Jump

Vil du lese denne artikkelen på norsk, gå til www.3atlet.no

You haven’t heard it? Then you are probably so young you are, by definition, the future of triathlon, or you are so old you will soon be dreaming about carbon wheels on your walking aid.

For those unfamiliar with Jump, this is what it is...

Jump is not near any list of the world’s best song. It is not the best hard rock song of the 1980s. It’s not even the best song by Van Halen. But it is a song with a lot of relevance for triathlon in general, and specifically for Norseman.

As you might be aware, and if you have signed up for the race in 2011 I hope you are, Norseman is not your average triathlon. Norseman is a fight against Norwegian nature, as well as your own character. And nowhere is this more clear than at the start of the race. You know the drill, soldier? You will go from the relative warmth and safety of a ferry and you will commit and throw yourself into the cold and dark of a Norwegian fjord. You have no choice, you might as well jump.

Norseman is about a lot of things to different people. Norseman is about conquering a piece of Norwegian water, tarmac and rocks. To a select few, it’s all about winning, and some will do some whining. To a lot of people it is about the black finisher shirt, some will secretly be content with the white. Norseman might mean showing the rest of the world that you are as tough as it gets.

Norseman is about finishing with whatever cards you are dealt on the day and the card you have dealt yourself the months and years before. To a lot of people Norseman is the spine-chilling task of going beyond what you ever thought possible. Taking a more or less calculated risk and then just jump, jump into the unknown.

Some people really go into the unknown with Norseman, because it is their first ever triathlon. That sounds sensible does it not? I want to try a triathlon … let’s see… I’ll do Norseman. Norseman advice for beginners? You might as well jump, rooky!

If you know just a little about Norseman, you know that the long, hard way to the top does not start with your cute little toes covered in warm sand on a nice beach. One early morning in August, before the trolls and killer whales have awakened, you will be there. The darkness has just lifted, and you will feel the cold, hard deck under your feet.

Those who have been there before, or have some sense or a caring and knowing support team, will be protected by woollen socks or some old shoes. But even they must let this basic protective gear go, say goodbye to all safety and comfort and stand there together with the rest of us. Everybody is alone but we are all in this together. For a short moment you will have the possibility of two very different worlds. That is before that defining moment. The jump.

And what fantastic feelings the jump will give you! You feel strong and invincible. You are supercharged and ready to conquer the world. The song goes: “I get up and nothing gets me down”, even though some would rather choose to sing “I jump down and hope that I don’t drown”.

I participated in Norseman once. And my positive mental picture of the race was not Gaustatoppen and certainly not the steep cycle route up towards Vøringsfossen. My mental picture was of the ferry jump. You have seen those pictures? The shimmering ferry and the jumping triathletes? To me, that picture is a triathlon icon. To me, that is the defining picture of Norseman. It’s up there with the lava fields and the lone man and the bike.

For those of us that normally would seek safety and the known, the jump is such a good thing to experience. With the jump you go from plan towards fulfillment. When you stand there on the ferry you can still simulate a broken leg and withdraw. But as soon as you jump there is no way back up to that ferry. At least, there are no ways to get back up there with your pride intact.

But as a Norseman triathlete, or any kind of triathlete, this is not your first jump. So you are all prepared to jump. You made a commitment, you jumped the day you said: “Hey! Next year I will do a triathlon!” Even though that was just your credit card doing the talking. You jumped the first day you found it natural to wake up at five in the morning to go to the pool to swim 2000 metres before your friends and colleagues had started thinking about the first bagel of the day. You jumped the day you went from jogging to running. And you most certainly jumped the day you found out that maximum happiness could be obtained by doing a triple brick (a triple bike and run session, below, at and over race intensity) on a Saturday morning, together with 12 other fellow lunatics, not by having a triple espresso at your favourite coffee shop. As triathletes we commit and we jump all the time. So without further ado, we once again quote Van Halen:

Might as well jump! Go ahead and jump!

Yours

Bent Olav Olsen

Proud owner of a white finisher shirt from 2010