Welcome

December 17:th
Almost Christmas, good times :)
I just came back to Sweden after 3 weeks in the States, I went with a Swedish friend and did Florida, day and night for 2 weeks :), from Miami, down to Key West and back, was a lot of fun!! Then I flew up to Gordo in Boulder to see him and his family for a week, he had a birthday party that weekend I was there so I got to met many of my friends from the states which brought up some good memories :), and I got to do some training at altitude which always make you very honest to yourself when you train :)
I miss being able to push my body and mind for 100% but I'm slowly getting there, to be realistic we are probably looking for another year before my health is 100% back but I'm happy where I'm at now for the moment, a year ago I could almost not train at all, and now I'm able to get daily workouts in so I'm getting there, just have to enjoy every step back to full recovery...... and to be in Florida and see Gordo and the guys gave me a big push in the right direction.

Yesterday I did a speech about what I'm doing, training, nutrition...... for a company close to where I live, was a lot of fun and I think they enjoyed it too, something that I want to do more in the future for sure.

Then a magasine called Kollega did an interview with me a few weeks ago, it's all in Swedish but the pictures are great, you can take a look at it at this link, and it's page 22 to 27. www.kollega.se or directlink www.e-magin.se

Then if you want you can click on this link http://svt.se/play?a=1306827 and see an interview that Swedish sport televison did a month ago, it's all in Swedish too of course but anyway, great pictures .... :)
click on the text that say "Järnmannen om blev utbränd på väg tillbaka" and it should all start....

Think that's it for now,
Just want to finish this update to wish you a Merry Christmass and a Happy New Year and I see you again in 2009!!
All the best,
Clas

Nov 4:th
Hope you all is doing well.
Since my last update, that I wrote after winning my gold at the swedish championship in duathlon, it have been kind of up and down, depending how you look at things.

I was planning on to use this fall to work hard to improve my swimming, but after I few weeks my body just stopped responding to the load I put on it so I decided to take a break from hard training for a few month and do some work at the local school instead. So that's where I am at the moment, but I don't feel to bad about that. I have gotten used to the idea that it takes a long time to recover from adrenal burnout so I just have to listen to my body and do what it tells me to do, and I get to earn some money and teach the kids a few good things to in the meantime :)

But I'm very excited about my come back to professional racing again in near future but the slower I can make it happen the longer I will be able to enjoy and stay in the top of the game without taking the risk to drive my body to hard again. But to speed up the process a little I'm going to take a few weeks holiday in end of Nov and Dec to visit a swedish friend in Miami and also spend a week up with Gordo and Monica in Boulder, I really miss spending time with Gordo, from -02 to -04 we probabaly spent over a year togheter and we both got a lot of good training out of that, not sure if we can repeat that but it will be nice to hang out a little again, maybe without any training, if possible ? :)

Guess that's it for now.
I wish you a great fall and we will be in touch soon again,
Take care,
Clas

September 22:nd
Hi all.
Yesterday I raced, and won the Swedish Championship in duathlon ( 10 K run, 40 K bike, 5 K run ).

I have 4 gold medals in duathlon from previous years but last year I wasn't able to compete at all due to my overtraining and adrenal burnout, so it was a great feeling to now be back out there and able to win the race and get the gold again.

Over the last 2 month I have been able to come back and race a few smaller races here in Sweden but I wasn't sure that my fitness should be good enough to win, but already in the first 10 K I was able to get a 40 sec gap. I started out on the bike pretty relaxed as the 2:nd run is my strongest leg in a duathlon and I knew if I was able to stay close to the lead coming of the bike I should be able to win, but none was able to close the gap and I kept my 40 sec lead through the bike leg. But even if I felt like I controlled the race it doesn't take more than a cramped up hamstring to lose the race so I kept the pace up through the last run until just the last few 100 meters to the finish where I slowed down and enjoyed my victory and comeback to the national top in the sport.

Even if I still have some work to do before I can race a 8.15 Ironman again this was a good indicator that I'm on my way back to full recovery after my illness and on my why back up to professional racing again.

Now I'm enjoying some easy days before I will get going with a good training rutine to build a good base for an 8.14 Ironman next year :)

For complete results see this link:

But here is the top 5:

Attached are a few pictures from the race

Just want to end this update with a big hug to all my sponsors and all the other kind people that makes it possible for me to focus on my comeback to the sport.

Best regards
Clas Bjorling
www.clasbjorling.com

August 27.

Photos and Results pages are updated.

Hi all,
Hope you have had a great summer.

My summer have been pretty good, my own health have continued to improve so I have been able to do some shorter races that have gone well, both some triathlon and running races.But I wont do any long course races this year, I will instead focus in improving my swimming so I can compete better over shorter distances in the future, and also to make my long course races mentaly easier if I don't have to try to catch up for 8 hours, better if I can just ride with the guys from the beginning then leave them behind during the run :)

The sorrow and loss of Kristy is still hard to deal with but I'm slowly starting to learn to live with it, and the fact is that it's nothing I can do to change the fact that the excident happend, so I'm instead trying to live my life, if not in respect to Kristy who lost hers. This can be easier said than done but the last things Kristy wanted was to see me laying here feeling sorry for myself so I'm trying to find some energy in that she is kicking me out of bed every morning so I can live my life to the fullest,and when time is right we will catch up again, so I'm trying to do that with Kristy in my heart.

So after all these hard things that have happend in my life that I'm now working myself through I hope it can be enough for a while so I can continue to improve my health, and if things continue to improve as they have I will definitely be back for real next season. It has been very nice and fun to be back on the race courses already this year, I love the feeling to compete out there, I get a kick out of it that is hard to get elsewhere.

Now I'm looking forward to the calmness that the fall brings with it where my focus will be swimtraining and some running races if my fitness stays with me.

Hopefully it wont be 5 month until my next update but I'm sure you understand that my focus have been elsewhere, but now I hope I will be able to have more positive updates to share with you in the future to come...

The photo is from a hillrunning race I did, the race was just 2.5 K but had over 300 m of vertical gain, so it was UPPHILL :), but a lot of fun.

Take good care of yourself and I will write soon again,
Clas

March 20.
Not sure what to write, it's with deep sadness and a total emptyness that I'm trying to put togheter a few lines to tell you, that don't already now, that my longtime girlfriend and best friend Kristy Gough past away in a bicycle excident March 9:th when she was training in the San Fransisco area. One more cyclist died in the same excident.

Here are some links for you that want to read more about the excident, and for you that didn't know Kristy but want get a little feeling for what a great person and athlete she was.

sfgate 1 »
sfgate 2 »
Picasaweb »
Bayarea News Group »

As soon as I heared about the excident I flew over from Sweden so I could join in on the memorial cermoni and try work through and to absorb the whole terrible thing, but now it's 10 days since the excident and I'm still in the states trying to support the rest of hers great family, see our friends here and just to hang out in this great area to work through my mind, but my brain just don't want to except that this has happend, it just doesn't seem real that I will never be able to hold her again, not in my life here at least. In my broken english I say, This is crazy..
As it looks like now I'm heading back to Sweden on Tuesday to keep working with my sorrow.

My own health have gotten a lot better over the last month but I don't care much about that right now.

It's not much more to write more then that I feel good support from everyone around me, a BIG hug to all of you, it means a lot to me even if it's hard for me right now to show an appriciation. Hopfully the pain and emptyness will lighten as time moves on and be replaced with all the great memories I share, and will always share with Kristy and some kind of appriciation that I got to know her closer then most people on this earth, even if I feel hopeless right now.

You will always have a special place in my heart and mind Kristy !!

Hugs,
Clas

January 10.
Now we can finally put 2007 behind us and we have a new exciting year in front of us. Personally I don't think it can't be much worse then what 2007 was for me. But even if I didn't achieve much to racing results I did learn a lot about other things that will benefit me for the rest of my life in and outside the sport and that is still something good I believe.

It has been a few month since my last update but not much has happen over here. I still work at the local school even if I take a break now and then to spend some time up in the swedish hills where a friend of mine owe a hotel.
I will keep working at the school for a few more month but hopefully later in the spring be strong enough so I can come over to do some training in the states.
My recovery keeps going slowly in the right direction, 2 steps forward and one back. I still figure out new things about my body and how in the best way recover from my overtraining which is kind of an exciting learning process but I wish it could go a little bit faster. But they say that efter a real adrenal burn out it can take up to 2 years to recover so I'm happy I'm almost one year into it :)

It's a new article posted on Gordos website http://www.gordoworld.com/alternativeperspectives/ that I have written. It's about what to do if you have to take a break from training and racing.

Stay healthy and enjoy life.

Cheers
Clas

November 10:th.
Now the winter have arrived for real here in Sweden where I live, it's white and nice outside and I hope the cold weather continues so the snow stay here.

Since my lasy update I have been working even more at the school here as an assistent, I really enjoy the work and will continue to work there until Christmas. It's fun to be around these teenagers and they keep my mind busy with other things then training and racing which is great for my recovery right now :)

Last week the school had "fall holiday" so we was off for a week. So the first half of the week I spent up in the Swedish mountains, did some training and relaxt a lot. And the 2:nd part of the week we had a training camp with the Swedish triathlon team. It was fun to meet up and do some training together, my long course team mates wasn't able to join the camp due to theirs races at IM Florida and Clearwater but I had great time with the short course athletes. It's fun to get a small taste of good training and what it's like to be around hard training athletes again, was a while ago and I can't wait to go out there and train and race my ass off again.

I have written a new article to Gordos site http://www.gordoworld.com/alternativeperspectives/ , this article is about how to avoid overtraining and what I have learned from my experiance. It might take a few days or weeks before he put it out there, but be patient, it will happen :)

I have also put a few new pictures on the link pictures above. I went on a motorcycle trip to Norway this last summer so one album is from that trip.
The other album is some random pictures from 2007.

The website xtri.com have done an interwiev with me and you can read this interwiev if you clcik on this link http://www.xtri.com/features_display.aspx?riIDReport=4238&CAT=22&xref=xx

So for now my life is moving on in a pretty good harmoni with the work at the school during the weekdays and then I mix in some training at night and on the weekends. This is the time of the year when I help my Dad to bring home wood so we can heat up the house for another year, so a few weekends we have spent out in the forrest, and it will be a few more weekends before we have enough. To be out there in the forrest is the best training I can think of for my body and mind.
I get a great physical workout but at the same time I heal my mind and get a lot of fresh air. You should try it. It's like hard yoga :)

Next week I'm going to take a few days off from school and drive up to the Swedish mountains again to visit the athlete project I'm involved in. They have a lot of cross country ski tracks up there which I really like doing and cross country skiing is great supplemental training to triathlon.
I used to do a lot of skiing 6-7 years ago but then I started traveling to New Zealand to be able to do triathlon training, but this winter my plans are to spend a little more time here in the winterland.

You have a few live webcameras over the ski area/town up in the hills where I going to visit, here are some links:
http://www.hamrafjallet.se/webkamera/webcamtop.htm
http://www.hamrafjallet.se/webkamera/webcam1.htm
http://www.hamrafjallet.se/webkamera/webcam2.htm

So my recovery keeps going in the right direction, and now when I have found a more balanced life with the work at the school I can feel that my recovery is even better which is very exciting.

Take care.
Best regards
Clas

September 30.
Hi all.
The fall has arrived for real in Sweden, this is the time to take a deep breath and recharge the batteries after for most people a hectic long summer.
The picture is taking here, 2 weeks ago when I was visiting an athlete project that I'm involved in that are based up in the small swedish hills/mountains and the first snowfall came.
A few people have bought a hotell up there and are turning into an "athlete village" so both Pros and age groupers can stay there and train with full support and also have coaches, massage therapists, lactate testing....
available. In the winter time it's a perfect place for cross country skiing, it's hundreds of miles of ski tracks in the area and if you need to do some triathlon training they have indoor bikes, a treadmill and a pool to. In the summer time you have great trails to run and ride mountainbike on if you want to go off road, it's a beautiful place, so nice and quiet but have all the energi from the surrounding hills. Theirs website has just a swedish version but if you want to look at some pictures the link is www.sportsupportcenter.se .

My strenght have come back even more since my last update, I have been able to do some hard, shorter sessions and even some 3 hour+ rides which is big for me at this point. I need a lot of recovery after the long rides but nothing else havent been expected either.

Last week I started a longer break from hard training just as I do after every session. I have been stepping up my training over the last 3 month and even with a few rest days every week and focus on recovery every 3:rd week I still feel like I need a longer break to make sure that I don't do to much to soon. My coach, Matt Dixon at enduranceptc.com and Dr Morgan www.drcamphealth.com/, are great to work with and are helping me make the right decision so I can make make my way back to racing as safe as possible.

While I'm taking this break from hard training I'm taking the opportunity to do some teaching at the local school and I have also joined an english class to practise my english. Even if my english have got much better over the years I know I still have some work to do, especially with the grammatics, and if I can learn a few more words to that's great.
And to be fair I can see that if I want to recover as fast as possible I sometimes have to take step away from my training,racing focus and just do some other things, and what can fil that function better then noisy students and some english :)

Then I have written some more articles that are posted on Gordos site http://www.gordoworld.com/alternativeperspectives/ if you feel like reading a little.

Other things that I'm doing is that I still use my Bemer3000 magnetmadrass a few times a day, and I'm also trying a product namned bestway that are some kind of oxygen your drop in a glass of water a few times a day. I will try to find a good link so you can read about this yourself. Both these products are working with the cells in the body and I find them pretty interesting.

So now I'm taking some well-earned rest, I can feel all the way out in my toes that 2008 are going to be an hectic year, so I better make sure that I enter the year full of energy :) Take a hot cocoa and get under the blanket, it's fall !

Best regards
Clas

20/8
Hi everyone.
Just want update my site to tell you the great news that I have made it back to the racing circuit, it was last Saturday I raced a local triathlon race here in Sweden,the distances was 350 m swim, 12 K bike and 4.4 K run, a little different from IMUK that was my last triathlon last year before I completely fell over the edge with my overtraining and my virus.

It's have been a long year so it was very nice to just make it to the start line at this race, this was one of the last triathlon races in Sweden for this summer so it was nice to be able to get a race under my belt now when we enter the fall.

I have been able to train 4-6 hours a week for the last 6-7 weeks after been completely off for 5 month before that so I was very surprised how good my body felt during the race. Of course I didnt have the top speed endurance, or any real top speed at all but I found a got rytm during the swim, exited the water in 4:th place, on the bike I moved up to 2:nd place, started the run 40 sec or so behind first place but was able to find my old running legs and run him down the last 2 K and win by 39 sec.

Of course it was nice to win the race but the biggest victory was just to be able to do a triathlon again. I still have to be very careful how much stress I but on my body and take one step at a time, but consider that it was "just" 7 month ago I wasn't even able to leave the house for a few weeks because my body was so run down I have to say that I have come a LONG way back. I guess I'm about 80 % recovered, but with this race under my belt I have got even more energy to keep doing the right things to improve my health back to 100 % so I can train and race at a professional level again.
And probably already in the 2008 season.

Results:
1. Clas Bjorling 42.59 min
2. Nico Axelsson 43.38 min
3. Erik Desmeules 44.34 min

I attached a picture from the run.
For more updates during the fall please look at my website www.clasbjorling.com

Thanks for your great support !!
//Clas Bjorling

17/7

It was almost a month ago since my last update, and I'm happy to say that my energy just keeps going up every week.
I'm now stabil on 5-6 hour training weeks and I'm able to recover well and just get stronger and stronger.

I was able to find a lab in Denmark that could help me to organize all the complicated test I did in the States during the winter so I could follow up with new tests to see how my body are recovering without having to travel to the States, and it looks pretty good. It's amazing how much information these test can give you.

Fot the last 6-7 weeks I have been using a Magnet carpet/madrass that are called Bemer 3000 and I'm amazed how it have helped my recovery. Pretty interesting how energy fields effect the body.

I'm also using a food supplement called FitLine that I have seen good results from.
http://www.pm-international.com

As you can see on the picture above I have got myself another vehicle that help my recovery and that I can do my meditation with :)

It's a great feeling to be back into a training rutine, I can not believe that it have been almost 11 month ago since I raced Ironman UK and I was never able to recover and I got into this big, black hole. I will never push my body that far again, I will train myself tired, and race myself tired, but I will put in much more recovery time in my training and racing schedule in the future, and the exciting thing is that I think that will make me to a faster and stronger triathlete.
For the rest of the year I will slowly add some hours and intensity to my workouts but a lot of focus will also be on the recovery.

I'm also writing some articles about different things to one of my best friends, Gordos website, you can find the first one on his site http://www.gordoworld.com/alternativeperspectives , I will also put these articles on my site but for now you can find them there.

I hope you are enjoying the summer, the warm weather havent really arrived in Sweden yet but it will come.

Have a great summer.
//Clas