After 14hrs and 5 minutes Andreas Mikkelsen crossed the finish line at the top of the mountain Gaustadtoppen. Ending 90th O/A of the 280 athletes competing at the 2018 Norseman Xtreme Triathlon. Anders Jaeger finished 69th with the total time of 13hrs and 31 minutes.

At 5am on Saturday morning, all the athletes jumped in the sea from a ferry in Eidfjord. After 3,8km of swimming in mostly darknes, 180km on the bike up and down mountains, through rain, wind and sun and finishing with 42km running to the top of the mountain, it was a very tired but happy Andreas Mikkelsen who crossed the finishline together with his support crew.

- It was a lot worse than I thought! We did try the course before the race, but as soon as you got going for the real action you really go for it. My plan was to swin every 100mtr in 2min5secs, but I ended up with using only 1min45sec per 100 meters. So I started out a lot harder than I planned for! When I finished the swimming, I had already burned a lot of energy. I got cramps quite early on the bike and it was a real struggle. But I never thought about giving up, and even if it got really tough towards the end of the running, I made it through the finish line. This is probably the hardest challenge I have ever done, and even now – three days later – I can feel it burning in my legs when walking in stairs.

- Looking back, this has been a great experience. This was a real challenge mentally, and I got some pretty good answers regarding my fysically condition. It was an awesome experience, and very cool to do this together with Anders. My support crew Nicolai and Thomas did an outstanding job pushing me and keeping me going, without them I couldn’t have done it. Anders and I still haven’t figured out what to do next, but something will come up, I’m sure!

Only the top 160 athletes are allowed to finish on the final sector of the course, and that was the target the Norwegian duo went for. They both succeeded and could collect the black t-shirt and properly call themselves Norsemen. Allan Hovda won the race, he finished after 10hours and 5 minutes.

Watch vlog’s from the preparations and race here

All the best,

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