How to skate a 10k

We were intrigued by this WSJ story:

He Broke Every Record. Then He Told His Rivals How to Beat Him.
After Swedish speedskater Nils van der Poel took Olympic gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, he published his entire training plans so others could copy it

Nils van der Poel could have easily kept his training program a secret.

No one needed to know about the months of aerobic work, the endless laps of a speedskating oval, or the allowances for beer, ice cream, and the odd skydive. The eccentric 25-year old from Sweden could have collected his two Olympic gold medals and quietly left Beijing.

Instead, van der Poel did something unthinkable in a sport where every marginal gain is guarded like a state secret: the double Olympic champion posted his entire training program online, all 62 pages of it. It was the speedskating equivalent of Bill Belichick publishing his playbook the day after the Super Bowl.

Sure enough, you can follow the link to Nils van der Poel’s thoughts on training and detailed training plan.

On the mental aspects:

The media:

This round of Olympics seemed bleak to us, the women’s figure skating finals in particular were like a horrible accident we couldn’t look away from. But this kinda thing is what it’s all about.

He knows that the training manual can’t be for everyone. For the van der Poel method to really work, you not only need the freakish van der Poel lungs and commitment. You might also need the van der Poel touch of crazy.

“I often wished that I would’ve had company,” he writes, “but no one else wanted to join my lifestyle.”