Ramstad: Minnesotan who completed world’s hardest triathlon says we all ‘have capacity to do great things’

This is not for you.

That’s the intimidating slogan of Norseman, an extreme triathlon held in Norway each August.

The event begins before dawn with a 2.4-mile swim in a fjord, then a 112-mile bike ride up and down five mountains, then a marathon-length run up a sixth. More than 140 miles in all, with a combined vertical climb of over 3 miles, in an incredibly scenic place.

Susanne Blazek of Pine Island, Minn., thought it might be for her. And in 2023, by a stroke of luck and a lot of hard work, it was.

“It gives you so much purpose to have something big to work toward,” she told me recently. “It makes other things fall away.”

The personal accomplishment has turned into something bigger for Blazek, a behavioral scientist who has worked in HR, health care and high tech. She has become a student of how doing things away from work can pay off at work.

“I really see in myself and in others and in the research the connection between physical activity and productivity,” she said. “It’s just, I don’t want to say happiness, but a sort of contentment.”

After having her first child in 2016, Blazek decided to enter a 70.3-mile Ironman triathlon in Colorado to fight postpartum depression and regain her physical strength. She then trained for other triathlons after the births of her next two children.

Blazek grew up in Norway but had never heard about the Norseman until her brother, after seeing her complete those other Ironman competitions, told her about it.

In fall 2022, she had just given birth to her fourth child when she joined about 6,000 people around the world by entering a lottery for one of the 125 slots in the 2023 Norseman. (About 300 in all participate in Norseman, most by qualifying in other races.)

Defying the odds, her name was picked. She had 10 months to train for one of the most challenging athletic events in the world. A documentary crew chose her and a handful of others to follow in the race that year.

“I’m not hugely religious, but sometimes you just have to question how the universe finds its timing,” she said.

Norseman starts with a jump off a ferry boat into 53-degree water. Blazek had a pretty fast swim, just over an hour. The bike portion, however, proved difficult. Long, slow climbs were followed by curvy, perilous downhills amid intermittent rain.

Then came the marathon, which was relatively flat in its first half and steeply upward-sloping in the second. Bad weather on the mountain forced organizers to end the race six miles from the top. Blazek’s overall time was 15 hours, 24 minutes.

“Norseman was the be-all and end-all of hard goals for me,” she said when we spoke this month.

In the future, she wants to run the Ragnar relay race that happens each August in Minnesota. She recently signed up for a powerlifting competition in April, something she’s never done before.

Listening to her reinforced something I deeply believe: Anybody is capable of anything.

Yes, circumstances matter and luck helps. But at a time when the nation is debating things like affirmative action, diversity programs and meritocracy, it’s important to remember how ordinary it is that people rise when presented with opportunity.

With time and hard work, anything can be for you, even the world’s hardest triathlon.

I asked Blazek whether it’s difficult to talk about Norseman, particularly when people like me start to talk about their own races or in other ways compare themselves with her. Everyone who does something amazing goes through such encounters.

“I’m absolutely not special. I try to lead with that, that I am just a mom,” she said.

“I do believe very strongly that people have capacity to do great things, oftentimes when they don’t even know it, but recognizing that the puzzle pieces have to fall in place, and it’s not an overnight thing. It takes a lot of time, dedication and hard work and ups and downs to get there.”

Norseman founder Hårek Stranheim has told journalists through the years that he wanted the event to be more about the experience than the finish. For instance, participants' relatives must provide support along the course, which turns the event into a family affair.

Blazek’s husband and brother were her support crew at Norseman. While training for earlier triathlons, she sometimes made do with the absence of her husband, who was then serving in the military.

“He was deployed three times in five years,” she said. “I had young babies but I threw them in the stroller and went on a run with them. I feel like it’s a mindset: ‘What am I going to do with my situation to make this possible?‘”

Blazek recently joined Stripe, the San Francisco-based electronic payments company. For many years, she worked for Lirio, a Tennessee-based firm that helps doctors and hospitals try to get patients to take better care of themselves.

The firm figures out how doctors can persuade patients to do things they may not like but are good for them, like getting a colonoscopy.

“We talked a lot about motivation because some people have an internal drive, like I do, and other people don’t. So how do you encourage that?” Blazek said. “Sometimes it’s a bigger reward. Or maybe they need someone there with them and it needs to be a social endeavor.”

After her Norseman experience, she gave talks at both Lirio and Stripe about the way big goals outside of work can boost productivity at work. Sharing those goals with others is important, too, she said.

“If you tell people ‘Hey, I’m going to do this crazy thing,' then it opens the door for them to say ‘Oh, I’ve had this dream too for a long time,‘” Blazek said. “And what’s the worst that’s going to happen? You’re going to have a great time trying.”