Competing in his final race of the 2007/08 season, the Skarverennet cross country skiing event, Jens Arne Svartedal found the limits of his capabilities.

Held under perfect skies with zero wind and temperatures a cool -7°C, the 38km competition held in Norway on April 19, 2008, attracts a total of 12.000 skiers.

Suunto Ambassador and t6 user Svartedal had in fact finished his season some time prior to the race, but once on the start line set off like wildfire in an attempt to keep up with the quicker skiers.

"When you have ended your training season three weeks earlier and have not done any exercise for the previous two," Svartedal said, "a ski race is hard!"

"With a minimal warm-up and fully rested body in bad shape I skied straight into a trap."

"I went too fast from the start in my struggle to stay with the fast guys through the high mountain landscape."

"The first 15 minutes destroyed my whole race and is the best example how NOT to manage a race. Within several minutes I was at the very peak of my heart rate: 182 beats per minute."

"Even on easier parts of the course and downhill sections my heart rate did not fall as it is supposed to when your body is working efficiently."

"The best way to develop a race is when you are capable of reaching your maximum heart rate and EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) value at the end of the exercise," continues Svartedal. "This time I reached Training Effect level five, after just 33 minutes whereas normally I would have gone into level five at around 75 minutes."

Svartedal's logfile from the {Suunto Training Manager} software shows exactly what went wrong. (See the log above and click the image to view it larger.)

"Jens has summed it up well," says Eddie Fletcher, professional sports coach and expert Suunto Ambassador, "you cannot go to maximum heart rate in a 90 minute race after just the early stages."

"In this type of activity my view is that the maximum you can manage with your heart rate over 90% is 45 minutes."

"However Jens was at 95%-100% for some of the time so this period was shortened."

"If he had skied his race by heart rate and stayed at around 165bpm, he would have probably been faster overall. His average was 168bpm but the distribution was wrong."

"Had he done so, he would not have gone into level five until probably close to 75 minutes and could have finished well with a faster time. His overall {EPOC} and {Training Effect} would have been lower with a shorter recovery period."

"It was a fantastic race," said Svartedal, "but a terrible experience for me."

"Petter Northug won, I followed almost six minutes behind. The lesson: be realistic in your own capacity when starting a long distance race."