Three dozen national titles for vegan runner

Setting world-class times over 10,000 and 1500 metres earlier this year, he now turned his attention to a shorter distance – 800 metres.

“I wanted to go from the front as I don´t have the same finishing speed any more as 5-10 years ago” said the runner who turned vegan in May 2018. “That worked out very well and I could go from the front from start to the end as I planned. The time was not super fast but ok for me as a long distance runners and in windy conditions.”

This gave him his 35th national title, and he followed it with a place in the 1500 m event.

“On the 1500m it was agreed that I would take the field after 700m which I did and with a little acceleration after 1200m I went away from the rest of the field and could comfortably bring home my title.” This was his 10th national title at this distance and his 36th overall.

Fuel for Andreas, who turned vegan for “ethical and environmental reasons” was his typical diet.

This was “grains, legumes, some veggies. Just make sure to safe enough time until the race. My breakfast has been my standard oats with flax seed, berries and nuts. Works out perfectly!”

Range of distances

The recent races have shown fantastic versatility as Andreas has competed at distances from 800 metres to 10,000, which require different race approaches, and excelled in them all.

“The reason for this variation is the special situation because of Corona and that I wanted to use this as some kind of special training (for my speed especially). The longest races so far are 10,000m for me where I was able to set a PB of 28:30,28 in June!”

Andreas has also used the time in restriction to create a series of training videos which have proved useful to athletes of a variety of disciplines.

Andreas’ profile

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