How to skate a 10k | Hacker News Reader

How to skate a 10k

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This quote is worth translating for the HN crowd. It's a typical Nils van der Poel answer, from an interview with Swedish Radio. When asked how he did it, how he could sacrifice so much for a gold medal, his answer was

"I think it's important to understand that you're not doing it for a gold medal. Regardless of which life you chose to live, you will sacrifice something, that's the way it is.

As soon as you go in one direction, you also choose to not go in all other directions at the same time. It's the basic precondition for going anywhere at all.

But on the path you take, you will experience fantastic things, even though it's uphill there will be a great view when you're at the top, and that's what makes it worth it, to be on this journey with people you love. It doesn't matter that much where the journey ends. A movie with a sad ending is also a good movie - and a movie with a nice ending makes you happy.

I'm very happy for this medal around my neck, and for getting all the way here. But why do you do it? I don't think you get to pick your dreams, they pick us. It's up to us to realize them or not, and it seems like people who try to realize their dreams are happier."

Source in Swedish https://twitter.com/Radiosporten/status/1491090244652969984

Truly amazing. Thankyou for translating Jacob.

As an Elite Athlete myself; hoping to represent my country in the 2024 Summer Olympics it resonates with me greatly.

I will be printing this off and putting it in a place I see often.

Thankyou

What event?

You don't master anything because you enjoy being good at it, because everyone enjoys that. You must enjoy learning.

there is dopamine vs. endorphins distinction: motivation (next fix) vs. pleasure (pain relief)—anticipating reward vs. reward itself.

A rat pressing a dopamine-stimulating lever is not happy it is just motivated to press it.

Agreed, I think this is a great quote. It also makes me think, though, that certainly there are parameters of certain activities and sports that lend themselves more to this mindset vs. others.

For example, I've said somewhat jokingly but also somewhat for real that "If I have kids, I'm going to get them into something like snowboarding or freestyle skiing." You look at those competitions and I nearly always feel such a "joie de vivre" from the competitors, even to the point that they practically always look genuinely excited when anyone does a difficult trick really well.

Contrast that with, for example, figure skating (and I realize figure skating is easy pickings given the current drama in that sport). Half the time I feel like the competitors are relieved when they get off the ice. The current scandal notwithstanding, I just found it really disheartening that this beautiful, otherwordly 15 year old, who did multiple things that no other woman/girl had ever done before in Olympic competition, seemed sadder at the end of her performance that she fell (again, on a super hard quad jump) than that she completed 2 quad jumps, a triple axel, and otherwise skated beautifully.

This is not an isolated incident. It is certainly pretty well known that there are just some sports (and other activities) that, in retrospect, many people feel like they "sacrificed" their childhood for, rather than served as this unique, incredible foundation for the rest of their lives.

The last bit is very reminiscent of Schopenhauer: "Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills."

Thank you for translating :)

So interesting. Every other athlete would have sold this as a book.

Lots of wisdom. Not only on training but on life as well. It really shows, there is not shortcut but only hard, meaningfully work.

To everyone complaining about the website and the “mysterious” download button: He is a speed skater. Not a web designer. Give him a break. His name is just below the download button. If you would Google the name for 2 seconds you would know what this is about. He cycles 7hours per day, and you can’t spend 2 seconds to Google and just complain. You would not endure 2 seconds of his training.

If he plans to abandon skating, this is good marketing for entering the speaking tour cycles. I think his training plan has gone viral.

I suspect 2 Olympic golds and consecutive world records on 10km would be enough for that. He said in an interview that he liked the camaraderie that slope style free-skiers had between themselves and wished more sharing in the speed skating community.

He's also known to show up with signs encouraging his direct rivals, who aren't quite sure how to respond to that. Might be because of the camaraderie he's looking for.

Contrast this to two sports I particularly like : Tennis ( Federer & Nadal ) and MotoGP ( strong comradery and drivers are genuinely happy for each others wins ).

> If he plans to abandon skating, this is good marketing for entering the speaking tour cycles

That seems totally out of character.

Maybe money chose him?

It really sounds like him to just build his own website. He's an unusual guy and a fantastic and well-deserved champion.

A bit of background for those unfamiliar with speed skating: the field is completely dominated by Dutch skaters. Last Friday, Netherland was 3rd in the number of medals (since overtaken by the US, I just noticed), and all of them are for speed skating. I don't think there's any country where speed skating has so professionalised as here. And that's what Nils van der Poel had to go up against, on his own.

From what I understand, he and silver medalist Patrick Roest are long-time rivals, even during youth championships often coming first and second. Van der Poel came in second a lot, quit skating twice, and if the Dutch media is to be believed, rejoined the Swedish army in the toughest unit they have, in order to mentally train himself to be able to do the physical training necessary to win. After he left the army, his physical training was extreme. I don't know much about top sports, but Dutch top skaters seem to be in awe of his training regimen.

The guy's a legend. Shame he's quitting skating. I wonder if he'll be back. Or he's just going to excel at something else. It sounds to me like he honed himself to the point he can succeed at anything he puts his mind to.

> Van der Poel came in second a lot

He also won the 5000m event in Youth World Championships two consecutive years ahead of Patrick Roest.

As a complete outsider to North Europe I would have guessed a van der Poel was Dutch as well. :-)

Understandable; his last name is Dutch, and he skates really fast. But he's definitely Swedish. His Dutch grandfather traveled a lot and eventually settled in Sweden, where he married a Hungarian.

For those wishing to read a (Dutch, translated to English) article about him:

  https://www-nrc-nl.translate.goog/nieuws/2022/02/10/in-een-boomhut-wonen-en-147-uur-per-maand-trainen-nils-van-der-poel-doet-alles-anders-a4087308?_x_tr_sl=nl&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=sc

Nils van der Poel (25) registered four years ago for the toughest military training there is in Sweden. It was part of his master plan to become the best long-distance skater in the world

To keep up with the demanding regime, Van der Poel alternates his training sessions with fun things. Skydiving, in his case. In the summer he moves to Västerås airbase and takes up residence in one of the barracks of the local Flygklubb. There he builds himself a tree house, eight meters high. He has no fixed place of residence or residence. His mail is delivered to the yellow house on Staafsgatan in Trollhättan, where he grew up and where his father still lives. He also lives out of a bag.

His friends from the parachute club in Västerås, 300 kilometers away, may get a call from him; whether he can come over that evening, and whether he can stay the night. Then he cycles there, eats hamburgers and drinks a beer with his mates, before cycling back to Trollhättan the next day. “Nils is always himself,” says Mikael Helgesson, one of his buddies at the club. "He's nice and sociable, says what he thinks without offending anyone." Helgesson thinks that skydiving is an outlet for Van der Poel. “When you jump, you can't think of anything else for a while. You leave the world behind, escape from the daily grind. I think that's exactly what he was looking for.”

An IronMan triathlon is a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile marathon. 140.6 miles. When I had friends who did IronMan triathlons, I was shocked to learn that the 15-20 hours weekly of training that they did had one main purpose: to minimize the chance of going anaerobic during the race. Even the top IronMan athletes who are running 6 minute miles in the Kona heat and humidity at the IronMan World Championships are not going out of their aerobic zone. Once you go anaerobic, everything breaks down. You may recall those famous videos of athletes crawling across the finish line. The weekly commitment to 15-20 hours of IronMan training is to prevent that. As a side note, I went to IronMan Lake Placid to cheer on a friend a decade ago. We did not see her so we started walking out of town, reverse along the marathon course. It gets really dark and lonely quickly once you get about 2 miles out. So many of the 140.6 miles it is just you and your mind. We found her about 5 miles out and she was ecstatic to see us. She finished her IronMan. The next morning you see all these proud athletes of every age group (men’s 40-45 are the most competitive, cue mid-life crisis) strutting around with their finisher medals. Registration for next year’s race opens up exclusively on site before the Internet. There were a lot of people in line, some without medals.

This is straight gold, love the insider perspective! He has an incredibly mature stance on training and competition. I especially liked the bit about motivation, and the bit where he implies everyone is cargo-culting a little bit.

Are elite athletes the same as us or fundamentally different? Thats the mystery at the heart of celebrity. And this guy splits the difference about as well as I've ever read.

That's an interesting question. I've never found an activity I could spend that much time on, besides perhaps playing computer games when I was a kid, but even that I would get tired of sometimes.

I don't think these people are fundamentally, orthogonality, different, but I assume they are outliers on some spectrum of features where most people are closer to the median.

"This development was mainly acquired through continuous voluntary confrontation with the challenge (read that sentence again and emphasis voluntary). It was first when I understood that, or felt like, I volunteered, that I was able to compete with a free mind."

Biggest take-away for me so far is the importance of the voluntary aspect. He seems to be saying that when you fully say yes to hardship, it becomes easier to bear.

His mental fortitude provides a nice backdrop to all the UX guru's coming out of the woodworks to comment on an HTML page with a link to a PDF.

Last autumn there was a podcast done with chess world champion Magnus Carlsen (in Norwegian) and one interesting thing he says is that he practices a lot but only when he wants to otherwise it's meaningless. Of course there is a difference with skating and memorizing chess lines but the take-away is still there, if it's going to work you have to enjoy it.

One curious thing I observed about the winter Olympics is the domination of tiny Norway in medal rankings. They were at the top of the table in 2018 games and are currently at the top as well. It's insane how a country of 5 million is able to do it, ahead of russia, china, usa, canada etc. It's not like these countries don't get snow or don't have enough money. I wonder what's the real reason. Lack of interest? Lack of winter sports culture?

I have no idea, but at a guess, I suppose the number of people in the country _with easy access to the sports_ is the more important number than the raw population. There's 300 million people in the US but how many of them have access to snowsports?

It might also just be a reflection of the distribution of medals available - Norway has dominated in the cross country skiing based events, but Germany dominates in the sliding events. Between biathlon,cross country skiing and nordic combined there are 26 disciplines, but luge + skeleton + bobsleigh have only 10 between them.

Comparing with Canada, which is crazy about ice hockey, there are only two medals to win there.

An odd way to put it, since there will be 50-odd gold medalists and 50 physical gold medals handed out to ice hockey players. If Canada picks up some of those it will be a more accurate representation of the level of participation in winter sports in that country.

The "two medals" is a quirk of one particular way of displaying medal tables.

Yes that is true but in medal tables such as this one it would only count as two

https://olympics.com/beijing-2022/olympic-games/en/results/a...

7/9 of their gold medals are in cross-country skiing or biathlon. It would appear these disciplines give a lot more medals than others, and if you have a strong tradition in the discipline you'll get more medals than a country that has a strong ice-hockey tradition.

Also, the countries you mention are big, but how many people actually live close enough to a ski resort (or similar) to actually matter? Is it significantly different from say Austria or Switzerland, which are small, but where a much bigger proportion of the population can actually train for winter sports?

"Winter sports culture" needs to be broken down. I think a number of factors are influencial

- Number of medals per discipline - Competition from other countries in each discipline - Cultural factors. For example, cross country skiing is not only a sport, it is also a leasure activity in Norway, similar to hiking. - An accessible sport have an easier time to get many participants. Most of Norway gets snow in winter and access to nature is not particularily restricted. I don't know for a fact but I imagine in the US you are not equally allowed to ski on someone else's property? - Financial means. Goes without saying but Norway can afford supporting youth and elite skiers on many levels.

There's never one simple explanation, but I'll offer this one: High relative status of winter sports. If you're a top endurance talent in Norway, odds are you'll go into cross-country instead of running.

Norway is also the country where several of these sports originated. Slalom is a norwegian word. Cross-country skiing developed to a large extent in Norway, etc :)

He promised he would release it after the Olympics. Interesting choice to do it, spilling all your secrets. Looking forward to read it, from before I know he has a pretty unconventional look at training.

I'm also interested in if he became best because of the program (and hard work etc, but the program being the edge), or if it because he could endure the program. Maybe no one is able to copy his ways.

He omitted step 0, that he has talked about in interviews: he wasn't just an army conscript, he went back to the army at 24 specifically to do the special forces training (that 10% pass in Sweden), that includes surviving for a week without help in Sweden's winter darkness, etc. Specifically to build character so that he would then be able to do his intended training program.

Preet Chandi is touted as the first female of color to ski the South Pole solo. She was, in line with the pattern, boosted by her military training. That takes nothing from her accomplishment but rather gives further insight into what the human body can ensure given the right preparation. Can an individual mirror or approximate military-caliber training through sheer research? That's one of the most exciting questions to me right now when it comes to physical fitness.

I don't think the two are comparable. Military training for medical staff in the British Army is nothing like that for special forces, the fitness training that Preet Chandi did will have been mainly driven by herself.

Given that non army people win competitions fairly regularly and engage in extreme hobbies, I don't think it is necessary step.

Probably not. But he identified an issue in himself, and chose that way to address it. It evidently worked for him.

I love the anti website. I went almost into this zombo.com kind of waiting for something to happen except this one ended with some actual useful information when I realized waiting wasn't helping but I should press the mysterious button instead.

I remember there used to be this website that was looking like a regular website but had a special pixel somewhere you should click to get access to the warez. Totally useless from a protection perspective but I loved the "secret hatch" idea.

I wasn't about to press download. I don't want to download anything that doesn't tell me what/why I'm downloading. I came here specifically to see if anyone else talked about this.

I read "Skate a 10k" as in doing roughly 10x 1080s or 28 full revolutions. The actual meaning was disappointing.

TL;DR: The guy who won both the 10k and the 5k skating events at the Olympics documents his training regime, which boils down to staggering amounts of aerobic exercise on bikes and on the skating rink. A typical week involves 5 days in a row of 7 hours on a bike.

As an aside, I always thought from the name that he must be originally Dutch, but nope, he's a third-generation Swede; the name comes from his grandfather.

(Haven’t read the document yet).

I read an interview with him last week that I found pretty funnny. It said he only does two skating sessions: 5k at world record pace and 10k at world record pace. When he goes for long bike rides he finds a kebab shop that’s really far away and goes to try it. Also he’s probably quitting skating for the 3rd time after the olympics (cause he thinks there are better things to do).

Absolutely my favorite athlete in the Olympics.

Just to add: he has always said that after the Olympics he is retiring (at age 25). He has not confirmed it as far as I know, but he has hinted at it in interviews and also in this document. He basically took the long distances in speed skating by storm, and is now doing a massive mic drop.

It will be the 3rd time he quits the sport, he also won World championships as a junior already.

He has said in interviews after winning his two gold medal that he's going to try to stop, but since he tried that two times before, there's a 20% chance he'll be back.

He also said he doesn't know what he's going to do the next few years, but that there are a few ultra runs he still wants to do.

Here is a source. It's in Dutch though and doesn't mention the 20% https://www.nu.nl/olympische-spelen/6183560/van-der-poel-kie...

> As an aside, I always thought from the name that he must be originally Dutch, but nope, he's a third-generation Swede; the name comes from his grandfather.

I assumed that too. It's surprisingly common to see long distance (5k and 10k) skaters with Dutch names competing for other countries. Quite often it's someone who emigrated or who is half-Dutch. Occasionally it's strategic: Bart Veldkamp moved to Belgium so he could more easily qualify for the longer distances without having to compete with massive numbers of Dutch skaters on the shorter distances.

I believe Nils' Dutch grandfather moved to Sweden and married a Hungarian woman there. Nils is all Swedish, though.

great read and great attitude, but saying "anyone could do it if they just worked as hard as me" is so banal. You're training 33 hours on a bike in a week --- most people who try that will just break down. Then you transition to extended periods of time at 400 watts --- most people couldn't hold that for 5 minutes no matter how hard they trained. Obviously hard work is good but you still need to be a genetic outlier.

I think this is the key to genetic success.

When you are able to train this much you get results. It´s not that you are genetically able to skate fast, it´s that you are genetically able to train on a level that you can get there.

I get his feeling specified in the intro where he states he does not (want) to believe his success is only a result of genetics. The effort put in to it matters a lot. It´s the the genetics that allow for such high volume and intense training

> I must emphasize that copying my program is not possible for most athletes straight away. If you would like to try something similar it will be necessary to ease into it and increase the training load carefully and wisely, but also rapidly. Do not forget to stick to the Limit. If you do, I am confident that you will be able to perform the same program as I did and perhaps exceed my results.

To get his results you need to be a few standard deviations away from the middle in terms of raw talent, time available, and picking a good training plan. He can't help you with the first two, but it's very cool that he is giving up his secrets on that third one.

When you do the math I average 3 mph for 3 hours going between benches in different laboratories plus at least another mile of moving slow so that's 10 miles per day 5 days a week.

Wears out the sneakers in 3 months. People give me a hard time since I keep wearing them an additional 3 months ;)

Compromised sneakers like this don't damage my feet, my feet damage the shoes.

One afternoon per week I put back on the quads and skate the same old way. It can get hot in Texas, I wait until the temperature drops below 96 F and I'm fine.

I go about 10 mph for one hour so that's another 10 miles that day. Even after a 12 hour day I look forward to skating, it's just still fun at "retirement" age. After warming up for the first 45 min, then I fly over 30 mph for a few choice blocks before the last recovery mile or two where I cool back down.

After 15 minutes in the shade I like to be able to go into a nice place and nobody thinks I've been sweating or anything.

Certainly not a speed skater, I don't even lubricate my wheels every year, I'm trying to get more exercise in a shorter period of time after all. So the wind doesn't bother me either.

Probably more endurance and sustainability, it has taken me decades after all, and I'm still going in circles or I would never make it back to my vehicle.

> "However, to down all the calories I was drinking whipped cream during sessions, another recurring routine was to eat potato chips after dinner until I went to bed."

I thought that this was pretty hilarious. Reflected on and tested every last detail of his life, training, and circumstances — just to then smash bag after bag of potato chips all evening every evening. Love it.

I suspect a translation error here, that he drank "vispgrädde" (cream with 40% fat), but not whipped?

Yeah, type of fatty cream. Used for whipped cream, but in general also when lot of fat is desired or not cared about.

"Whipping cream" or "Heavy cream" would be common english terms for a >35% fat cream. Both of which can be turned into "whipped cream" by whipping. But that's not recommended if the goal is to use it as a drink.

Ah yes, difference between whipping cream and whipped cream explains it.

Does the website load something? I see a progress bar that stops around 2/3 of the way from "0" to "12.30,74"

The 'download' link is a word document containing a story.

Isn't that his 10k time?

I look forward to reading this recap of the training methods of an Olympic gold medalist.

That said, I think these sorts of books should be seen as valuable data for serious athletes, but never as gospel. To paraphrase my former coach: if Nils van der Poel would make a point of always practicing in a tutu, would you as well?

I definitely think he tailor-made his training for himself. But how he did it, and that he did it all himself, it really impressive. I don't think many athletes could do it the way he did, and they clearly don't need to, but this clearly worked very well for him, and might inspire others too.

In the 1950s, you could have a speed skating world record and not be focused on perfecting your training regimen, just like in the early 2000s, you could live a Shaun White lifestyle and dominate halfpipe. As more competitors emerge in a sport, the training system that the top athletes follow gets refined. https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1076586/the-chinese-...

It's a bad link, should probably link directly to the pdf. https://www.howtoskate.se/_files/ugd/e11bfe_b783631375f54324...

Thank you. That was amazing! And truly inspiring!

From the Epilogue -

"If you were to engage in elite sports please remember: it's about winning, but it is not solely about winning. All but one is obliged to lose. Under such circumstances I consider success to be measured by means of playing, and not by margin of winning. It is the strive for excellence, the sharing of love and the ability to inspire others to do the same, that to me above all, defines an athlete's success. The job is to lead the way by leading yourself."

I was enthralled by this. I took away a great parable about developing a plan from first principles rather than convention, dedicated himself to the grind, and came out with shocking results

Do they Skate ate ~50kmh average? Speed skating speed is similar to bike speed, how come?

Yup. The men's world record 10k is the 12:30.74 in the link. I think the longer blades on the skates help reduce overall friction, and modern skates have this detach function in the heel which lets the whole blade stay on the I've for longer, both of which help speed.

They hit 60 in the sprint events. You could argue that it should be similar. Speed skaters and cyclists use about the same muscles and have similar front cross-section. That leaves the difference of rolling resistance vs steel on ice, but both, IIRC, are low compared to air resistance.

Speed skating speed drops off faster at longer distances than cycling, though. I think that’s mostly because you can’t for any moment rest while staying in the ideal low body position. They also run out of oxygen faster because sitting low to lower air resistance isn’t ideal for breathing.

They're not running out of oxygen. The real limiting factors are glycogen depletion and build up of waste products from anaerobic metabolism. On longer races cyclists can consume extra carbohydrates which helps a lot.

-263.15 Celsius?

I'm not clicking a button that says download just because it's there.

It’s a 62 page PDF on how to win gold at the 10km speed skate…

30 of those pages are just his training plan.

I wish the site just had what you wrote here above the download button. It's too mysterious to click as it is.

Looks like someone doesn't know how to skate a 10k.

Any chance to get this more meaningful title or description ? What's 10k in this context ? No, website does not open for me

10km speed skating. I believe the gold medalist, after winning, released this to basically say, “This is how I did it.”

Also "skating" is ambiguous; for me it's skateboarding.

How to skate a 10k stair rail

Skateboard is of course twice removed from (ice) skates, with roller skates as an intermediary step. I guess it's pure coincidence that we don't call snowboarding "snowskating".

Many words are ambiguous: football, hockey, surfing...

Not only that, the site itself has no information but a download button...

Nils van der Poel returned to the sport of speed skating last year after quitting it years before, saying that he would win the 5000m and 10000m at the Beijing Olympics, endurance events.

Known for spicy interview comments like "I don't want to say that my competitors aren't going to win because they trained too poorly. I want them to have hope left."

He won the 5000 with a tiny difference but smashed his own world record and the competition on the 10000.

He announced he would retire again and would make his training regime public, this is that training regime. It is incredibly tougher than what other speed skaters do.

I believe I understood what this was about only because I live in the Netherlands where historically people take ice skating extremely seriously[1] and you get exposed to the missing context.

[1]https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210225-why-the-dutch-lo...

10k skater vs 10x developer who are you?

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