Norwegian Fantasy Camp

My buddy Mark Chrysler hooked me up with the Norwegian National team here on the ice and I got to train with them Sunday, yesterday and today. Tuesday did lots of easy laps with them. Skated behind Claudia Pechstein. Had no idea that she have been at the top for so long. She won a gold medal in 1992! Wow that's 15 years on top and she has won I think 9 medals total. A total pro on and off the ice. http://www.desg.de/skater.php?anzeige=skater&skater=797
http://www.claudia-pechstein.de/

She was in the draft with the All rounders pulling us on long laps. Bokko, Grodum, Henri and Sverre Haugli. These guys are like skating robots. They go 34/35s for 16 minutes on end. You just dial in a speed and they hold it. Pechstein was sitting in like me and it was like being in a bike race just sitting in the draft. I haven't done a lot of mileage on the Long Track so it was just what the doctor ordered for me. These guys are so funny when the time is up they mock sprint with bad technique for the imaginary finish line at the end of sets. It's probably good to keep things light with all the training they do. They are all very humble and welcomed me into their group. I told Peter that it was like fantasy camp for old guys....the skaters didn't understand. Then he explained how old out of shape executives/white collar guys pay like $5k to train with ex pro baseball players. They got a good laugh out of that one. Another funny story is one of the skaters had a haircut and they were laughing about it because he paid 60 euros for it in Hamar. They asked me how much for a haircut here....i said $7-9...lol. But that $75 US haircut looked good on you..... Peter told me 9am tommorow leaving.

Today- Walked in the rink asked Peter whats the workout....oh 12 lap tempo at 28s....what? I was like Ooh My God I better warmup. Reality set in that I'm in a pro training group at that point. What do I think they are doing easy laps everyday? After warmup laps and an accel we were off. Spinters Rukke and Michel did 3 laps then did a 25.5...i was thinking off going with them but they were off like a bullit train.....the 4 all rounders were banging out 28s. Grodum pulled the first 2 then bokko led and i was gone after 4-5. They did a WR 12 lapper in 5:39!!! Look out for Bokko this year he is a beast. I think he finished on 27/26? That was it. Peter said Bokko's doing a 3k this weekend in WR 3:36. Should be interesting. What a day and this was after at least 100 laps yesterday and weights last night.


Cool link to see Pechstein's Olympic races and Eric Heiden's 1000m from Lake Placid.

http://www.olympic.org/uk/utilities/multimedia/gallery/results_uk.asp?entid=104&MediaType=vid