– Saved my career – NRK Sport – Sports news, results and broadcast schedule

Even before the season has properly started, Andreas Almgren is pointing himself out as this year’s athletics comet. The work has been going on for a long time for the 28-year-old, but now it is bearing fruit for the middle and long-distance runner.

– It’s starting to dawn on me what I’ve done, smiles the Swede.

Because within a few weeks there was a rare record race:

• January 14: 27.20 minutes in a 10 kilometer street race in Valencia. Swedish record and number four in Europe of all time.
• February 11: 59.23 in the half marathon. Nordic record and number two in Europe of all time.
• 17th of March: 26.52 in 10,000 metres. The 35-year-old Swedish record was broken by over a minute and Almgren became third in Europe all-time.

– He is simply one of the best runners in Europe of all time, praises NRK’s ​​athletics commentator Jann Post.

– The last race meant the most. The other two were more of a fun thing, says the record breaker, who was immediately selected for Sweden’s Olympic squad after the 10,000 record.

Copied Ingebrigtsen’s training

Almgren speaks to NRK via video link from Flagstaff in the USA, and has visited the training mecca at the same time as the brothers Henrik, Filip and Jakob Ingebrigtsen.

– We greet and talk when they come to the training ground, but they have a slightly different circadian rhythm than me, says the morning bird.

The Swedes and the Norwegians may not train together, but the way they train is similar. Almgren has indeed printed “copy, paste” on Ingebrigtsen’s layout.

– The philosophy is very similar to what they do. We spent four weeks at a training camp this winter, and ate together more or less every day. Then you talk about training and such, and you notice that it’s quite similar, one might say.

– Do they think you have imitated?

– It’s probably as Henrik usually says; that it is very idiotic not to imitate, Almgren grins.

Double threshold twice a week with high volume training in between, is the Swede’s simple explanation of how he trains. Sometimes he runs over 200 kilometers a week.

Norwegian training saved his career

Ingebrigtsen’s training philosophy, often called the Norwegian model, became decisive for the Swede.

– Double threshold saved my career, he believes.

It may sound like a joke, but at the bottom there is a seriousness.

At the end of his teenage years, Almgren had to make a choice: football or running. He had excelled in the academy of the Swedish big club AIK and had been rewarded with age-specific international matches for Sweden.

But the love of running was greatest, and the commitment to 800 meters intensified. The talent was there, but the training took its toll. Over a period of several years, he constantly struggled with relapses due to injuries.

– It is quite clear to me that all the injury problems, such as stress fractures and stress reactions, have occurred during periods of excessively hard training sessions, he says.

In Ingebrigtsen’s world, intensity management and measurement of lactate values ​​are the key. It is definitely hard training, but you should never give up. The load must be controlled.

– I have made quite big strides since I started this type of training. The double threshold was a way out of the injury problems, says Almgren.

With the new training, there was also a focus on longer distances than 800 metres.

– He is one of the first to have taken the Ingebrigtsen philosophy and tested it on half marathons and 10 kilometers. It turns out to work exceptionally well, says Post.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen has said several times that the training actually makes him perfectly equipped to perform at longer distances, and Almgren believes that the world record would be threatened if the Norwegian went for a half marathon.

– Almgren’s results show that Jakob, as many had thought in advance, can assert himself at least up to a half marathon with roughly the same training regime. He can be at the top of the world there, but I think that will be a long time, says Post.

4,500 kilometers by bike

Almgren has always been very searching in training, and already at the age of 11 googled he how the stars of the time like Wilson Kipketer trained.

Later came the interest in data – all the measurable aspects of training. In addition to being a running star, he works as a data analyst at Svexa, which, among other things, uses AI algorithms in its training work.

He is also not afraid to experiment with other forms of training. From time to time, running ailments still arise that require alternative training, and this year alone the 28-year-old has logged over 4,500 kilometers by bike on the Strava training app.

– Han has put extreme amounts into the bicycle seat. It is very rare that today’s top runners do it that way. Almgren is not afraid, has great faith in what he does and carries it out 110 per cent, says Post.

Almgren is, among other things, inspired by former figure skater Nils van der Poel and his world-renowned training philosophy.

– What you notice from that training is that after a period of cycling, you are quite bad at running. Butit’s brutally fast to get good at running again, he says.

Double threshold and long bike rides make the Swede a fitness monster. Even if injuries appear, he is thoroughly trained. Then he needs less time to reach the top again.

– I started running again in mid-November. Two months later I ran 27.20 in Valencia. If you are well trained, you run well, he concludes.

Curious Americans

The Norwegians and Almgren’s training also continue to inspire.

– Double threshold is absolutely the hottest. There is no question of that. All the Americans who meet me ask about it, he says.

And when American journalists connect that Sweden is a neighboring country with Norway, a light goes on.

“Ah, it’s the double threshold that’s the secret,” Almgren recounts from a recent interview with a major international athletics magazine.

The recent records notwithstanding, the Swede denies that he has already peaked. He has higher ambitions during this summer’s championship.

– It would have been unbelievably humble if I said that I wasn’t going to try to win a gold in the EC, he smiles.

In the Olympics, the competition is tougher, but as a former middle-distance runner, no one wants Almgren out on a final round of 10,000 metres.

He will make his season debut in the Diamond League in Doha on 10 May. You can watch the convention on NRK 1.