How Therese Johaug Trains (What a Comeback at 36 Actually Returns)
Johaug unretired at 36, took three silvers and a bronze at the 2025 Worlds, then stopped for good. What came back, and what did not, is the useful part.
Therese Johaug retired in 2022 with four Olympic medals and fourteen world titles. She unretired in 2024 at 36, aimed at a home World Championships in Trondheim, and came back with three silvers and a bronze. No gold. Then, in May 2025, she confirmed she would not go to Milano Cortina, and ended it for the second and final time.
She got close. How close, and which parts of fitness survived two years away, is the part worth reading.
What came back
She was beaten in the skiathlon and the 10km classic by Ebba Andersson, and in the 50km by Frida Karlsson, each time by a small margin. She also won a World Cup 20km in Oslo and closed her comeback season with a 50km victory.
So at 36, after two years out, she was within seconds of the best distance skiers in the world over 50 kilometres. That is not a story about talent. It is a story about what a decade of very large aerobic volume leaves behind.
The deep adaptations of endurance are structural: mitochondrial density, capillary networks, cardiac dimensions, the fat-oxidation machinery. They take years to build and they decay slowly. The sharp end, the top-end speed and the race-specific edge, decays in weeks. Come back after two years and you find the base largely intact and the last two percent missing, which is exactly the margin that separates silver from gold.
The same pattern appears everywhere in this series. Wout van Aert lost the Tour to an infected elbow and won two Vuelta stages nine weeks later. Gesa Krause had a daughter and won a European title three years on. Enric Mas led a Grand Tour a year after surgery.
The engine underneath
Johaug's career was built on the Norwegian distance model: a very large annual volume, the great majority of it at low intensity, split between snow and summer roller-skiing, with strength and technique work underneath.
Cross-country skiing rewards that more than any other sport, because it uses arms and legs together and so demands more oxygen than running or cycling at the same perceived effort. The ceiling is aerobic, and the way to raise an aerobic ceiling is hours, not intensity.
Norway organises those hours into five intensity zones, I1 to I5, and spends most of the year in the bottom two.
Maksimisyke
190bpm
| Alue | Vaihteluväli | Mitä se kehittää |
|---|---|---|
| I1 | I1, kevyt 114–137 bpm | Aerobinen perusta (<2 mmol/l laktaattia). Valtaosa pohjoismaisesta volyymista. RPE 2–3, kevyt, nenähengitys. |
| I2 | I2, tasainen 137–156 bpm | Ylempi aerobinen kestävyys (~2 mmol/l). RPE 4–5, tasainen. |
| I3 | I3, kynnys 156–165 bpm | Laktaattikynnys (2,5–4 mmol/l). RPE 6–7, mukavan kova. |
| I4 | I4, VO₂max 165–175 bpm | Maksimaalinen aerobinen teho (4–6 mmol/l). RPE 8–9, kovat intervallit. |
| I5 | I5, anaerobinen 175–190 bpm | Anaerobinen / nopeus (>6 mmol/l). RPE 9–10, maksimaalinen. |
I1 · I1, kevyt. Aerobinen perusta (<2 mmol/l laktaattia). Valtaosa pohjoismaisesta volyymista. RPE 2–3, kevyt, nenähengitys.
I2 · I2, tasainen. Ylempi aerobinen kestävyys (~2 mmol/l). RPE 4–5, tasainen.
I3 · I3, kynnys. Laktaattikynnys (2,5–4 mmol/l). RPE 6–7, mukavan kova.
I4 · I4, VO₂max. Maksimaalinen aerobinen teho (4–6 mmol/l). RPE 8–9, kovat intervallit.
I5 · I5, anaerobinen. Anaerobinen / nopeus (>6 mmol/l). RPE 9–10, maksimaalinen.
- Norjalainen/FIS:n I1–I5-malli on standardi maastohiihdossa, ampumahiihdossa ja yhdistetyssä. Se yhdistää sykealueet laktaatin viitearvoihin (I1 <2 mmol/l aina I5:n >6 mmol/l:iin asti).
- Pohjoismaiset ohjelmat ovat vahvasti polarisoituja: valtavat määrät kevyttä I1–I2:ta ja keskitettyjä I3–I5-harjoituksia. Ampumahiihtäjillä on lisähaaste pudottaa syke nopeasti ampumapaikalla.
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Set the same bands from your maximum heart rate, so easy skis stay easy and the hard sessions stay genuinely hard, on snow or on summer roller-skis.
What we can and cannot say about her week
Her session-by-session programme is not published, so this is not a place to invent one. The shape is on the record and is the same one behind Klæbo's six Olympic golds: high volume, mostly easy, year-round, for well over a decade.
Her stated reason for stopping both times was the same, and it is worth taking at face value. Elite volume is not compatible with much else, and she chose family over another Olympic cycle.
What you can steal from it
- The base is the durable part. Years of easy aerobic volume survive a long layoff. Sharpness does not, and sharpness is what you are missing when you come back.
- A comeback returns you to the field, not to the top. Johaug got within seconds. The last seconds are the ones that take a full season.
- Volume is the lever in whole-body sports. Skiing recruits arms and legs, so the aerobic demand is higher and the payoff from easy hours is larger.
- Set real bands. I1 to I5 zones from a tested max heart rate, so the easy work is actually easy.
- Stopping is a legitimate answer. Two retirements, both on her terms, after fourteen world titles.
More in this series: Johannes Klæbo, Jessie Diggins and Harald Østberg Amundsen.
Sources
- Wikipedia
- FIS on her comeback announcement
- Olympics.com on the Trondheim skiathlon
- FIS on her Oslo 20km win
- ProXCskiing on her decision to skip Milano Cortina
Cover photo by oskar karlin, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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