Øyvind Johannessen won the 2008 Norseman Extreme Triathlon in Norway and battled a tough course and an unhappy stomach along the way. Jenny Gowans was the first woman to finish the event.
Øyvind was kind enough to send us his race report:
Saturday the 9th of August it was time for my season goal Norseman. This is a race over the Ironman distance that goes from 3800m out in Eidfjord, Norway, swimming into Eidfjord, then cycling 180km with 3000m of elevation during the ride over to Austadbygd, Norway, then finishing off with a 42.2km run, starting with 25km flat, then finishing climbing 1600m over the last 17.2km up to Gaustadtoppen mountain at 1880 meter above sea level!
My goal was to win and also set a new course record, which meant finishing in less than 10h 30min 9sec! The record holder was Bjørn Anderson, who is one of the fastest cyclists in triathlon internationally. But he set the record when the bike was 10km longer, since the swim was moved further out in the fjord to warmer water, so I felt it was realistically to ride faster then he had done (but over the shorter distance)!
I had to get up at 2:30am, since the transition opened for check-in at 3am, and the ferry went out at 4am to the swim start. Everything felt good, but I had one problem, when I went to the bathroom 30min before start. Nothing came out, and that was a pretty big problem... I jumped the 5m from the ferry out into the water about 4:50am and swam around a bit. The water was about 17 degrees Celsius and that’s pretty good for Norseman, and with my Orca 3.8 wetsuit and Orca neoprene cap it was actually perfect swimming condition, except for the fact that we had to swim against the tide!
At 5am the start sound went off and the swimmers that I had hoped to swim with went off at a pace that I was not ready for at all! Right away I was 30sec off the pace, but I could see them ahead of me as the sun came up, and they didn’t get much more, so I didn’t panic and just tried to swim a better line than them, and after about 40min I caught them! After that I swam with them for the last bit of the swim, which ended up being very much longer than normal because of the tide... we swam about 15min slower than what we normally would have done, and I was out of the water in 1h 7min!
There was one guy 5min ahead of us, but after a quick change, where I got my wetsuit off and my Giro Advantage helmet on, I jumped on my Orbea Ordu and caught him before I got to 10km on the bike! I knew that with my choice of riding a time-trial bike in this race I would have my advantage on the flats, so I chose not to push it too hard up the first hill (still being in the big chain ring though ☺), and keep the pace up on the flatter bits up to the top of the first hill at 1200m above sea level. After that I pretty much flew over the straights over Hardangervidda, but after 10-20km over there, I got a flat! I stopped, took the wheel off, and waited for my crew with a spear wheel, then, after 5-6min, I was on my way again, but now I was cold and had to gain speed again. I still felt good, so I pushed on, but on my new wheel I only had a 23-12 cassette, not a 25-11 as I had on the other wheel. That meant it got heavier in the hills and I didn’t have as much to push on the fast downhills! But even with the flat I increased my lead, and half way I had about 9min down to the second guy. I kept the pace up over the next mountain out of Geilo, increasing my lead to about 14min. After that my legs got really cold during the downhill, and I wasn’t able to keep the pace up as easy, so I chose to slow down a bit, as I knew I needed some energy for the run. Over the last three mountain passes I pushed less than I had done and I lost about 2min before the second transition and was now leading by 12 minutes. I lost another 1.5min in transition after some problems with the wrong shoes being in the transition area, and was now10.5min ahead on the run.
This should have been more than enough, as I am usually a much stronger runner. But as I went out on the run I knew that it was a big problem that I didn’t get anything out in the restroom 7h earlier! My legs were pretty good, but my stomach was not! But then I made the terrible decision to keep running instead of taking a pit-stop in the bushes, and I ran for over 10km not being able to drink much or take any gels, as I knew that would upset my stomach even more! However after 10-12km I had to make that pit stop anyway, but it was too late, it helped temporarily, but I already had stomach cramps that made it hard to run properly. After 20km it all topped up when I got cramps in my ham-string in addition to the left side of my stomach, and it turned out that my shoes had shrunk when I had dried them after a wet training run and now my feet were hurting really bad too! I kept up the running to the bottom of the hill, trying to get down gel and water, then I chose to walk at the bottom of the hill, knowing that the guy in second was only 7,5min behind, but at the same time knowing that I needed to get some energy and water down, and also that this was the place I would loose the least amount of time walking! It turned out that I only lost 2min of time during the 15min I was walking, and at the same time I had gotten more energy back and started running again. After that I ran for 15min, then walked while I ate and drank some more, then ran again. But then my feet was hurting so bad that I had to take my shoes off and walk while I got my support to find my other shoes and get them to me. When I got the new shoes on, it all got better! I kept running and walking while eating, and my stomach cramps were still there, but I started increasing my lead again, and soon I had a 12min lead again!
I was pretty sure that I would win! I controlled my pace up the mountain, walking fast, not having to run on the rocks, and I got to the top winning at a time of 11h 8min and 10sec and 9min ahead of second and about 15min ahead of third!
I had a huge feeling of relief, pride and happiness when I got to the top! I had done it; I had won the world’s hardest triathlon over the ironman distance! It wasn’t a new course record, but still the 4th best time in the race ever!
Now we had to do the 4.7km walk down the mountain again, and man did I regret using my orienteering shoes up the mountain as they are really hard going down (they were great going up though!)!
My splits were 1h 7min 47sec for the swim, 1min 3sec in T1, 5h 26min 18sec on the bike, 2min 7sec in T2 and 4h 30min 55sec on the run, for a total of 11h 8min 10sec. My next race is Oslo triathlon next weekend, which is an Olympic distance race that I’m doing just because it’s the last race in the Norwegian cup that I have a good chance of winning, and then I might try to qualify for Hawaii Ironman 2009 in November in the USA.
I would like to thank my crew for the wonderful support during the race (Eirik Ravnan, min far Rolf Johannessen, Jan, Nee and Kevin Johannesen, Toril and Agnar Thorstensen, Marius and Morten at M&M Tømrerservice), my family for always supporting me, Oslo Sportslager (Craft bike clothing, Orca wetsuit and trisuit, Orbea bikes, Giro helmets, Everest bikes, Smith sunglasses and X-socks), Sean and Tara at CanWi Multisport coaching, M&M Tømrerservice and Østmarka IL!
I would also like to thank the race organizers for putting on a great race!
Best regards
Øyvind (Vinnie) Johannessen
Results 2008 Norseman Extreme Triathlon
Top 10 men
1. Øyvind Johannessen (NOR) 11:08:10
2. Tom Remman (NOR) 11:17:00
3. Arild Christophersen (NOR) 11:24:15
4. Thomas Leth-Olsen (NOR) 11:40:05
5. Pål Cato Elshaug (NOR) 11:42:50
6. Per Martin Lund (NOR) 11:49:30
7. Kristofer Larsen (NOR) 11:53:15
8. Jon Thorp (NOR) 12:05:30
9. Asbjørn Lohne (NOR) 12:06:55
10. Bjørn Erik Ekberg (NOR) 12:07:35
Top 10 women
1. Jenny Gowans (NZL) 14:02:00
2. Heidi Harviken (NOR) 14:09:25
3. Marie Veslestaul (NOR) 14:49:20
4. Rowena Butler (AUS) 15:55:51
5. Melanie Gautchi (SWI) 15:58:00
6. Marit Svenning Berg (NOR) 16:40:10
7. Stacey Eccles (GBR) 17:11:45
8. Emily Thompson (GBR) 17:12:10
9. Elizabeth Ransom (USA) 17:21:20
10. Gry Haugsnes (NOR) 17:25:20
Complete results and more info about the Norseman event at www.nxtri.com
