The youngest member of the Norwegian National Team, Espen Harald Bjerke was not able to live up to and reach his own expectations this season. He is disappointed by his performance and how he raced, but will make changes and is promising that he will “prove something†next season.
Season Wrap-up: A Disappointing Season For First Year Norwegian National Team Member Bjerke
FasterSkier · April 22, 2004
Bjerke was on the winning relay team in this year’s Norwegian National Championship. That was the season highlight and the only thing he can think of as positive. Bjerke has thought a lot about why it ended up like this, and found a few elements that might have affected why he wasn’t able to follow up last season’s good results.
– I was very focused on good high intensity training and made sure that the distance sessions were easy enough. It could be that I made them (the distance sessions) too easy and for that reason ended up with no natural threshold training — the type you get from a little harder distance training. I also bought a house during a high training period, this could have caused the total training load to become more than I could handle.
A slave of the plan
A third reason for the bad season could be that he has followed the National team’s plan blindly.
– I used to be good a listening to my “body’s signals†and adjust the training accordingly. I might have felt that I had to follow the team’s plan and train the suggested hours. I became a slave of the plan without making proper adjustments, admits Bjerke.
He is now very inspired to do well and has only taken two days off since the Norwegian Championship at Savalen in March.
– I’m not giving up. I’m coming back strong. I can “taste blood†and feel that I have to prove myself again, states Bjerke.