The Norwegian Train Gets Back On Track: Kristian Blummenfelt Unpacks Kona, The Olympics, Training, & Lessons On Resilience After Failure

Kristian Blummenfelt is an Olympic champion, sub-7-hour Ironman record holder, and master practitioner of the Norwegian Method—a revolutionary, science-driven approach to endurance training. This conversation explores elite performance through a unique lens: an Olympic champion analyzing consecutive setbacks in Paris and Kona with methodical precision, while demonstrating extraordinary resilience by winning Frankfurt just weeks after Paris. He offers rare insight into the mind of an athlete constantly pushing the boundaries of human performance. Along the way, he reveals why losing hurts more than winning feels good. Kristian’s grace is inspiring; this conversation is a masterclass in championship character. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Eight Sleep: use code RICHROLL to get $600 OFF your Pod 4 Ultra purchase when bundled 👉eightsleep.com/richroll Momentous: 20% OFF all of my favorite products 👉livemomentous.com/richroll OneSkin: Get 15% off with code RICHROLL 👉 oneskin.co On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style 👉on.com/richroll Squarespace: Use the offer code RichRoll to save 10% off your first purchase 👉Squarespace.com/RichRoll Bon Charge: Use code RICHROLL to save 15% OFF 👉boncharge.com Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉 richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:05Kristian Blummenfelt?

  My slogan on my bike, it's, "It hurts more to lose." When I've won a race, it's often more like, "Yeah, it's great." But if I lose a race, like now in Kona, then it's so much worse than the joy I would have had.

• 1:19Rich Roll?

  Christian Blomveldt is hands-down one of the most extraordinary endurance athletes on the planet.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  At the very front, the reigning Olympic champion, Christian Blomveldt of Norway.

• 1:33Rich Roll?

  After winning Olympic gold in Tokyo, this Norwegian powerhouse has dominated long-course triathlon, winning world championships in both half and full Ironman distances, and setting a slew of records along the way.

• 1:45Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think it's important to not be afraid of jumping into new stuff. Like, the biggest reason why they're maybe being nervous for the race is because they are nervous to fail.

• 1:57Rich Roll?

  But 2024 brought unexpected challenges.

• 2:01Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, yesterday didn't work, but we will, of course, use this disappointing race to come back because this is not how we won the race.

• 2:10Rich Roll?

  Following a disappointing defense of his Olympic title in Paris, Christian nonetheless headed to Kona as the odds-on favorite to win another Ironman World Championship, only to falter, finishing a disappointing 35th.

• 2:24Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I want to showcase that it's possible to come down again from arm and distance because now the projects have sort of been a failure and I do want to come back again to ensure that it is possible.

• 2:37Rich Roll?

  So what happened and where does triathlon's most celebrated star go from here? Is there truth behind the rumors that he's considering a switch to pro cycling? Well, today we span the distance in a swim, bike, run conversation about adaptability, resilience, and the relentless pursuit of excellence. I got to give you credit for finishing.

• 3:00Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think it's good to finish what you have started. You have hundreds of excuses to just pull out, but I think for your own sake, it's important to finish it.

• 3:15Rich Roll?

  Lots of people are curious about your training methods and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. But first of all, welcome to New York City. We're in a studio away from my home studio and I appreciate you taking the time to do this today. We're recording this right on the heels of Kona, so I think that's probably the best place to begin. First of all, like, how are you doing? How are you feeling?

• 3:42Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Physically, doing OK.

• 3:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 3:45Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But mentally, that was a tough one.

• 3:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 3:49Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So yeah, Kona is the World Championship in Ironman. And since, so this year I've had mixed focus, both with Olympic in Paris, trying to defend my title, which didn't go with success. And then, straight after that, I tried to come back for the Darwin World Championship. And I had one good race, straight after Paris, with the European Championship in Frankfurt, which A very good race. Caught me with quite a big surprise, like, two weeks after the mixed relay in Paris. I was able to win that race on a good time and I felt quite strong.

• 4:30Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And then, I had like eight weeks of preparation for Kona and wanted to sort of get revenge from the third place two years ago. And in the race, I was, yeah, there, or there about on the swim, first pack, together with, yeah, the guys I need to be with. And had Sam Laidlaw pushing quite hard on the bike in the beginning. So, he got six minutes two years ago to me and I wasn't able to close him down, but he was putting pressure on quite early. And I was riding in that main pack, as we can call it, with maybe fifteen or twenty guys, with like twelve, fifteen meters gap in between each other. So, it's saving quite a lot of being in the group.

• 5:14Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But then I was waiting for Didlev, Magnus Didlev, the Danish guy, to fly by and I was trying to catch his wheel or fall meters behind. And that happened maybe after thirty K, or twenty miles or something. And then, I was thinking that that was my ticket to the front again of the race. And I just hit the wall after, I got dropped from him after maybe fifty K and then after sixty K, yeah, I picked up everything that got in on the bike and

• 5:48Rich Roll?

  You created a viral moment, Christian. Yeah, I think it was somewhere around, after like mile thirty-one or so, where you started to get into trouble, started throwing up, not just throwing up, like projectile vomiting repeatedly, I think eight times in a row or something like that. So Prior to that, though, your swim went well, you're in the pack, you're moving forward, you're being strategic, and everything leading up to this race was a green light, right? Like, expectations were high, you weren't just expected to perform, there was a lot of expectation around winning, and by all accounts, your training was on point,

• 6:30Rich Roll?

  and you were feeling good, and everything was lined up for you to execute on that goal. So, here we are, you're throwing up, things are starting to go wrong. What's going through your mind in that moment?

• 6:43Kristian Blummenfelt?

  First, then I thought, okay, now it's Plan B. Like, it's only two guys up front. So then, I can still go for like, the more careful way of racing, going back into the group, and trying to stay with them on the way from the turning point, and all the way back into downtown. And, yes, you're saving quite a lot of energy on being in that group, or being on the tail end of it. So, I then tried to recover a bit, get the nutrition back in, because we're doing quite high numbers of carbs, like, it's 150, 160 grams per hour.

• 7:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that was my question around, I mean, like, vomiting is nothing new for you. I mean, I think in Frankfurt, you were throwing up as well. You still threw down like, a 232 marathon, or something like that, but there was some throwing up involved. Like, is this just gastric distress, or is it more a function of testing the outer limits of the number of calories that your body can absorb?

• 7:42Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think it's neither of those. I think it's actually something with the throat, like, reaction, and like, reflex coming there. So, like, irritation in the throat itself, then the stomach, and further down, the system. So, I'm not really sure what it is, but, so I thought, since, I didn't believe it was anything with the stomach, so as long as I got more nutrition down again, and as long as I was able to absorb that, I thought that I would be fine. So, yeah, I just started like, getting, following the same race plan. And I had another bottle up at Harvey at the turning point, so I could get like, those extra grams that I thought that I lost by puking it up.

• 8:24Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And I had also had some some emergency gels on the bike in case I lost a bottle or something. So I think it was more like a reaction in throat than being on that upper limit.

• 8:36Rich Roll?

  Huh. And no sense of what's causing that?

• 8:40Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I will have to figure it out.

• 8:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:42Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Like.

• 8:42Rich Roll?

  I mean, the Norwegian method should be pouring a lot of energy into figuring that out.

• 8:46Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 8:47Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 8:47Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So I've been struggling with the throat since St. George 2022, like the 2021 World Championship after that dry air. So um, I'm normally I'm either just like getting it up before the race and feeling like getting a little moisture in the throat or uh, yeah, it's more like a reflex than the stomach itself. So been used to it in training, but normally it's not the camera filming straight up in the.

• 9:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, nonetheless, I mean, despite your struggles on the bike, you still came into T2 in fairly decent position. I mean, you were ahead of Patrick Longa at that point, I think, still, right? So, you know, what happened when you got out onto the Queen K and started started trying to run?

• 9:36Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, so I had like 20 seconds, I think, on Patrick and was almost nine minutes from Sam Leyler, who was really smashing the bike. And I did get a little bit cooked on the way back on the bike as well, like I felt it the last hour maybe. But I was hoping that the legs will feel okay coming onto the run in Al Hejdriv first. So first is like eight, nine K, six, seven miles before coming up to the Queen K again. And I was running there for first a battle for potentially being in the fight for the podium. And Patrick just flew by me quite easily. I had no chance of staying with him, even

• 10:20Kristian Blummenfelt?

  though I was struggling quite badly two years ago as well, when I was trying to stay with Max Newman and Gustav. I just tried to stay with Patrick and from having to let him go, I tried to readjust my goal and look at the third place, getting time splits to him instead. But then I just ran out of energy after. Yeah, eight, nine K and looking down on the watch and seeing 11 K done and 31 K to go and it's survival modus. So then it just went slower and slower and a long day.

• 10:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think your marathon split was something like 3:32 or something like that, which is basically an hour slower than you ran in Frankfurt. But I got to give you credit for finishing. You know, it would have been very easy and I don't think anybody would have blanked if you just decided to pull out. But the fact that you were, you know, somebody who was laden with all of these expectations to win and those hopes being dashed still like, okay, I'm going to complete this marathon even though it sucks and, you know, I gotta have to eat a little bit of humble pie.

• 11:32Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, I think it's good for the future and for your own mind to, as long as you don't get more injured. Like if you're injuring yourself and it's going to cost you for a year or so to just push through, I think it's good to finish what you have started. Even though, as you said, like you have hundreds of excuses to just pull out. But I think for your own sake, it's important to finish it. And it's gonna be, it's like the learning there is gonna hopefully be helping me coming back for next year.

• 12:04Rich Roll?

  Well, we're only a couple of days out from that performance, but do you have a sense of what went wrong? Like knowing that your prep was in a good place going into it? Like, you know, what can you point to that you can fix?

• 12:20Kristian Blummenfelt?

  We might have traveled a bit too late to Kona, like 15 days before the race. Maybe we should have added in another week for the heat training. Maybe we should have done a little bit more of the training in Al Heid Drive. Maybe with a little bit more humidity instead of staying out at Waikoloa where it was maybe a little bit more drier. Could also have been the training structure and Um, not enough specificity going into the race. And it could also be in the bike position.

• 12:58Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Like, we worked a lot on the aerodynamic side since the Olympics going into Kona. But maybe I wasn't able to get the final position early enough. So I should maybe have adapted the position earlier to be in the right, close enough to the ending position two weeks before or three weeks before than what I did.

• 13:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, changing your bike position at the last minute. I know that much was said and written about Gustav changing his position into this sort of Superman position that looks very extreme. Your position, whatever changes you made, didn't quite look so drastic. But any change, you know, has to, you know, be sort of a serious thing that you take into consideration and isn't typically the kind of thing that you would do right before a world championship.

• 13:48Kristian Blummenfelt?

  No, but you've got to learn as well. And I think when you're doing it in a race, you also, that's when you're really learning for next time. But yeah, I think it was maybe a position that was great on the CDA side of it or better on the CDA side of it. And then maybe we didn't have enough time to validate it compared to like the power I'm able to produce and the comfort. But like in the shoulder and in back, it felt comfortable enough, but maybe it wasn't solid enough in terms of power above race pace and maybe not solid enough in terms of staying there overtime. But I did like four hours race pace up in Flagstaff on the same position and I run quite easily off it.

• 14:32Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Maybe I have to pull a little bit further backwards, like back with the elbows and maybe like a centimeter or two, a little bit higher and see what's the cost of that on the CDA side, but maybe I'm getting a little bit more power then.

• 14:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, across the board, the bike splits this year were insane. Five guys went under the course record. That was, you know, when Sam Leidlow said it, everybody thought it was. An insane record. Sam broke that record by like seven minutes, I think. And you were even despite all your difficulties, you were still within a minute of the old bike horse record. So the bike splits are really fast this year. Is that because, I mean, it was cooler in the morning, right? It was overcast. What, or was there, was there no wind going into Javi? Or, you know, how do you make sense of why everyone was so fast this year on the bike?

• 15:25Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think it's a lot of different, like, there was a lot of strong guys on the bike, like stronger guys, both from the front and also from behind who could push the pace. And also, condition was great. Like, it wasn't much wind up at Javi. And it was tiny bit of headwind coming down on Queen K. But then, of course, we were such a large group, I think the people behind was all of, almost able to just rest and stay and change of, change a bit of the guy who was in the front and then being able to still like let the train go at a decent pace. And I think that's also where we were catching a little bit on Magnus Littler as a group.

• 16:06Kristian Blummenfelt?

  We were sort of sharing a bit more of the workload while, while he and Sam Littler was both separated and having to do all the work themselves. And also, of course, like, all the equipment is getting more aerodynamic, like, it's getting more slim. And the more that is contested, also the easier it is to make those changes.

• 16:28Rich Roll?

  You weren't the only one who ran into difficulty this year. It was kind of a shit show, right? Other than Patrick Longa, who, who just laid down a masterclass and deservedly won, you know, the race with an extraordinary performance. All the other names that everyone was talking about, like, all had similar issues, right? Like, all the big names were in difficulty this year. And I think it speaks to what's so unique about Kona. Like, no matter how experienced you are, whether you've won it before, it doesn't matter. Like, Kona is its own thing. And even the best, the most experienced, the most talented, the most well-prepared athletes, run into issues they just don't run into in, in other races.

• 17:13Rich Roll?

  Usually, it's the fourth discipline. It's nutrition related, right? And on some level, whether it's your throat or whatever's going on with you, it does seem related to nutrition or the relationship between nutrition and heat and humidity.

• 17:29Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And I think now it's two years until next time we can try it around.

• 17:33Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 17:33Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So in one way, we just want to tackle the challenge again and just do whatever we can to perform there and sort of get revenge next year. But now we have Nice, completely different course, very hilly. And of course, it's probably a significant dryer as well. And it's requiring a different skill set, especially on the bike with the technical aspect of it. So yeah, we will have to wait another two years before we can get that revenge from that island and yeah, trying to figure out what went wrong. But like also, like I have the, both me and Gustav, we have the great experience from two years ago. So it's not like we feel like we have no clue of what needs to be done.

• 18:17Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right.

• 18:18Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So it's more like finding back to what we did back then and comparing it to what has been done this year. And of course, the level is increasing as well. But I think, yeah.

• 18:32Rich Roll?

  What was interesting about 2022 was that many people told you and Gustav going into that race, like, hey, your first time in Kona, you know, you got to temper your expectations. Everybody's first time doesn't go well. And both of you had extraordinary races and you're like, I don't know what everyone's talking about. Like that's just some kind of myth, right? But both of you, you know, got a heavy dose of that this time. You just got it on the second time around, not the first.

• 19:01Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, that's true. So, but like Gustav had a very different lead up to me. Like he's been struggling for two years. So I think just the fact that he was fit enough.

• 19:13Rich Roll?

  Even there, yeah.

• 19:14Kristian Blummenfelt?

  To be on the start line, even though he had a very tough day still, shows that he's on the right path in order to come back from Nice. Like he hasn't been able to run a marathon in basically in two years. So now he's finally there, we can do it in training at least. And then he's then we can build on from that and hopefully get ready for 25. While I just maybe went too hard on the bike. I should have played a different. Play my car differently, a little bit like Potlik. I should have stayed a little bit more in the group and trusted my run instead of feeling that the guys up front

• 19:57Kristian Blummenfelt?

  and like following their race strategy.

• 20:00Rich Roll?

  Right, getting too caught up in what everyone else is doing.

• 20:02Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 20:13Rich Roll?

  Well, for people that don't follow triathlon closely, just so you're aware, Christian is the Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medalist in triathlon, who then quickly transitioned to half Ironman and Ironman distances. You won the Ironman World Championship in St. George, you won the half Ironman World Championship. I think you still have like the fastest ever half Ironman time recorded, similarly for Ironman, I think. Is that true?

• 20:48Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 20:48Rich Roll?

  I mean, you've won so many races, I can't keep track of it.

• 20:50Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Depends on the courses and how you count them.

• 20:51Rich Roll?

  Right. The point is like you made this transition from Olympic distance to Ironman distance, basically won everything there is to win, you and Gustav, your training partner and friend. And as a result of this, much was made of this relationship that you have with your coach, Olav, who has been on the podcast, as have you and Gustav, and the Norwegian method, right? Which, you know, to sort of make a long story short, is a very science-based, evidence-based approach to training in which all kind of variables are evaluated scientifically

• 21:34Rich Roll?

  to extract optimal performance on a day-to-day training basis, and then of course, in the context of racing. And as a result of your and Gustav's success, everyone's studying this, everyone's talking about it, and for a period of time.

• 21:50Rich Roll?

  The proof was in the pudding. You were winning everything, right? And then you make this audacious attempt to go back down to Olympic distance racing and defend your gold medal at the Paris 2024 Games. That didn't exactly go to plan. So why don't we talk a little bit about Paris?

• 22:12Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah. So I think straight after

• 22:19Kristian Blummenfelt?

  four or two years ago, we went for the half arm and world championship in St. George again, which I won. And from there on, we went directly into the project, going back again to the Olympics in Paris. So as it is, it was two years qualification period. We were already like then almost five or 10 months late for the qualification, but we started chasing the points. So we turned up at the World Series race in Bermuda already by the end of 2022. And I think I finished like sixth or something there.

• 22:59Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So surprisingly high up there compared to the training I've done or did in the past year and a half. And from that point, I think we were all quite like optimistic and confident that the journey back to Olympic distance would be not easy, but like definitely doable. And from there, I would say it went, didn't went as smoothly forward as expected. So I did another race, W W, the grand final by the end of 2022.

• 23:39Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think I was still there or there about like I was fourth, no, fifth or sixth or seventh. Or maybe around seventh. And I felt like I was just missing that little gear. And with like a year and a half of training, I would definitely be able to close that gap. But then

• 23:59Kristian Blummenfelt?

  With all the races I did in 2023, I was more or less than, I was like 50, 60 seconds basically too slow on the run in order to be competitive to race. And I was maybe getting a little bit worse in the water compared to what I was coming into Tokyo. So we knew that I had to do like a big improvement on the run coming back again for the Olympic season and also had to lift my swimming capabilities and maybe even sacrifice a little bit of my bike skills. Because in 2023, I was producing like all time good bike splits, but or bike

• 24:42Kristian Blummenfelt?

  power, but run and swim was maybe not where it needed to be. And yeah, started the 2024 season and I was basically the same sort of distance to the best guys, a minute off the pace and

• 24:59Rich Roll?

  On the run?

• 25:00Kristian Blummenfelt?

  On the run.

• 25:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And that's also where I ended up in Paris. So

• 25:04Rich Roll?

  So going into Paris, your expectations were tempered based upon kind of knowing that, right? Like maybe you lacked that running speed that you were going to need to be on the podium?

• 25:16Kristian Blummenfelt?

  We tried to do something with it. So when I did the first races of 2024 and I saw that the gap was still 50, 60 seconds too slow, then we changed the run volume and basically increased the intensity and the case with 50% on the run to get like a big boost on the legs for the last five or six weeks going into the games. And felt I was responding pretty well on the running I did up in Font Rumeur. And I thought that if I'm coming down to sea level now before the games and feeling that Boost of oxygen again coming down from altitude.

• 25:57Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And if my running is on point, then I'm still having a chance. But coming to Cersei for the sea level camp and then doing my first couple of brick session. I think deep inside I knew that this pace isn't good enough like compared to what I've done in the past. I was expecting to run faster and but again, like you always try to trick yourself and tell yourself that you have a chance. But maybe I thought that it's the chance is getting smaller and smaller with the pace I'm running at training.

• 26:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, it's a lot easier to go from Olympic distance to Ironman than it is to go from Ironman back down. And while as you age, you can continue to kind of increase your endurance capacity. Speed is much harder to continue to develop and fades more easily, especially with age. And once you kind of let go of that speed work and then you're in the long distance world to come back and recapture it. I mean, I think that's why a lot of people were like, wow, that's it's a lot harder than I think most people who don't intimately understand that world would imagine it to be.

• 27:10Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But I think also my feeling from Paris is that we maybe did some mistakes on the training the last year going into the games. So it's maybe too much focused on building that capacity and stretching out sessions too much instead of simplifying it more. And working more around like the 30, 40 minutes of workload.

• 27:31Rich Roll?

  Well, the fact that you went and won Frankfurt two weeks after Paris, you know, it's like clearly you were doing, you know, a lot of, you know, more kind of endurance based work than maybe you needed because you wouldn't have been able to perform that well.

• 27:44Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, that was for me more like a blinking sign of, yeah, we did a mistake.

• 27:52Rich Roll?

  There's some, there's some kind of miscalculation there. So you, you think you can still, you, you have that speed. It was more like training error.

• 27:59Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think so. I think I can, I'm not that old that I can't get back to the speed that was required to win Paris. It was more. Mistakes we did and build up and like the what we were prioritizing.

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 28:14Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And.

• 28:15Rich Roll?

  It didn't help, not that this applied, you know, this applied to everybody who was racing, not just you, but you know, the whole kind of Sen, Paris, you know, sort of situation was a bit of a disaster.

• 28:28Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, that was a strange one as well, like coming to a games and it feels like the course is not even ready, like in that sense like.

• 28:38Rich Roll?

  Not only that, you don't know when you're going to race.

• 28:40Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Rich Roll?

  So every day it was sort of, they wouldn't even let you, they kept, they kept, they kept changing when you could even get into kind of, you know, practice in, you know, on the course, right? It was all dependent on measuring the toxins in the water or whatever, and that would change every day. And then you think you would get it and that went rain and then they'd say no. And then the day you were supposed to race, you show up like really early, right? And they call, they call it off.

• 29:08Kristian Blummenfelt?

  You're getting an email like four o'clock in the morning or something and or middle of the night. And then when you wake up for the race quite early, then you see the email that race is postponed another day. So.

• 29:20Rich Roll?

  That plays serious mind games.

• 29:22Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So, but like in that situation, you just try to think that it's the same for everyone. It's.

• 29:29Rich Roll?

  But the next day, the day that you raced, that morning it was raining.

• 29:34Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 29:34Rich Roll?

  I woke up that morning and I thought, there's no way these guys are racing today. There's no way they're going to let them race. And that was the day that they let you race.

• 29:42Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But.

• 29:42Rich Roll?

  They pushed it back too. You ended up like going in like later, like 10:45 or something.

• 29:47Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah. So that was because it was the women's day of racing. So they raced under the rain. And I think because of the rain, then, then normally the water gets dirty like two days after, or like a day or two days after, because then it comes like down from the, from the city. So the water itself should have been clean on that day, but it's more like to race later on on the day as well. Like it then it's more, it's warmer, especially on the run. And maybe Hayden Wild would have taken it if it was earlier in the morning, like he was getting cooked out there. So. You never know how it would have ended up up front, but I do think the podium would have been the same, same guys.

• 30:32Rich Roll?

  How did your throat do with the sand water? Did you throw up in that race?

• 30:37Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Actually not, that was actually okay.

• 30:39Rich Roll?

  Really? Did anyone get sick?

• 30:42Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think there was a few athletes who got sick, but like you don't know if it's the food they've been eating or like if they've gone out or but I haven't seen the I haven't I haven't looked at the numbers since like the water, like if it was clean or not. But the strange thing, I think it takes 24 hours to get the measurements from the water. So the the numbers we're using in terms of getting green light for racing, it's the numbers from the day before.

• 31:08Rich Roll?

  Oh, I didn't know that.

• 31:09Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And then it's like estimation of how it's going to be the next day.

• 31:12Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's that's not good. I mean, it was ambitious and and and sort of a cool idea four years ago when they decided like, hey, this is what we want to do, but they just couldn't really pull it off. And, you know, you guys were the ones who had to pay the price for that, unfortunately.

• 31:30Kristian Blummenfelt?

  It was an epic course. It was a great occasion, but again, maybe not a course that was secured and ready for the Olympic Games.

• 31:38Rich Roll?

  But from what I understand, LA 2028 is in your sights. Like, you want to go back. Is this true?

• 31:47Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I haven't decided yet.

• 31:48Rich Roll?

  This is what all the articles are saying.

• 31:49Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I haven't decided yet, but with that feeling coming off Paris and thinking that I'm not too old, but it was more mistakes done. And of course, I want to showcase that it's possible to come down again from arm and distance. Because now the with the 12th place from Paris, I would say like the the coming down from arm and distance, Olympic distance projects have sort of been a failure. And I do want to, of course, come back again to and show that it is possible.

• 32:23Rich Roll?

  13 days after Paris, you're in Frankfurt and you toe the line at at, you know, this legendary Ironman race, but you have no expectations. You're not even. You're just there, like you're there to race, but I don't think that you, from what I understand, like we're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to uncork some kind of amazing performance. And yet you have this unbelievable performance that I think sort of allowed everybody to kind of put your Paris performance in their rearview mirror and say, oh, whatever you might have thought about Christian not being at his best, think again. Like this guy's for real. Look what he just did when all he's been doing is training for Olympic distance.

• 33:07Rich Roll?

  Which leads me to believe that you're somebody who performs well in the wake of disappointment. But this year, for the first time ever, you've had two kind of very large disappointments. So how do you, like from just sort of a sports psychologist, mental health perspective, like manage the disappointment and all the expectations that went into your most recent big two, last two performances?

• 33:34Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think it's important to, yeah, like to have that conversation with yourself and like being honest with yourself and not coming up with too many excuses and just think about everything that's been done. And what I do is often like I write it down on the phone and just like looking through what I think was the reason, what I think I could have done differently, and using it for motivation for the future. Like, of course, it hurts to lose the Olympic title to someone else and to look at the pictures now from Kona of everyone on the podium. And I was, I was still on Queen K when they finished the race.

• 34:19Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But I think it's important to talk and have like honest reflections with the team and with Gustav and with Olav. And yeah, leaving nothing. Yeah, we will talk about everything when we get back home with Gustav and Olav and do those reflections and making a plan for how we can come back. Because. Yeah, all of us are both agree and hungry that we are not supposed to be that far down on the result list.

• 34:52Rich Roll?

  What did Olaf say to you after Kona?

• 34:57Kristian Blummenfelt?

  He was wondering mostly what I was thinking, like what was happening on the bike with the puking? And what I thought was the reasons for, yeah, getting cooked on the run. But we haven't spent too much time talking about it yet. We will have like a more longer talk when we get back to Bergen.

• 35:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's not a, it's not a easy puzzle, is it? Like, the way that you and Gustav train with Olaf is so measured. You know, everything that you guys do is a function of science on some level, right? And so for you to say, well, we made a miscalculation here, or we don't quite know why this didn't work here, is curious and interesting, right? Because, because of all people, I would feel like, well, you guys know exactly what happened. Or you and Gustav are the last people to kind of make an unforced error.

• 35:55Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But also how we often do these reflections is that we often first sit down and do like over phone or like we have like in different parts. And then we have like maybe a week break or like we're all like thinking about the point order we're coming with. And then coming back again and doing like another evaluation of the process and what we think could have changed, like if you have changed any opinions of what had been happening.

• 36:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:22Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So we have had like the first round now on the phone while we were in Kona. And then we will have a deeper one when we get back to Bergen.

• 36:32Rich Roll?

  Of all the unique methods that you guys deploy in your training, what do you think has had the most impact? Is it the constant lactate testing? Is it altitude training? Is it heat acclimation? Is it some of the technology that you guys are always experimenting with? Is it your relationship with volume and intensity? Is it metabolic efficiency? Can you point to any one thing that you think has moved the needle the most?

• 37:01Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think it's high, like being able to tolerate a very high training load. And then to be able to do that, you obviously need to have control over the training, like intensity control. That has maybe been the key. And being able to absorb it, like the training.

• 37:19Rich Roll?

  Absorb the training. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I read that you have the highest recorded VO2 max of all time.

• 37:30Kristian Blummenfelt?

  That's like.

• 37:31Rich Roll?

  Not by weight, right? Like total in aggregate.

• 37:35Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Like per milliliter.

• 37:36Rich Roll?

  It's like 7.7.

• 37:38Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But that's also where I think we went wrong coming into Paris. Like when I had that high enough numbers in December, January, I should have been able to perform better in Paris eight months later. So then again, if I can get the max up to those numbers,

• 38:00Kristian Blummenfelt?

  coming back from long distance, then I also think I should have performed better in the 2024 season. So then I think also how we've been utilizing that engine, I maybe been wrong in the training. Because I was running well in December, January. But it's maybe a parallelization, I've maybe been a bit off.

• 38:24Rich Roll?

  What is, to what do you account your ability to put, to kind of put in such a huge training load and also absorb it? Like, how do you, how do you measure that so that you're not overtraining? And you're always able to kind of absorb the training that you're putting in?

• 38:40Kristian Blummenfelt?

  The easiest way, I think, is every week, just being aware of how the training is feeling. Like it's about feeling if you're absorbing the training or not. Like if you're getting more hammered on your Thursday track session than you were the week before, then maybe you've had a tough week and you can still push through. Then if it goes like two or three weeks in a row and you feel like the number is not going in the right direction and you're just slowly digging yourself in a hole, then I think it's time to slow back a little bit. Like either cut down some of the track sessions or like some of the intensity sessions by maybe 80% and also doing it pace wise a little bit more carefully to get that energy back.

• 39:26Rich Roll?

  Do you ever have total rest days where you don't do anything? Those are the podcasting days.

• 39:30Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So that's the podcasting days and the sponsorship days. So then suddenly it's not an easy day still. But no, if I feel very fatigued, then maybe I will just go out for a walk and then come back again for the next day.

• 39:49Rich Roll?

  Is it harder now to maintain your focus? Because people always want you to like you're you have media obligations and you have sponsor obligations and your life is a lot, you know, kind of in a good way, like busier than it was when you embarked upon this journey. And balancing all of that has to have, you know, a certain place in order for you to kind of maintain your focus on on why you're even here in the first place.

• 40:16Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think, yes and no. Like, of course, it takes energy. And when but when you're like feeling like everything just is happening in a tailwind, like everything just goes smoothly, then it's easy to do for the shoot for sponsors and like interviews and being committed around extra training around the races. But of course, when you're getting more fatigued and you feel the training is getting a little bit worse, then it's also easier to be a little bit lower, like blaming it on that as well. But I feel I'm having quite sponsors who's really understanding the situation. And they also understand that the main thing is to perform at races.

• 41:00Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So they try to balance it out. So it's, I think it's important that we as an athlete also understand that the brands that you're signing up with, they also need a value from you. So it's a give and take. So when I feel I'm having energy to do trips, like extra trip for a sponsor, like visiting their HQ or something like that, then I try to put it in. Because I also know that that's giving me goodwill when I'm tired again, when I'm feeling to say no for any obligations and just want to focus on the training and the race. So both going into Paris and going into Kona, we were minimizing like the noise from that.

• 41:54Rich Roll?

  I know you haven't had a full sit-down with Olav yet to deconstruct what went right and what went wrong this year. But do you have a sense in the back of your mind, like, here's what I'm going to change? Or here's the main thing that I think didn't work right that we need to adjust?

• 42:10Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think we should have done more higher intensity going into Paris, as an example. Like, it was done too much threshold and maybe too much extensive work of threshold. That's maybe costing too much of the total energy for the week. So the time that's required to rest after the session is too long. And I'm sort of just feeling like I'm getting very efficient just around threshold, but maybe it's been stretched out too much. So I can almost stay there for quite a long time, but then suddenly the threshold numbers get lower and lower and lower, instead of being able to lift it up by making easier

• 42:53Kristian Blummenfelt?

  sessions, like simplifying it and working around that 30 to 40 minutes intensity, instead of stretching it up to 60 to 80, or even two hours.

• 43:03Rich Roll?

  Uh-huh. But going into 2025, you're not looking to continue in the Olympic triathlon world, right?

• 43:13Kristian Blummenfelt?

  It's still the tournament, yeah. But I still think I need to improve the power around the David Max and then engineer and then coming back again to working on the capacity. So I think also the two weeks have been looking a little bit too much similar, instead of having a little bit more prioritization between having a volume phase and then a building up phase and then more like intensity.

• 43:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 43:40Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So I think having cleaner structures there. And maybe also spend a bit too much time in altitude, because then you artificially also brings down the intensity a bit, while we could have taken advantage of maybe skipping the...

• 43:55Kristian Blummenfelt?

  January camp in altitude and maybe doing it at sea level instead and then having more yeah, artificial higher pace on the sessions.

• 44:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and maybe showing up in Kona a week earlier than you do this year.

• 44:08Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 44:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And although Lionel was there for like forever, it felt like before.

• 44:14Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But it didn't help.

• 44:15Rich Roll?

  He didn't have the best day either.

• 44:16Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, so we were in Flagstaff for a month before we went to Kona.

• 44:23Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And it was good temperature. It was getting quite warm there at some days, but it's very dry warm. So it's not, it doesn't.

• 44:30Rich Roll?

  No, it's, it's the humidity. Yeah, you need that. But if you're, if you're there too early, it starts to wear you down. It can make you tired.

• 44:39Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So maybe I didn't have a hard, like a tough enough session in the heat going into the race. Like I never felt like I was really hitting the basement heat wise before the race. And maybe it would have been good to.

• 44:55Rich Roll?

  Do you think that they'll, Ironman will go back to having the men's and the women's race in Kona?

• 45:02Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 45:03Rich Roll?

  The same weekend rather than, I mean, this was all a product of COVID, right? The fact that they separated it initially. And there's something great about it because the women deserve to have the attention on them when they're racing. And sometimes that doesn't always happen when, you know, the race is in the same place, the same weekend. But Kona is its own thing, right? It's, it is the home of the Ironman World Championships. And I do feel like it should return there for everybody.

• 45:30Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, it's definitely, that was definitely the vibes from the Ironman crew and the people there that they want to get it back to, to only be in Kona for the future. But as an athlete, I do think it's great to have both, letting the women having their own day. And because it's something to be racing first on course versus being the first female on course. I think that's great when they have the 70-point race on two different days. Then it's also at like the same location, but at two different days. Because then the women's race doesn't get affected by, by the guys either up front or like the age groupers

• 46:13Kristian Blummenfelt?

  coming in catching them or the pros being dropped.

• 46:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 46:17Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So.

• 46:19Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But it was definitely the vibe that people wants to only have it in Kona. Even though some pros like myself, I think it's great to go to Nice. Like, it's a beautiful place.

• 46:30Rich Roll?

  It's incredible. Yeah, but it's just not the right place for that race. Yeah. You know. But for the foreseeable future, your focus is purely on Ironman racing and half Ironman racing.

• 46:43Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, I think for now it's Nice next year, which might be the last time it's in Nice. And then it's Kona in 2026. And then we will see what's.

• 46:53Rich Roll?

  After that, you're. No comment on after that. Well, I bring this up because I don't know if you know, but there's been a lot of rumors about you perhaps dipping your toe into professional cycling.

• 47:07Rich Roll?

  When this rumor first surfaced, there was like a lot of discourse around it. But it was validated, at least in the press, when Olaf said, yes, this is our plan. This was back in July.

• 47:22Rich Roll?

  Christian is going to enter the world of professional cycling with a very ambitious goal, which was to contend initially at the Tour de France. And by, I don't know, I think he, I think he said like 2027, be in the mix for a jersey. Now, this is an even bolder claim than going from winning an Olympic gold medal to winning Ironman and back. And, and a lot of hands have been wrung over this, right? In July, he said, this is going to happen with 90% certainty. I know this is no longer the case. You've shifted gears. But I kind of want to talk about this a little bit.

• 48:03Rich Roll?

  I'm, I'm curious because I don't know if you or Olaf have ever shared much about the impetus of this idea. How did this idea even, you know, kind of occur to you guys, let alone become this thing that you were entertaining seriously?

• 48:19Kristian Blummenfelt?

  It was more like we're looking at opportunities to

• 48:27Kristian Blummenfelt?

  see how, like, yeah, what's opportunities.

• 48:30Rich Roll?

  You're being very guarded right now. It's okay, man.

• 48:36Kristian Blummenfelt?

  For them, like, it didn't help with the performances in Paris. And I also wanted to leave Tron.

• 48:46Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, with a good performance and not just.

• 48:50Rich Roll?

  Had you won the gold medal in Paris, would you be now officially a professional bike racer?

• 48:58Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think so.

• 48:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. It's kind of cool, actually.

• 49:03Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But yeah, I thought like it is, as you're only living once, you also want to take the chances you can like, and not be afraid of taking new challenges. And but then also, I also want to finish off well in triathlon.

• 49:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 49:25Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And.

• 49:26Rich Roll?

  So is this, is this a possibility for a later year that you're kind of just, you know, sort of keeping dormant for now that you might revisit?

• 49:34Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I think it was either now, now or never, because like if I do it after LA, it will be 34 and that's quite.

• 49:44Rich Roll?

  That's pretty late.

• 49:45Kristian Blummenfelt?

  That's like four years even later. And it was, yeah, with, I thought it was a great idea to.

• 49:56Rich Roll?

  I kind of wish you were doing this because I just would like to see it, you know, I would like to watch how this would unfold. I think it would be fascinating. You know, physically, you don't present like a professional cyclist. These guys, you know, weigh like 125 pounds or whatever. They just look different, right? And you, you present differently. You're a stocky, you're athlete, but you also come packaged with this insane VO2 max. Like you have the ability to put in giant volume, absorb the training. So the physiological capacity is there. The question then becomes, you know, can he learn how to, you know, handle his bike properly under pressure?

• 50:36Rich Roll?

  Can he descend? You know, it's dangerous. How do you ride in a peloton? There's a lot of other things that, that these guys learn over many years through experience, right? That you would have to then learn quickly and that presents its own challenges.

• 50:50Kristian Blummenfelt?

  It's a completely different ride in a group with triathletes to, to the world tour, but.

• 50:57Rich Roll?

  Real cyclists don't like riding with triathletes, like in the group ride.

• 51:02Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But like, yeah, I think like the engine is like my strength and being able to tolerate like a high volume over not just days, but weeks, I think also would have. Been my strength, but theater.

• 51:18Rich Roll?

  A lot of people have a lot of opinions about this. But I did read, I think it was Victor Campanarz, who you guys know, professional cyclist, who was singing your praises and saying like, I think you should do this. I love it. Like, I think Netflix should make a documentary about this. It's fascinating. It would be so cool to see what would happen if you really went for that completely. Obviously, that's a parallel universe. You're doing something differently. But I think the fact that you even, not only just entertained this as, you know, kind of a switch in your career, but actually like, we're making plans to, you know, move in that direction, speaks to,

• 52:01Rich Roll?

  it speaks to mindset, like a sort of growth mindset, like a malleable mindset, like what is possible? Like, yes, I do this well, but like, why don't I? Yes, I won the Olympic gold, but what would happen if we went over here? What would happen if we would go back? And you're the man in the arena. And it's easy to like criticize that person when things don't go right. But you're the one who's out there trying to do something that no one's ever done. And I think that gets missed in, you know, the discussion around kind of your career arc.

• 52:33Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, I think it's important to, to not be afraid of taking the challenge and like, like jumping into new stuff. Like, and often people, like even when they're standing on the start line in the race they've been preparing for, like, the biggest reason why they may be being nervous for the race is because they are nervous to fail. And I think that's been our strength in this whole project. Like, we jumped into triathlon and said like 10 years before that, yeah, we will win the race in Tokyo in 2020. And that's been like the whole target or the whole thing we've been working towards.

• 53:18Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Even though it was back then, it was quite an ambition goal to set. And the same is now. Like, you want to keep that youthful in you. Like, you want to be able to have a goal that is almost unreachable.

• 53:37Rich Roll?

  You don't strike me as somebody who allows these setbacks to

• 53:45Rich Roll?

  you know, kind of negatively impact like how you see the future, but rather as a sort of fuel like, "Hey, what went wrong? How can we fix this? Let's move forward."

• 53:54Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, it's like

• 53:55Rich Roll?

  Is that true?

• 53:55Kristian Blummenfelt?

  It's like my slogan on my bike, it hurts more to lose. And that's a little bit like when I've won a race, it's often more like, "Yeah, it's great, but then I want to win another one." But if I lose a race like now in Kona, then it stays on my mind for so much more like it's it's so much worse than the joy I would have had after winning that race. So yeah, it's definitely, I think I'm able to utilize disappointments to come back stronger.

• 54:31Rich Roll?

  Do you take a break now? What's the plan for the next couple of months?

• 54:36Kristian Blummenfelt?

  So out on Queen K, I think basically say that this is it. So now it's two or three or four weeks off, maybe a little bit of like soft training, and then building towards Nice. So then being in Bergen out for the rest of the year. And then maybe visiting Nice in end of January for like a month. And just getting familiar with the course and spending time there. And we might even put in one more camp before Nice in September, I think it is. So yeah, not going too aggressively out with the motivation, because that's also a bit risky when you've been having, when both of us have had

• 55:21Kristian Blummenfelt?

  disappointment experience now in Kona, but like using it like gradually building up towards.

• 55:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, being smart about it, because if you if you start to apply that too soon, you're not going to be able to sustain it.

• 55:34Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And then you will probably run into an injury in March or something like burnout or something. So it's important to spread out the motivation or energy throughout.

• 55:46Rich Roll?

  How is Gustav doing?

• 55:49Kristian Blummenfelt?

  He is on the way back, I would say, but of course, he was struggling on the swim, he was struggling on the bike and he started walking in the first eight station in Kona. And that's obviously a completely different situation than what it was two years ago. But I think injury wise and mental wise, he sort of finished with the worst and now it was just that he wasn't trained for racing in Arman. Like you can easily fake it through a 70.3, but even if you are in the best shape, like 42K on the run is a very long day.

• 56:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Do you think that he's on his way to the rebuilding that he needs?

• 56:33Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 56:34Rich Roll?

  To get back to his top form?

• 56:36Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, I think the fact that he knows how to ride a bike in a course like Nice is also giving him like mentally that extra boost he needs to think that Nice will be his comeback race.

• 56:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah. When you and Gustav were on the podcast, when was that, like two years ago? I can't remember.

• 56:57Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was right after 20, it was like two years ago exactly, almost. I asked you guys if you had any advice for the amateur triathletes out there or, you know, what are some of the, you know, habits that, you know, you think work the most? And it was great because it was just the basic stuff. It's like sleep, you know, like all the stuff that you kind of see on Instagram, all these kind of like hyper recovery tools and all of that, like you guys were just like, no, it's the basic stuff, right? So now, having come from another Kona race, was there anything that you observed among the amateurs competing there where you thought like?

• 57:39Rich Roll?

  These guys need to chill or like here like if I could, you know, like if you're like, hey, maybe not do that, do this, or where do you think like some of the amateurs out there kind of lead themselves astray unnecessarily with their training in the racing?

• 57:53Kristian Blummenfelt?

  It's hard to say like it seems like if you look at the top age groupers like they are basically looking like they are professionals like they're having all the same gears.

• 58:03Rich Roll?

  Well, the guy who who broke the swim course record is like he was he's an age grouper, I think, not for very much longer. But yeah, to I mean, to be a Kona, you're kind of a professional.

• 58:13Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, so they are all pretty fit. And it seems like most of the triathletes who is getting to Kona, they are well educated, like they know how important it is now with taking enough liquid in, they know how important it is to take in all the cubs. So it seems like they do try to learn as much as they can from all the pros. So.

• 58:36Rich Roll?

  What about the other races, though? Because you go to other races.

• 58:39Kristian Blummenfelt?

  There is more mixed. There is obviously more mixed for, yeah, like the simple things on race day. If you start shortening down on your cubs, like then in the race, then you are basically in a big issue.

• 58:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Kristian Blummenfelt?

  But also like in the in the buildup for an arm and like if you do try to get in too much volume and you're sacrificing the sleep again, like nutrition and and then it's, yeah.

• 59:07Rich Roll?

  I recently had this guy on my podcast called David Roche, who's an ultra runner and and a running coach. He's been a coach for a long time and distinguished himself for many years at shorter distances. And he recently ran his first 100 miler. He ran his first 100 miler at Leadville. Like he picked like this insane race, right? High altitude, very difficult course. And he destroyed everybody in his first 100 miler. He won. And and what he said, which was super interesting. Is that his approach, his approach was very counterintuitive. Like he has this massive endurance base because he's been running forever. Right.

• 59:52Rich Roll?

  And he focused on, on threshold efforts, like learning how to train fast. That was his big thing. And then secondarily, he, he studied the habits of competitive eaters. Because his theory was that if I can train my body to absorb more carbohydrates than anybody else without gastric distress, then I'll be able to maintain that higher pace for, for a longer period of time. And he was successful in doing that. He just won the Havelina 100, like in Arizona. So a, a high heat race recently. And so suddenly he's like the guy in ultra running.

• 1:00:35Rich Roll?

  But I just thought it was so interesting, his approach to carbohydrate intake. Like he trained his body, I can't remember what the figures were, but he can absorb like just an astonishing amount of grams of carbohydrate per hour. And I have to believe that this is something that Olav, yourself and Gustav have tested and are playing with.

• 1:00:56Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, we have blocks where we try to go like very high and like maybe a little bit more than what's comfortable with in terms of carbs, carbohydrate intake under intensity. And then there is blocks where you maybe try to go like back again, pulling it to a lower number. So I think you can do prioritization in same way as you do with the training. And especially in the build up to an important race where like the carbohydrate intake is crucial, then you also want to have a block of higher carbohydrate intake.

• 1:01:31Rich Roll?

  But your ability to do that in a race context, to be able to maintain like a higher threshold for a longer period of time seems like.

• 1:01:40Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, you need, you need to do it under higher intensity. Like, so typically we do it, use the more army specific days to do those high intake. So if we do four or five hours on the bike, then we try to also stay around, or maybe five or 10% above what we normally will take in the race. We will do that constantly on the, on the bike and the same on the run, like pushing that up the limit. And.

• 1:02:11Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Because then in a race situation, you normally will ease off a little bit more towards the end. It's not like you will finish off the race with tons of energy.

• 1:02:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, you got to figure out your throat thing. You got to stop throwing up, dude. You got to figure that out.

• 1:02:29Rich Roll?

  I was DMing with Patrick Longa earlier today and I was like, Christian's coming in, what should I ask him? And he's like, ask him if he's throwing up on purpose. Like, what's the deal with him throwing up all the time?

• 1:02:39Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I did it just before Harvey, just for the climb to get lighter.

• 1:02:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're trying to drop weight.

• 1:02:46Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And I was doing it to get this slippery surface behind me because I knew the train was coming.

• 1:02:51Rich Roll?

  The other thing this guy David Roche talked about was bicarbonate. Do you guys test this? Do you play around with this as like a way of buffering lactate, I guess? Is that what it does?

• 1:03:02Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah. So we've used, I used the Morton bicarb quite a lot going into Paris and I used it both on the longer, longer days where I was having like my like 16 minutes of threshold on the bike and then straight into 20K or 18K threshold on the run. And with the idea of being able to have a longer time before exhaustion on the, on the run.

• 1:03:33Rich Roll?

  So you found that effective?

• 1:03:36Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I don't feel the straight benefits, but when we do like measurements on like the blood in the lab, they see that I'm sort of utilizing the bicarb. But the bicarb is not something I feel as powerful directly on my body as I do with caffeine. But the testing that I've done, that they have done is showing that you are increasing your capacity by using it. And for like a race, now I didn't use it in Corona, but I think maybe in the future it's something I can even take like a day before or two days before the race. Because often when you take the bicarb, you also gain like Two kilos, three kilos, two days after or the day after. So maybe

• 1:04:18Rich Roll?

  That's interesting.

• 1:04:19Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Can, because you're basically, it's so much salt in it that you're also carrying more liquid and maybe even increasing the blood volume. So then you being able to utilize it like the following day or two days later. But that was something I didn't do in Kona this time around. So maybe.

• 1:04:37Rich Roll?

  Add that to the list.

• 1:04:38Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39Rich Roll?

  For 2026. Well, we're in New York City. We're here, it's marathon weekend. We're both going to be doing stuff with On, who, you know, shout out to On. Great partner, I know, for myself and also for you. You're going to be able to have fun here in the city? What do you got, what do you got planned?

• 1:04:59Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yep, I am doing some touristic stuff tomorrow, heading into the, the Statue of Liberty.

• 1:05:07Rich Roll?

  Statue of Liberty.

• 1:05:07Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, oh yeah.

• 1:05:08Rich Roll?

  Have you been here before?

• 1:05:09Kristian Blummenfelt?

  I've only been like a few hours layover.

• 1:05:12Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:05:13Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And then I will go into the Friends house or like the, you know, the TV show Friends. And then like, or like see that, or they will show me that street. And yeah, see Times Square.

• 1:05:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, cool.

• 1:05:28Kristian Blummenfelt?

  And I see the On Lab, which we also saw in Paris. So they have this machine that's like

• 1:05:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:34Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Creating a shoe in three minutes.

• 1:05:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the machine making the light spray shoes in real time for everybody, which is pretty exciting. I think we're going, we're doing a Q and A also at On Labs at some point.

• 1:05:45Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Yeah, on Friday.

• 1:05:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, thanks, man. This was great. I really enjoyed it and I can't wait to see what the next season has, has in store for you. And I just want to commend you for kind of like the, the way that you comport yourself through, you know, I'm sure you would love to be here having just won and having won a second gold medal. Life had a different plan for you, but I feel like you're somebody who, who is in a really good place with all of it. And I think you're only going to build on this. I think Mark Allen said, That Christian is somebody who knows what to do with disappointment. And I think I agree with that.

• 1:06:26Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Thank you.

• 1:06:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Hopefully, we can come back in two years' time with the Kona Trophy.

• 1:06:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, we'll do. So we'll just set that. We'll set it now. Every two years, we do a podcast, buddy. Okay.

• 1:06:39Kristian Blummenfelt?

  Thank you.

• 1:06:40Rich Roll?

  All right, cool. Cheers. Peace.

• 1:06:54Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors,

• 1:07:37Rich Roll?

  who keep this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com/sponsors. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Solis.

• 1:08:20Rich Roll?

  And thank you, Georgia Whaley, for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  Namaste.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  (Music)