The Faces of Norseman Part Two – Meet the Athletes Who Raced in Norway this Weekend

Athletes prepare to jump off the ferry to start the 2025 Norseman Xtreme Triathlon. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Before the Norseman Xtreme Triathlon got underway this weekend, we shared the stories of a few athletes who were set to race. Today, we have a some more (as well as a coach of multiple athletes), but now with the knowledge of how they performed on the brutal 140-mile course from Eidfjord to Mount Gaustatoppen. Check out their stories, and be sure to dive deeper into the rest of Slowtwitch’s coverage of this epic race.

From Dubai to Eidfjord

Mark Fourie grew up in South Africa, but for the past 23 years, he has lived in Dubai, where he works as a search and rescue paramedic. He ran his Norseman debut on Saturday, but this was not the first extreme triathlon of his career — he raced Patagonman in Chile in 2023 and followed that up with the Blacklake Xtreme Triathlon in Montenegro last year. This year, he was all in on Norseman, which could be a unique challenge for someone training in the heat of the Middle East.

“I started training maybe four months ago for this, so I had to train through the summer,” he says. “That means getting up at one in the morning and starting at two, doing your six-hour bike ride, then finishing at eight. You have to finish by eight, otherwise it’s too hot.” Fourie says that the winter months can get “pretty cold if you train in the desert.” He still has to get up early, as the temperatures during the days can reach the 80s, but it’s more manageable.

“We have a cycle track called Al Qudra that goes out in the desert,” he says. This is a car-free track that stretches more than 50 miles. Fourie and his training partners will head out there, do their ride and then pop their bikes in their cars and set out for a run.

Mark Fourie travelled from Dubai to Norway to compete at Norseman for the first time. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

“Living there for so long, everyone is used to it,” he says. “Anyone who’s training for an IRONMAN is getting up at those early hours to train.” Even so, it’s one thing to train in the middle of the night to avoid the hot Dubai sun, but it’s another thing entirely to prepare for what could be a frigid and freezing race like Norseman.

He had one big goal for the race: to be in the top 160 so he could earn a Norseman black t-shirt. In the end, the temperature wasn’t much of a factor. It was certainly colder than Dubai, but the water and air temperatures were quite warm for this part of Norway. Fourie says he did have some troubles — cramping in the swim, low energy on the ride and an inability to keep down nutrition on the run — but he pushed through all of that and found himself right where he needed to be on the marathon course. When he crossed the finish line in 14:15:20, he had secured that black shirt, accomplishing exactly what he had wanted to do when he made the trip to Norway.

A Redemption Run

The UK’s Barry Middleton showed up to Norseman in 2024 with a goal and a plan, but it only took an hour or so for all of that to fall apart on race day. His wife, Polly, was part of his support crew (Norseman has no aid stations, so athletes are required to bring support crew to supply them with nutrition, water and anything else they need on the course) and disaster struck when she went to their rental car.

“Barry comes out of the water, goes off on his bike, I get into the car at T1 and it doesn’t start,” she says. They can laugh about it now, but in the moment, it was a nightmare. “I phone for help and eventually they come out and get it started again, by which point I’ve missed the first arranged feed stop to meet Barry.”

Barry and Polly Middleton made up for last year’s race-day mishap this time around. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

Barry says he only had enough fuel with him on the bike for one hour, and when he got to their agreed-upon meeting point, Polly was nowhere to be found. With no choice but to continue, he soldiered forward, hoping she would find him somewhere further down the road.

“I eventually catch up, we have one or two stops and it’s OK,” Polly says. “Then, the next stop, middle of nowhere, the car doesn’t start again.” Thankfully, some locals were nearby and they helped Polly out.

“They came out and said they could get me to a garage or that they could get it started once, but that I couldn’t shut it off again after that,” she says. This second hiccup led to Polly missing Barry at T2. She managed to pass off a bag with his shoes to someone else, but that was all he had when he left transition and started the run.

“I didn’t see anybody from my team until the bottom of Zombie Hill,” Barry says. Zombie Hill is 15 miles into the marathon. He says that with no sunscreen, no water, no hat and no sunglasses, he was suffering from heat and sun stroke. “I literally walked from T2 to Zombie Hill like a drunk on the side of the road.” He finished the race, but he says it was “really brutal.”

He got a white finisher shirt that day, so this year, he says, they were “back for a little retribution.” Things worked out much better on Saturday than it did a year ago. Barry finished in 15:07:31, and he did what he had hoped to do last year, earning a black shirt.

Record Holder Focuses on Coaching

In 2018, Norway’s Mette Pettersen set the women’s course record at Norseman, clocking a final time of 11:16:10. That was her one and only race there, and she says she doesn’t see herself going back as an athlete any time soon. She is careful not to say she will never race again (at Norseman or anywhere else), but for now, she says she prefers coaching athletes rather than working on her own athletic endeavours.

Mette Pettersen is thrilled to see a new women’s record at Norseman — even if it wasn’t set by a Norwegian. Photo: Kevin Mackinnon

“I’m happier helping others achieve their goals and to participate in their journey,” she says. “That’s more fulfilling for me right now.” She says she routinely has athletes she coaches going to Norseman, and this year, she traveled to Eidfjord with seven. (Six of these seven individuals ran to black t-shirt finishes, and Pettersen says they all performed extremely well.)

Speaking with Slowtwitch a couple of days before the race, she takes the time to talk a bit about her record, saying she hopes someone will beat it. She would prefer a Norwegian, she says with a laugh, but she says she is eager to see anyone top her time.

“If you win something, if you are the best, there will always be someone who will come and be better than you,” she says. “So you should just be humble about it and embrace the people who are trying to beat you.”

In the end, Pettersen got what she had hoped for — partially, at least. A Norwegian woman didn’t beat her record, but someone else did — Germany’s Julia Skala. Skala executed an amazing race, and her remarkable run time catapulted her past Pettersen’s 11:16:10. Skala crossed the line in 11:00:23. Pettersen says she was thrilled to see Skala’s time, and she cannot wait to see what happens next on this course.

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