Norway 10km, September 27, Kibrab 28:07 destroys Nordås, 29:45

Gagnås, the guy just behind Nordås, 25, is a useful 1:49/3:40/8:04 performer, with loads of potential. I see him at 3:35.00/7:40.00 soon.

Why do all their names end in "-ås"?

'Ås' means ' top of little hill ' in Norwegian language. A common start or end in the surnames.

We're jealous of Norway, because Norge is, arguably, the best country in the world to live.

Nordas was supposedly just pacing someone under 30'. The thread title thus doesn't really make sense.

You confirmed what I thought. Nordås normally should be able to run 28:00-28:30 without difficulty. Paradoxical that Nordås's best distance so far is 1500, even though he's probably genetically more predisposed to the longer distances. Dude is enigmatic.

That would be Finland, but close.

Possibly, but anecdotal "evidence" indicates Finns suffer more depression, alcoholism and suicidal thoughts compared with Norwegians. I heard Danes are the happiest Nordics. I've been to Denmark, Copenhagen and Lyngby, as well as Esbjerg. Good vibes in Denmark. Sweden is in the middle, I think.

Caveat in Denmark - those bike riders will mow you down if you're in their way. Madness! Danes have no patience for slow pedestrians, it seems.

Nordås was supposedly rabbiting him.

Then you should yell, "watch where you're going, dumbås!"

a 1500 guy running 10k in the fall, that is not racing.

I heard he was all out.

Well, Nordås raced to a 10k road NR in the fall of 2024 (27.31) -Jakob’s 27.27 is not (and will not be) for some reason ratified.

Nordås has also run a 27.34 roads, so that indicates that he might be ready for a new level here -but this is a guy very hard to predict….

Absolutely - I'd say he is just a little less strong (at 5k/10k) compared with Almgren. Nordås also seems to be more fragile mentally, and unpredictable in Championship races. He could be great or lousy on any given day. Dude is enigmatic.

Yes, but it can also mean “god” (the old norse gods) in some surnames (Åsheim f.x can thus be interpreted both as “the home of a god” and “the home by a ridge/hill”), and in a first name like Åsmund («god + gift/protection»)…

»Nordås» can seemingly be translated directly to «the northern hill», since it seems to refer to a split of an original farm called “Ås” (only meaning “hill” when without prefix/ suffix) in a northern and southern part, but a more correct translation would then clearly be “the northern partition of the place/farm Hill”…

This is an interesting topic. For the past two years Finland has been at the top of those rankings of the world's happiest countries. But not that many years ago the countries with the highest rates of suicide were all in the far north, or at least parts of them were. Russia was always the leader but Canada, Finland, and Sweden were all near the top. Norway was not and one theory was that Norway had a culture much more oriented towards outdoor activity all year round than other northern countries. If Finland is now the happiest country on earth I have to think the suicide rate has dropped a lot in recent years.

Deaths by suicide in the EU down by 13% in a decade - News articles - Eurostat

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Deaths by suicide in the EU down by 13% in a decade

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In 2021, there were 47 346 deaths due to suicide in the EU, corresponding to 0.9% of all deaths reported that year. This is the equivalent of an average of 10.2 deaths per 100 000 people. Compared with 2011, the first year fo...

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Interestingly the Limousin région in France has a super high suicide rate, 21/1000. It's an agriculture région, with old people mostly.

Yes, he is enigmatic. But so is in many ways Almgren, that you mention, and I would also like to throw in Jakob here…

These three global medalists are all doing the double threshold after the Norwegian method ( developed by Marius Bakken), but there are differences between them that might be significant. -Maybe not so much in the base period, but clearly come May/June. But we don’t know the extent of this; especially Jakob seems to have developed things here we aren’t fully informed about…

We know that Jakob has had 122 miles pr week at his most in the base period, but also that he has stressed that he won’t go beyond that. Contrary to Andreas and Narve that are willing to expand that mileage… But that doesn’t have to result in too much difference -we know that Almgren can run fast in the HM in his base period (but not in the shorter events with so much mileage in his legs), whereas Ingebrigtsen and Nordås (especially the former) can be sharp in even the 1500m the year around…

Andreas Almgren is an enigma. -He ran 22.88 in the 200m and 48.33 in the 400m being 16 years and two months old (got a bronze in the U18 800m Worlds that year), and he then stabilised himself on 1.45 mid, and did a 48.38 indoors (aligns to a 47 something outdoors, doesn’t it?). So who would think he now is the European record holder in the 5000m (12.44), and in the roads 10k (26.53) and also is very near in the HM (59.23)!!?

Narve Nordås is seemingly very different from his Swedish colleague -he got a 1.58 high pb in the 800m some months before he turned 17, and only 4.07 pb in the 1500m that year (28 sec slower than Jakob who underperformed time wise that year). But in the 3000m he did 8.51; clearly his talent thus seemed to be in the longer events… And clearly he kept on evolving (very slowly in the 1500m, but significantly better in the 3/5 and even 10000m that he started running early in his teens… But here is some of the enigma stuff: While Nordås kept on improving in the longer distances (well, he ran 3 shabby HM’s -1.08- 1.09- 1.04.57), and even got a 5.th place in the indoors European champs 3000m a meter behind Katir, it suddenly said bang in the 1500m. -So why; he hadn’t shown any talent there, and still was extremely slow in a 400 and 800m according to himself!?

Well, the development was this: When he was 17 years and 9 months old he had had a gradual and natural progression to 4.02 in the 1500m. Then he waited three years for his next race in that event and did 3.49 low. OK -young people can take huge steps once in a while, but then he improved another 10 sec (3.39 low) the next year. But it doesn’t stop there -the following year he only ran the event once; an easy win in 3.36 (3 sec improvement, but clearly worth more since it wasn’t all out). And then, in addition to all this: Two races the next year in 3.29 mid -one of them the WC, where he came like a freight train in the home stretch, and nearly caught both Jakob and Kerr. -What the….

More about this, and also about Andreas Almgren and Jakob Ingebrigtsen as enigmas in my next post…