For such an average triathlete like me is it a little bit crazy to sign in the NORSEMAN EXTREME TRIATHLON. I expected that, but not the fact, that this maniac action runs in such big dimensions, I couldn´t get or believe that, until the day I made my way to the Eidfjord, the meeting and starting point of the cruel but also wonderful journey of a long distance triathlon, when I rode counter.clockwise of the bike course.

So, there I was, a little bit full of sorrows, early in the morning at 3:30o´clock at the pier of the Eidfjord to check in my bike and to get on the ferry. The ferry begins to move at 4:00o´clock. Straight up directly 3:8km in the Haradanfjord. The spirit on board was like electric, the morning, err..the night is smooth, but it still dark, you remember yourself , it such a feeling on Hawaii, I think Eidfjord is Kona of the North.

A worried glaze, absolutely legitimate, how we already know…

The ferry arrived meanwhile at the starting point and just before 5:00o´clock, I jumped from the ferry in the waters with 229 other maniacs out of 5m of height. The water got 17°C, its almost comfortable warm. D-Day just began…The neht time just passes by. I keep on swimming thru the fjord and reach the safe shore after 1:44h with a burned wounded neck. Now its almost routine : change on your bike, get on and slowly started the oxygen supply for my brain again. This started just in time, because the course makes a turn and… - UP -
And this is the course the next 35km, just up. From 0 to 1250m to the Dyranut-Turisthem, kind of mountain shelter at the foot of the Hardangervidda, Europe´s biggist high plateau. Here I met for the first time after lift of from the ferry my supportes for supply acceptance.

One advantage of a real aerodynamical bike is, that is in the front lower than in the rear.

Now the following scenery of the Hardangervidda is of unbelievable landycaped beauty. Passing the Hardanger glacier on a light hilly, but paltry and windy plateau.
I recognize just before the 90km mark, that my riding schedule is in danger, because I gotta reach the top of the Gaustatoppen and the “BLACK” finish shirt after 14:30h the check-point on the run at km 32,5. This is suppose to be implosible. My new calculation for the bike-split is 9h, 8 would be allright.

Even slower would be backwards…

The increases are coming without fail and suddenly. 3x 4km with 7%, just after it 6km with 4%, everything what do you think? Naturally with head wind and then 10km with 8-10%. When I reache the top there are again 10km up…and did I mention the head wind??? Than finally 30 rumbling km down to the transition area in Austbygde, just after 9h. For a short time I think about is it really worth to go on running??? But I promised it my crew, so I started to hobble. And soon I reach my own run style…

Sure, sure, their was some kind of running…

This works for almost 16km, than I gotta burned out. I calculated my time again and came to the cruel conclusion, that I didn´t manage to reach the time-limit. This was a last but one fire to my broadside of my last bit of motivation. Well…than I walk. Lukas, my supporter, puts away his MTB and keeps on walking with me.
After 4km on the street to the Rjukantal makes a soft left turn and there he was again, the dreaded, the frighten moment. Slowly the Gaustatoppen cames broad-shouldered and repellant in sight. On the top of it, is the finsih. We´re very eased, that we don´t have to get up there. Well, st this point of the race, is my mental sanity somewhere, but not with me…

There he is...the broad-shouldered gentleman.

Further 5 turturous km we´re just in front of it. Some call him loving „Zombie-Hill“, the last serpentines to the check-point. 7,5km with a acclivity of 10%. I refuse to think about the last and following 10km when I reach the check-point. Even vover the time I got to feeling or overview. The world just exists out of “ – UPHILL - ”.
Finally we reach the top, meanwhile my daughter Marlene supported me the way up to the check-point, not reality for me anymore. At the point, I got redirect to an alternative finish, the Hotel Gaustablikk. 10 of bad painfully hilly km still to go. I even got the power to run short terms to get some meters between me and my followers. Marlene runs all the way with me. THAN after 17:42h, I reach totally exhausted and with empty mind the parking lot in front of the hotel, no finsih-line, but under the cheering cries of my supporters and the timekeeper. Well, its just the “WHITE” shirt, for the moment I´m a little bit disappointed. But the next morning…
NO, I´m still disappointed.

I need 3 days to get over it and to be delighted over that I finished this absolutely unbelievable race. And did not give up... nein, da bin ich immer noch enttäuscht.

Another 3 days later, I started to plan my next start in Eidford.

Daniel Flöttmann