? And then when you understand, like, oh, they don't keep score until they're 13, they have this whole different culture around winning and losing. And now, like, that's become almost a test case for parents and youth sports, like how to do

this correctly. which I think is super interesting. And within that, you had a coach who came up with a whole set of challenges for people like yourself, the Roons Challenge. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think it's super interesting. Yeah, that is interesting. Yeah.

So my coach at that time was his goal was to have as many of the kids participate in as many of the practices as possible. That was kind of his overall goal. And what it then started was like a challenge where you got points every time you was at a practice. So then you got like one point. And then on every single practice we had like some sort of relays. It was it could be we were picked in four, five different teams and then we had a relay. but it was not to do back and forth the fastest like regular skiing it was with one ski okay okay we took off the one ski it was with one pole it was without poles it was like so many different

ways of doing that kind of relay and then you got points based on how how you perform on that relay and at the end of the season when when we were done we kind of had like a pursuit where we were starting based on how many points you had collected over the last year. And then you can see like, okay, people that have been at many practices, they had an advantage on the pursuit. So for me, I was like, it was a goal to do well on the Rooness Challenge at the end of the season because like that gave you a picture of. that you have been taking part a lot of times,

but you have also been showing up, you know. And I feel like it, for me and when I look back at it, it was a perfect way of keeping as many of the kids to join the practices as possible. And I think that's kind of the culture in Norway. And like you said, the discussions these days has been in what are we doing in Norway? because we have so, I mean, we are a small country in terms.

We have 5.5 million people. It's pretty small in like in the big world. Yeah. But we're still having so many top athletes in so many different sports. And I think what we are doing is that the overall goal for so many of the local clubs is that we want to have and we want to kids to try out as many sports as possible. and we want to keep them there for as long as possible. And then when we are becoming 15, 16, 17 years old,

and we are going to make the decision if we're going to do high school towards sports or we're going to do it towards other things, that's kind of when people start making their decisions. But until they are 15, we try to keep as many as long as possible. And I feel like that has been. a key success and a key factor of the culture in Norway. And I think that has worked out really well. But I also think that when you speak to so many of the top athletes, everyone has been, like,

they really appreciate it these days. Like looking back how cool the practices actually was because we were so many kids every single time. Yeah. And creating a culture where it's all about making sure that the kids are plugged in, they're connected to the sport and that they're falling in love with it so that they can have a lifelong relationship with some kind of movement, rather than a negative memory of never getting picked and forget that. I'm moving in another direction like sports is not for me. Yeah, and I think just having the opportunity to try different sports.

You know, a lot of Norwegians are doing cross-country skiing, at least from when they are six until they are 10. Yeah, there's like a thousand ski clubs in Norway, right? It's so many. Yeah. Just around my place where I stay, it's from my place to Grosunson where we had the World Championship is five kilometers. It's three clubs just from on those five kilometers. So it's a lot. But like I said, I think it's a lot of people are trying cross-country skiing for just four years.

But then they have developed the capability to actually, when they're getting older, they will remember how it is to ski. So they can, when they are getting older, they can use skiing as a training form. You know, they can go in the cabins during the winter and then they go skiing in the weekends as a part of their staying in shape program. and they're trying soccer, they're trying track and field, they're trying cycling. There is like the goal is for the kids to try out as many sports as possible because then the parents are then like trying to let the kids decide,

is there soccer or is it cross-country skiing or is it track and field you think is the most fun, you know? And based on fun, that's where you make the decision more than just being, put on like a sport and you get kind of forced a little bit more to just do it for some years rather than just trying out different things and then you can decide for yourself yeah it is the counterintuitive path to excellence though over time because there is this idea that if you want to be the best you're going to have to specialize early and the example that norway is setting is that that's an incorrect way of thinking about it.

Have you read David Epstein's book, Range? No. So it's all about this. I'm going to send you this book. Basically, we have this idea that the best people in the world specialized early. And they were just focused and they put in their 10,000 hours. And that's that's the only way you're going to get to the top. And there are examples of that.

You have the Tiger Woods and, you know, those sorts of individuals. But by and large, when you canvas. the best in the world in all kinds of disciplines from science and academia to, you know, athletics, you will see that the people that not only are the best but have sustained long careers of excellence are people that did lots of things when they were young and then arrived into their specialty a little bit later with all of this experience that has contributed to not only peak performance, but sustaining that peak performance. Yeah, and I think that if you have tried out, many different things and you found that that soccer is what I love the most. Imagine how many

hours and how much energy you're able to then put into soccer because you know that that's the sport you love the most or if it's cross-country skiing, it doesn't matter. But like I think just have been able to try out different things and as a kid figure out that, okay, this sport is where I like to put my focus and this is where I like to spend my. time, then you're able to spend thousands of hours practicing that. And those other experiences aren't distractions. They're actually contributing to your success and your specialty. Like you were a soccer player. I know there was a moment where you had to make a decision whether you were going to go into soccer or skiing, but your experience as a soccer

player on the pitch contributed to your success as a skier because it gave you a different kind of fitness and a practice of agility in a different context that has improved your technique as a skier. Absolutely. And I think that's, it is an interesting topic because I feel like everyone thinks and a lot of people thinks that you need to do it this way or the other. But I think there is, I think we in Norway, we have at least tried to found like a middle way here where we keep as many of the kids to participate for as long as as as possible and then we hopefully then and then that's at least what we have seen over years now that that has developed a lot of top athletes in so many different sports i love the outdoors but i'll admit ever since i started driving

my rivian i find myself making even more time to just hop in and take it to places where i can live real experiences i was recently able to drive an r2 with a RJ Scorange, the founder and CEO of Rivian, and we talked about how this is no accident. How does that idea of like, how are we creating this, you know, completely seamless connection with the outdoors through a car that, you know, by definition,

sort of has to seal you off from the outdoors, like, and how do the design decisions inform, you know, that perspective? If you're in this car, you should feel like, if you want to go somewhere and explore, a hike or stay a little later, it's there. It's just, again, a little nudge to say it's okay to explore. Yeah.

Seek out the unknown. The front trunk has a drain plug in it. In the rear, the glass dropping in this car is a really nice feature because it'll actually throw a surfboard in the back or you can easily put your gear in the back. So it's just all these little things that are, you know, that yes, they're features and they're on their own. They're maybe not the whole story,

but you put them all together as a meal that should feel like a product that's just built for someone that wants to go live, you know, a full adventurous life. To watch the rest of our conversation and learn all about the R2 and the places it can take you, go to stories.riviant.com slash rich roll. This episode is brought to you by Woop, the wearable health and fitness coach that turns insights about your sleep, your recovery, your strain, and your overall health into better daily decisions. Here's a phrase I keep coming back to. We measure longevity in years, but we

measure life in moments. And the older that I get, I turn 60 this fall, the more I care about the second part. It's not just about adding time. It's about the quality of life in every moment of time that I have left. And that's how I view my whoop. I've got real goals ahead, getting back to pain-free running, and hopefully, fingers crossed, being fit and injury-proof enough to participate in the New York City Marathon this fall to celebrate my 60th birthday. But the only way I'm going to get there is by understanding my body the best I can and by meeting its needs without exceeding them. Whoop prevents me from making those bad decisions. By being able to see how my sleep is trending, how I'm absorbing the strain of my training to recover efficiently. I now know when to push and when to

back off, which has allowed me to show up with more energy, more presence for the stuff that matters most. And that's the real promise of Wu. Not more data, more life, in your years. So check it out. Go to join.wup.com slash roll for one month free of whoop. I want to talk about soccer a little bit. So you've been supporting Norway. You've been going to the games. You're going to go to the final here this weekend. How many of the Norway games did you go? Did you go to all of them? No, I didn't have time to do that. So I came for the most important match, which was against Senegal in the group stage. So I was just here for three four days. One of my good friends is playing. So I wanted to come out and share for them.

And it was, I mean, it was a cool experience and just seeing how much soccer, I mean, it's, we haven't qualified for the World Cup in 28 years. So in Norway now, it's just been complete World Cup fever in Norway. Like we, it's like we say, it's just been crazy. Everyone is drinking beer, they are staying up late because of the time difference and just been completely out of their skulls. Yeah, I would say. It's been all about the walkout. But here's the thing.

Like, you're the absolute goat in your sport. I can't imagine you would trade it for anything, but is there a small part of you that is like at these games, you know, watching Norway play thinking, you know, that could have been me, man. I could have been out there. Absolutely. Absolutely. So many times. Look at what's going on with Erling and how the world has just fallen in love with this guy.

And he's just become the most famous and celebrated athlete in the world. I know. And you're like, damn, man. With good reason, though. I mean, he's a great guy and he has, it's so impressive. Are you mates with him? I've been meeting him a couple of times in terms of like some, we have some mutual sponsors together. But yeah, he is a great guy.

I mean, it's just amazing to see what he has accomplished over the last. I mean, over his so far in his career, but also especially this walk up. I mean, it was so much fun. Yeah. And talk about somebody who understands social media. It's insane. Yeah. So here's what you need to do.

You need to make a YouTube video with him where you make him do a day in your life and then you live a day in his life, like in training and nutrition, et cetera. I think the world would go insane. I agree. I think that could be something really cool. Because I, like I said, a lot of my friends are soccer players. And it's just, I know, I mean, in the summers, we all normally go to a week of holidays together during the summer.

And when we then compare the trainings, like soccer player against like me as a and cross country skiers like a couple of years ago, we was in Lufoten up north in Norway and I was going out for a three hours double polling session in the morning and I came back and then they have been or he has been out running, they had been running like five kilometers and then he had done 10 times 100, 200 meters up a hill.

That was a session and it has been an amazing session, you know. And that was probably for, say, an hour, max. And then I was out for three hours, came back and knew that I was going out for another two hours in the evening while he was just having an hour and it was super satisfied. And that was a really good training day for him. So it's really like when you compare those in terms of hours, it's completely different, of course. but they have a way different like muscle stress on their muscles compared to what I have when I do three hours sessions. But yeah, sometimes when I'm doing like three hours in the mud up in Toronto, I'm like it's raining

and it's just terrible weather. Sometimes I wish I was like a soccer player do like an hour, hour and a half. And I was like, that was good. But yeah. Also, also in terms of like how much you're getting? Getting paid by the hour is a big difference. That's a big difference as well. One thing I didn't know about you is that in, I think it was 2020, you signed a five-year professional

cycling contract, like you joined a professional cycling team. Are you still, it's not surprising that you would use the bike to train for ski, but this is how good you are as an overall like diverse athlete. Yeah, so the reason for for me to do that was that me and my granddad was was looking into how can we develop the endurance now? What can we do to become a little bit better? And then we went back to see what I have done the previous years. And then I had one year where I was had broke my collarbone. So I needed to bike for like four weeks until I was able to use my my upper body again.

And that season, I was doing it very good on the skating races. So we went back and looked into, okay, what can we do this year to develop the endurance? And then I knew the guy that was in charge of the cycling team. And I started texting them and we figured out that if I'm going to do more cycling in my training, I want to learn cycling from the best. And that's why I contacted them and we decided that this is something we can work together on. And so I went from cycle. I used the bike 30 hours over a year and changed that to using it 100 hours a year.

But I just wanted to learn as much as possible from the cycling team in terms of how I can use the bike and just fit. and everything so I do things properly because I think that's always been one of my key factors is that when I first are doing something and first going to do something I really want to do it well you know when I want to go into the details and see what can I do to to do better and that was actually why why we started working with UNOX which is now a World Tour team they to the two days ago had a stage win in Tour de France and they have just been crushing it the last last couple of years so it's it's cool to to have taken part of that

and actually learned from from the best are you still on the team yeah I'm still on the team but it is they have the season when I don't have the season so it's hard to to come combine those things but the last years I've always been in the Tour de France just watching taking part for some days this year I didn't have time but it's did you race also? I haven't been racing. So that's kind of, uh, I wish I did, but I think, I think I started, I actually got a text from tour Hussaud, which is kind of the, oh yeah, sports director of the team and absolute legend and director now. Yeah, and he wanted me to like, see if we could quit skiing and start cycling, but I think, unfortunately, I think it's too late in

terms of like, I think building the endurance in the uphill would be possible, not against Tadei for sure, but like in a quite good, good way, I think it will be possible to have good enough endurance, because I think the VO2 and everything is very good. But I think the biggest challenge will be just staying in the pack. Like, imagine how much, because I don't have been racing, you know, and also the downhill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, a lot of that you can learn. There's some aspect of it because you haven't been doing it.

since birth that would probably be difficult, but you can learn to ride in a path. You can, a lot of that is trainable. Like, it would be cool to see you jump into maybe a shorter stage race and see what you can do. And, and that could be another career. Yeah, I don't know if it's too late. Turning 30. I don't think it's too late. I think it's a factor of like, there's a lot of things you could do.

What should you do, you know? Oh, that's true. But the bike as a training, the. is exceptional because it's almost like a data extraction machine, like the amount of data and feedback that you can get from the bike is probably superior to what you get when you're skiing, right, just in terms of like wattage and like all that, how you can like calibrate and dial in your training. And you can spend, you can do back-to-back eight-hour rides.

I don't know what it's like in skiing and the toll that would take on your body, but as a vehicle to develop your aerobic engine. I think it's a lot of similarities. And I think the biggest difference is, like you said, I think in cycling, you have all the data. In skiing, that is actually difficult. I mean, the things we can measure is to have a rate. You don't have a power meter in your ski.

Yeah. So it's like, I would say skiing is way more feeling based. You know, when I'm going out for a three hour session, I basically do it on feeling and you have chest heart rate. Yeah. And that's that's kind of the only measurement we can use. But when I'm racing, it's only, it's all only feeling. I don't ever look at my, my heart rate during a race.

I just go there and take it step by step by feeling. Do you wear the, do you look at the data afterwards? Like, are you wearing like a garment or a similar type device when you're racing? And I've always been, or the last couple of years, I've been just using my whoop here on the bicep as kind of during the races. And I mean, it's accurate enough. I think, I mean, it's better to use a garment in terms of like getting the, but I get the picture. And that's kind of what I'm interested in. Because for me, it doesn't change anything if my.

heart rate was 190 or 185. It doesn't change anything before the race that I'm going to do the next day because the routines, the recovery parts, the nutrition part is still more or less the same. Yeah. Have you ever trained with Christian or Gustav? No, I haven't. Have you met Olaf, their coach? You guys would get along. He is a part of the, he's part of the UNX team as well. Oh, he is. Okay, cool. But yeah, he's an interesting guy and what he has done with the, yeah, with Triathlon in Norway. And I mean, in the world, I mean, he has the measurements and all the things and data they have collected over the years. It's just insane.

Yeah, I mean, for someone like yourself who's an experimenter and is always trying to, you know, find that new thing or that edge, you know, Olaf's like catnip for you. Yeah. You guys should definitely. I think so. I think so. Not to replace your grandfather. I'm sure he knows a lot, but like, Olaf is a different animal. Yeah, absolutely.

And he's, yeah, his vision and everything. I think it's, it is impressive to see what they have accomplished as well. What's cool about you also is that this is a family affair. You got your grandfather as your coach. Your dad is your manager. Yeah. Your mom handles the finances. And your brother is like your social media.

manager, right? Like he's driving the YouTube channel for you. So it's all in the family. Yeah. We started when I was 18 and I decided I wanted to do YouTube. I said to my brother, I'll need someone to edit it. So he by himself went on YouTube and learned how to edit on YouTube, you know, and that was how it's how it started. And then when I first started winning races, my granddad has always been my coach. So it was very natural to continue to have him since we had made that success already when I was 20. But when I first won a walk-up race, it was just overnight things changed back home. And there was like a lot of interest in terms of sponsorships, media, all the things that kind

of comes along to winning a race. And I needed help. and my dad was just, was able to, first he started helping me 50% and then he worked 50% but then over the last years it's just that has developed to 100% work and that's the only thing he do these days. And I feel, I feel really privileged to have like the family around me to be able to join me on, to have my brother here, join me on a trip like that to give, him the opportunity to see the walk-up final on Sunday to to experience the same things that I have been experiencing.

It's really cool. And I think it has been a nice thing to have the family. And then you also have like that. It also comes with some challenging for sure. Challenges you don't want to ruin like the family relationship. So I feel like that's kind of the balance we always have been trying to. to figure out in terms of like when you have a Sunday dinner you want to talk about the family, not about me racing, you know, and that's kind of the challenging part.

In addition to your insane training regimen, you're also known for having tremendous technical intelligence. You know intuitively, like when to conserve your energy, when to draft, when to make your move. It's very strategic this sport, the more I dig into it. So I want to talk a little bit about that as well as the origin of this technique that you developed, this running uphill technique that has become kind of your signature move. Yeah, so I feel like the technical aspect has always been something like to talk a little bit about earlier. That was something we decided to do at a really young age because I felt like that was important. But over the last years, you know, with so many mass starts that we have and so many

sprints, I think I have developed like a way of seeing things that I always been really curious about how I can do things better. And I always been very analytic in terms of how I do things. And I think I have brought that into my sport as well in terms of how I look to a sprint race. There is things that I want to. I kind of set a plan in terms of what I can do. And I really spent time looking back at what I did last year. Like how did I manage to do this turn?

Always been fascinating about watching Formula One in terms of like how they do the curves and stuff like that that I can bring into my own sport that hopefully helped me to get a little bit of an advantage against my competitors. And I think the tactical and technical aspect is for me what I think is the most fun about my sport. Yeah. The only like the closest parallel to me is watching a bunch sprint and a cycling race. So if you're Mark Cavendish or you're some other sprinter, like it's not who wins isn't necessarily a function of who's going to generate the most power out of their legs. Yes, it's their lead out. But it's also this sixth sense of like where to be.

You know, there's so many people like in that pack angling to be in the right position to cross the finish line first. And they're just our people like Mark Kat, they know exactly where to be. They can see the future. And they can anticipate where everyone's. going to move. And, you know, when you have these mass starts and you're in these sprints, it's like so much of it is like, where do I need to be like right place, right time, so that I can set myself up to be in position to win this race. Yeah, I agree. And I think, I think if we have done like a hundred meter sprint just flat out. Like track and field.

Yeah, I think I would, I don't necessarily, I don't think I'm the fastest one. or at least not the one that are having the most amount of power. But I think if we take it at the end of a race is different. Because then I kind of, when my legs are, everyone is a little bit tired. I think it is way different compared to when everyone is fresh. But also, just like you said, having, I have done so many sprints that I kind of know,

where I need to be at the right time and I think that is something you develop if you are a little bit analytic but also if you have done it enough times yeah that's kind of something else I think like when you look at Mark Kambanish and see how many wins he have you know he has over so many years developed so many so much knowledge and so much experience in terms of where he needs to be in all different kind of finishes, you know, if it's uphill, if it's flat, if it's slightly downhill, there is like he kind of knows it. And I think that's something you need to work on, but also I think some of the, it's just the way you are, I guess. Yeah, yeah, a six cents, but also a muscle memory that comes with experience.

Yeah. The uphill running, the clobo run. So this is pretty revolutionary. We're used to seeing people go uphill on skis in that kind of V motion, right? That's how everyone has already done it. And the idea being like, this is a moment to conserve energy. But instead, you're like, I'm going to burn all my matches and just go flat out. Like the amount of energy expenditure that is required for you to do that has to be insane. So it's a gamble, right, when you do it. Like you can't just do that all the time because you're really redlining yourself to the absolute max when you do that.

And I even read that you can't even train it that often because it's so depleting. Yeah. And I feel like I think you saw it a little bit during the Olympics, but there was a few guys that were kind of burning their tank already in the quarterfinal and semi-final. and when they came to the final and we increased the speed a little bit, they were not able to do it. So that technique came from me and my granddad working on a session in Trondheim where I was struggling with some bad grip on my skis.

And instead of just putting on more and more grip, we decided, okay, I'll just jump outside the tracks and I try to run a little bit. and I saw that I was actually able to have a better grip, but so I didn't need to put on more wax. And then we just decided, okay, let's, this is interesting. Let's come back tomorrow and then we take the time. We start running from the bottom with one pair of skis with a little bit less grip, run on the side of the hill, and we take the time.

And the time is, say, 50 seconds. and then we go back and put another pair of skis with more grip and we go inside the track but we are gliding kind of the more irregular ski and we see that okay we're using 52 seconds okay then we have like an edge share this is this is interesting in terms of how we can how can we develop this and this was how we started with a running part and then over years we have just tried to develop it year by year. But like you said, we're not able to do that very often because it's just I'm burning so much energy. And I know that like every, the start of every season, we have like this race in Finland where we have like this last uphill. And everyone is running

the same way now. Like everyone is running. Now everyone's copying you. But just because they've seen you do it doesn't mean they could do it. No. And then you see like, Everyone is just at the end of the race and the day after, all the people that have done the sprint is just completely destroyed in their muscles. And it is the same for me as well. But so you see over a weekend where if you're going to do three races doing this on a Friday, it is brutal for the next couple of days of racing. But on the other hand, I think that is kind of something you learn over years as well. in terms of how do I save as much energy as possible, but just use enough to win. And but yeah, it is, I would say it's an interesting story because it started just a little bit

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When that clip of you running uphill went viral at the Olympics, were you aware of how that had caught fire? Or were you just in your bubble? I knew it when I came back to the hotel and kind of saw that everything. I mean, my phone was just blowing up. So because I knew that during the race and everything when I was running up that hill, because I knew when I started the final, when I started and put some speed on the first half part of the final and I saw that people were struggling, I kind of knew that, okay, this is today I'm going to win. And then when I put my full speed on on the last uphill, I was like, I felt like I was like, this is it. Now I feel like I'm really hitting every single push that I'm making.

And I know that no one else is able to follow this speed, especially because we went quite fast, the first half part of the race. And just turning your head on the top of the hill and just seeing that you have a huge gap, it was, I mean, that was an amazing feeling. But I didn't understand it because I didn't know. how it was looking before I was come back to the hotel and I saw the video myself and I was like, that looks pretty good. So I was like, and if you're in your world, like, people have seen you do that before, but

for the average person, it was like, what is going on? Like, I've never seen anything like that before. Yeah, I mean, but I think that's kind of the cool part about the Olympics as well, because there is, you're able to broadcast sports that over a world where people normally don't pay attention to it. And I think it's it is because it is every fourth year, but it is something special. Olympics is something special. And even though for me personally just winning the year before the six goals in Tronheim, which is where I grew up, you know, and having hundreds of thousands of people,

people in the forest watching me win the last race on the 50k in Trondheim. Personally, it was a big success for me because it was in my hometown. Wow. But no one out there is paying attention to a world, world championship in Norway. But when you come to the Olympics, you can just, you can just feel the difference. It's just way different.

But on the other hand, it was, it was cool to finally have like a Olympic, in Europe where it's a little bit easier for everyone to pay attention, you know. We have the one in Pyongchang and the one in Beijing. I mean, those was cool Olympics as well, but it was, it's harder because of the time zone and everything, but just having it in Europe and knowing that it's in 2034, it's going to be in Salt Lake. It's just, yeah, I think that's special. my understanding is that you were much more nervous about the world championships in your hometown the year before the Olympics than you were at the Olympics.

And the fact that you walked away from that with six goals allowed you to relax at the Olympics. Do you think that having that experience in Trondheim the year before, like allowed you to like gave you the confidence and the ability to just, you know, kind of be yourself at the Olympics and not get caught up in all of the anxiety and insanity of it. So you could unleash those performances. Yeah, I think so. Because I think, like, for me, personally, that the World Championship was so huge.

You know, I was so nervous in front of the World Championship. And I kind of was isolated with myself and my dad for months prior to the to the World Championship and I didn't see anyone. I was just really locked in together with my dad. And when the World Championship was finished, I felt like, okay, I'm super tired mentally. I feel like I'm just really exhausted. And then I over the, during that spring,

I kind of figure out, okay, we, I need to do some changes in terms of who I bring with me and how I do things. and one of my friends wanted to join before Olympics and we were out on the altitude camps three times during the fall and during the winter and just bringing new energy in just having like a friend where I wasn't thinking that much about the Olympics you know we're just having fun I was doing everything right I was training well I was doing my recovery eating healthy but it was it was a factor where fun was an important part of the daily routines and I think that really made a big difference because when I came into the Olympics I was like this is going to

be fun you know I feel like I'm for sure I'm nervous but is this is something I I know what to do and then when the Olympics was over you know I was I wasn't that exhausted I was just nice this was this was a crazy fun experience uh i wish it lasted longer you know and instead of after the world championship i just stayed in my my bed for six days and was just completely completely down but after the the Olympics it was just i want to do this more you know and that's an evolution from was it some years prior when you basically isolate yourself and you didn't want to see anyone because you were afraid you were going to get sick and you wouldn't go out to dinner and you just basically like wouldn't let anyone come near you I think that's kind of especially after COVID that was something we because for for us as an cross-country skier the worst thing that can happen is that you just get a little bit sick you know because then you're not able to perform and you're not able to race either but after COVID and everything.

It was just so many, you started using the mask. You are traveling. You kind of save. You try to like just stay away from people. Yeah, every person is an impending threat. Yeah. That's not a great mindset to walk around with for anybody. No, and it's not a healthy way of living your life either.

And that's why I think when the World Championship was, over and I said to my my dad like this this can't continue you know we need to do some changes I need to have some other things in my life that is pulling me away from being that strict because it is not healthy and I feel like that's what we did prior to the Olympics and I mean I was traveling during the winter and I didn't even think about the mask you know I was like I wouldn't have been here before the World Championship, you know. Now I'm here. I feel really relaxed.

People are coughing on the street, coughing on the side of me when I'm sitting on the... You're in the petri dish of New York City right now. Yeah. And I couldn't care, you know. And I think that's just a way more healthy way of living. I'm so glad that I've understood that now and that I can... Yeah. Don't go back to that state.

But you're still a maniac. Yeah. Like it's it's a rare individual who goes from the 14-year-old who's getting middling results to the 15-year-old who says, I'm going to be the best in the world. So there is this constitutional degree of self-confidence that you're equipped with. And I'm curious around your like how you train your mindset. Like do you have practices for that? Like, do you pay attention to that? You invest in the mental game because we can get into like a week in the life of your physical

training, but I'm interested in how you think about your mind. I spend a lot of time practicing my mind. And I think one of the things or where I spend most time is that I do a thousand hours of training every single year. And I do so many sessions where I just go out three hours by myself in the forest. I'm running in the mud and it's just, for me, that's kind of my therapy where I work on my mind because that's where I visualize the races. That's where I talk to myself and try to like find a balance in terms of where I'm going to use

my energy and where is it no point of using it? And so without like saying that I go to someone and talk to someone regularly, I would say that I still are spending so much time. I mean, it's still in my own head, but it's like I still have some sort of plan in terms of when I'm out on a three hour session. It's like I really want to go through some things like, okay, this is something I would like to work on like the mental part. And I think the mental part has shown me over the years. Like before the World Championships, I woke up the last two weeks, even though I was sick four weeks before the World Championship. I was waking up two weeks before. And I had so much pain in my throat, like every single morning.

And my data and everything was like completely good. but I just, I felt like I was thinking myself sick every single morning. That's interesting. And that happened first time in 2018. Just the anxiety and the fear of getting sick. Yeah. Created physical symptoms. Because for me, the worst thing that can happen is to get sick.

I'm not afraid of losing. I'm not afraid of, like, that it's not going to do well. But the worst thing that can happen is that I get sick and not be, able to be on the starting line fighting for the victory. And so that as, and it was better before the, before Olympics, because I feel like I have more, I'm more adapted to it. And I feel like for me, when I get the symptoms of having a sore throat before a world championship, it is always also some sort of symptoms that we're getting closer

to something that is really, important for me, you know, and I feel like I'm building up that kind of energy. So when I'm on the starting line in a world championship, I know that, okay, I've had the pain in my throat because it's part of my routines now. And I am really motivated. And I feel like I'm so nervous. And when I'm getting nervous, that's where I also perform at my highest level. Because when it means something for me, it makes it a little bit better, you know? And I think compared that to a World Cup race where, I mean, I've done 200 World Cup races. And I don't get as nervous as I get before the World Championship or the Olympics.

And I think that's it happens first time in 2018. And it has happened every single championship from that year until almost it was not that much this year. but until up on the World Championship last year. I think the mental game is even more important for you now because things are different. Like you've been to a couple of Olympics, you've been at the top of your game for a while, but because of your performance in, you know, this past year,

there's a white hot spotlight on you right now. Like you're in New York City, you went to the SBs last night, you're going to get feted at the Time 100 event this evening. a lot of attention, a lot of sponsor obligations, and that comes with expectations. Now you're the guy who's expected to win. You're no longer the guy who's out to prove that you're the best. Now you've got to hold on to it. Now you've got to continue to maintain that level of excellence. And that's a different kind of pressure that requires even more attention to how you're nourishing your mind and making sure that your mindset is dialed.

yeah I agree yeah and I think you know just by remember how it was when you were I would say a kid but when I was 20 and came into the World Cup no one expected me to win you know and it was like just having the mental feeling that you are attacking you know more like now it's defending it's more like defending yeah and it does something to you and you need to you need to you need to you need to you need to you You need to be aware of it and you also need to do some adjustments mentally to be able to because at the end it's like my granddad always said, it's just a race at the end. But it's not that easy, you know, and it's it is the mental part is for me as important as the physical part because the physical part I have always been very motivated to do the physical work that kind of would that it require? I don't think it's about the train. You're going to always train.

I think so hard. Yeah, that's not the issue. I think the secret is what contributed to your success at this past Olympiad, which is enjoying it and making it fun. I'm thinking of conversation that I had with John John Florence on the podcast, the world champion surfer. And he struggled once he was the best.

and, you know, he won the world championship, like the expectations were, like, so daunting to him. And his way back was developing this visualization practice where he would visualize every aspect of the wave and how he was going to ride it, but not from the perspective of riding it perfectly, but more from the perspective of the emotions he wanted to feel when he was on the wave, like the same emotions that he had when he was a little kid. Like the more you can kind of inhabit that joy and that like love for the sport, it alleviated the pressure and allowed him to then kind of get back on top. And I think it all makes sense, you know. And I think for me, that's what the last Olympics showed was like having fun when you're out there, racing. And like every day upon the race, it was.

It makes life so much easier, but it also makes it better. You know, it was, I don't think I would have been able to win those six races if I didn't have a lot of fun on the road until the Olympics. Because it's just made, I mean, I have 268 days away from home. That was the amount of days I had away from home last year. and then you need to find the right way of treating yourself on the road. And I think fun is probably the best ingredients to having the best life you can live. And for me, that's something that really that I learned last year. And you have a girlfriend, right?

I have a girlfriend. So we have been away from each other for a long time. So we have been kind of used to that. But I think like that, we, and I feel like that's something I learned as well last year, was that we need to, and she's now joining me for a little bit more. And I think that just makes sense and it's just easier and it's way better because I think I will perform better as well when you have everything more imbalanced. And are you still going to split time between Norway and part?

Park City. That's the plan. So Park City is basically your second home. Yeah, I would say, I would say so. So I'm, you're renting the same house every year. Uh-huh. Going back end of August, staying for a month and a little bit over a month. So Utah and Park City has been so great. I mean, it's it's been amazing. Just having eight hours time difference from Norway, amazing. You can just, you can just like, don't have to call people back right away. No, because then you wake up, it's 2 o'clock there. And you know that when you are done with your, or when you're going out for your second session, everyone is back home. They're sleeping.

So. Right. You're training when they're. Okay. So when you're like in your evenings, it's completely quiet. You can just relax, chill and do the things you like. So Park City has been some. a place that I really like and I I have said it and I wish I have said it to my my dad as well

is that if it was more money into cross-country skiing like I would have love to have a home park city just because I love the place it's an expensive it's a really expensive but my physiotherapist lives in in Midway just beside the Park City and And so I spent a lot of time there. And, yeah, Soldier Hollow where the Olympics is going to be in 2034. It's a place where we do a lot of the roller skis intervals during the period when we are there. So the appeal is what at the altitude, the community? Yeah, just, you know, it's really high because it's 2,300 meters.

Yeah. Which is in Europe, which if you're going to a place where it's 2,000. 300 meters, it is more or less on top of a pass. So if you're going to do a roller ski session, you need to either drive down the valley and then do the training there and then go up at the end of the session. But in Park City, I put my roller skis on in the garage and then I can just go out. I can do a flat lap. I can do up hills all the way up to 3,000 meters.

And I can do hilly laps. So there's so many opportunities and possibilities to train. in well there and I mean it's in August, September, it's a quiet place. It's not many people. And the weather, it's compared to Norway, it's just amazing, you know. Being able to go in shorts and T-shirts in September, it's where we're when we're used to go in like long sleeves in Norway and it's raining. Most of the time. Yeah. So a thousand hours of training a year, break down a typical week of training when you're in heavy training. Like how much of it is strength, the roller ski thing, like how much of it is you on the snow?

Like, what does it look like? Yes, if you take a regular week during the summer, which is where we have the most amount of training, it's from the 1st of May until end November, it's kind of the peak months of training volume. But for example, last week I had 32 hours of training. I have three hours, not two and a half hours of intensity three training, which is threshold. I have two hours of strength during a week. And then I more or less have 50% just zone two. I barely do zone two.

Oh, really? Oh, interesting. That is an interesting part. Tell me. Talk to me about that. So what we have figured out is that if I do zone two is that that's kind of what's destroying my fast muscle fibers. So for me, I do my intensity one is really. Zone one.

Zone one is where I do 88% of my training. Interesting. And then I do so like last week, I do three hours in the morning. someone go out to two hours in the afternoon someone that can be a day one day two it's uh i do 30 minutes warm up do at an hour hour 15 of threshold uh and these are like on the on the um the roller skis yeah normally or is it on the bike is it like yes i would say on a 32 hours weeks like i had last week i probably do three, four hours of running, three, four hours of four or five hours of biking.

And then the rest is roller skis. And the roller skis are like, they're almost like these roller blade type things. Yeah, longer roller blades, basically. So we have one pair which is skating, which it's similar to when you're skating. And then you have classic, which you also have, it's really similar to doing classic. have grip so you can go diagonal you can double pole so you have two different pair of roller skis one for each discipline basically so the majority of the training during a week is is roller skis and then we add on like last week I didn't

run that much because I knew that I was going here when I'm here I didn't bring my roller skis so here I'm doing just running so I try to prior prior make it like prioritize a little bit so last week was more roller skiing than normal this week more running than normal so it's at the at the end we do i would say 10% of my training is cycling 20% 25% of my training is running okay that's a lot that's wow more running than cycling yeah so more running than cycling and then uh five percent of my training is or between 5 and 7% of my training is strength and then the rest is roller skis and skis during summer and winter.

Yeah. There's a lot of confusion around Zone 2. It's interesting that you say when you focus on Zone 2, it's eroding your high end speed. It's a threat to your high end speed. But I think what might get confused in this is the fact that When you're as fit as you are, your zone two is nothing like what people think zone two is. Because zone two is actually quite taxing when you're super fit. Like to be at that level that's just below threshold and sustain that for a long period of time

is going to have an impact on recovery more so than somebody who's less fit. Like a lot of people who are getting into endurance sports are like, Zone 2 is so slow. I don't feel like I'm doing anything. It's because you're not fit. Like if you're you or Tade Pagotcha for them to go, you know, for you guys to go out and do four hours of zone two, like you're going to pay a toll for that in a way that a lesser fit person will not.

Yeah, and the recovery aspect is kind of the most important part here, you know, because it's probably it just makes the total volume a little bit too heavy for me in terms of that I, because when I go doing a 50K, I do more or less threshold, you know, So I try to prioritize having like an hour and a hour and 15 minutes each session on threshold instead of going out into three hours of zone two. You know, because threshold is more similar to where I'm going to race while you look into cyclists where they do a lot of their race for them is a lot in zone two.

You know, so for me it's always been about looking into what do you do. do or how is your sport or what requires to do your sport you know so for me i'm doing it based on what i believe is the right way for me to do us uh cross-country skiing and i know that there is plenty of other ways to to do it but it's um for me it's always been about looking into the total package about how much does it require of uh recovery for each session And just my morning session this morning when I was running an hour on the treadmill, I mean, I was running seven miles per hour. And that is like really easy. So in one.

And then imagine just having the impact on the muscles if you're going to run nine miles per hour just because that's that's on too. You know, so the impact on the body as well. is important to calculate into the total amount of training and recovery you're doing. And you have to be able to check all the boxes and excel in all of these areas. You have to have that explosive speed that you need that aerobic capacity, not just for the longer distances, but your aerobic fitness is going to dictate how long it takes you to lower your heart rate after you've run uphill. You know what I mean?

Like if that's in the middle of a race, how quickly you can get down to baseline in the aftermath of like a, you know, like lighting a match like that is going to dictate your overall performance in that race. Yeah. That's true. And I feel like compared to running, it is easier to do cross-country skiing. I mean, you do way hard in the upbills. but then you have like the downhills and the downhills is where you recover and charge your

energy before the next uphill because you're in a 10k you're basically going full speed in every single uphill and then you just need to use the downhills really smart to be able to keep the speed up but also save and charge your energy why more running than cycling i would think cycling would be a better as well as a safer way to build your aerobic engine because without the impact yeah and then running we're it's kind of running is really similar to classic skiing i mean it's more similar than than biking so when i'm doing like a three-hour running sessions in the mud is like uh it's really it's tough terrain so it's it's uh it's it's is really hard to run and we are running with pulse.

So then it's yours kind of. You're simulating. Simulating a little bit skiing more with running. So I think that's why, but I don't think running is necessarily very important to do well on skiing. Because one year, I had a year when I was injured in my hamstring and I was not able to run almost at all. So and that is one of the years that I've done the best in terms of like results in the walk-up. So who knows?

Are you doing regular lactate testing? Yeah. Yeah. So we were testing the lactate more or less every single threshold session we have just to make sure we are in in the line on what we want to be. Yeah. And what is the recovery practice? Oh, so the recovery practice is

It depends a little bit in terms of if you are home or not, because some of the things is, I mean, like here, it's not always easy to bring all the things you would like to have. Yeah. But, I mean, I'm a huge fan of using my sauna and cold plunge. So back home, I have that. You wouldn't be Scandinavian if you said otherwise. No, I know. It would be a betrayal. So I use my sauna on cold punch quite a lot.

And then I've also been using my red light therapy. And then I think just sleep, you know, sleep and healthy food is one of my key factors to my recovery. Basic, basic, basic things. Basic things. No create. Do you use like the compression, like the, what are they called? The boots. Hyper ice, those things.

I have those things, but it's not that I use it every single day. I have them as a part of it and sometimes I fail to do it, but sometimes it's just good to go back and sleep, you know, just an hour in the middle of the day after a hard training session. It's just easy to lay in the bed and sleep for an hour. And I think that's kind of the best recovery you can do more than just all the other things you can add on. But I think that kind of the add-ons is good to have or to use a little bit. but I think also I think sleep is the most important part. Yeah.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the record that you broke for most decorated winter Olympian was previously held by Eric Hayden. That's true. The American speed skater who burst onto the scene in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

I'm old enough to remember when he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated in the full gold suit with his like just gigantic legs and to me I mean that he was my hero I was like I just what he did was mind blowing before that I didn't know anything about speed skating and I was like obsessed with this guy but he uh later became an orthopedic surgeon and I believe he lives in Park City yeah so I'm curious have you guys connected yeah we have so a couple of years ago we had a

I think it was two years ago, yeah. We had a dinner at my physiotherapist home. So, and he was there. So it was cool to, it's pretty cool. It was cool to talk to him and catch up and like just hear about how, you know, how they were preparing their skates, you know, for a race and like, when they sharpen it, you know, and all those kind of things. It was really interesting. And I mean, he has a, you can tell that he has a competitive mind, you know. And so it was a really, it was a cool chat and a cool, cool opportunity to meet him.

And yeah, that was at that time I didn't kind of, because that was before the world championship in Tronheim. So at that time, no one had won six out of six. Yeah. So at that time, I didn't understand it was actually possible to do something. that but maybe I should invite him for a dinner in this year to I think so I think so I think that you guys are similar in that he introduced this obscure sport to you know the kind of Western audience and I think it changed it forever changed the sport and I think that you're doing the same thing for for cross-country skiing in a very cool way

There are plenty of people out there speculating on how many gold medals you're going to win before you hang it up. Is there going to be one more Olympics, two more Olympics? Could it be 20 gold? You know, like, could we get near Phelps? You can get near. 11 versus 23. We're going to approximate it a little bit. I mean, are you willing to?

If you say that if you maximize everything and you do two more Olympics, then you can end up. If you have two more perfect Olympics, then you can end up with 23. You're the all-time Olympic goat. I mean, that's heavy, though. That's pretty heavy.

That's pretty heavy. I think that's going to be tough. But first of all, I said that I will do one more first. And but if I know myself well, but the next one after that one is in Salt Lake. So it's going to be in Park City or in Soldier Hollow close to Park City where I've spent So much of my time. So for me finishing up my career in Park City would be some kind of a dream. But it's still eight more years. So it's I don't know if it's realistic, but I will do everything I can in terms of staying in shape, taking care of my body and everything.

and I will take it year by year. But I don't think I will, I can't promise right now that I will do 2034. But I think I have some sort of a, it's a sort of a dream to do that. But I'm going to take the first four years and I will see. But for sure, the goal is to get a little bit closer to Phobs,

but 23 is going to be hard. Yeah. There's only so much of this you can control. you know, but to the extent that there are things you can control, I'm pretty confident you're going to control them. At least I'm going to try my very best. Yeah. Well, congrats on all your success, man. I'm a fan and I'm here to cheer you on, man.

You're one of the good guys and it's nice to see you out there. Not only winning, but comporting yourself with an admirable amount of like integrity and dignity. and I think that you are a shining example for many young men around the world, you know, in an aspirational sense. And I salute you, my friend. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me today.

And enjoy New York City. I will. Thank you. All right. Cheers.