Extreme Dog Race – DogBiatlon & DogTriatlon

For the first time, we tried a race of three disciplines –

All this, of course, with a dog. I had a natural respect for it. Ever since a dog once almost drowned me with its paws, I never go into the water with dogs. I know how to swim, but quite recreationally, so a panicking dog in the water is not the most pleasant idea for me. But 100 m is a short distance, so we’ll do it … maybe. In the pre-race info, the organizer promised that he would not let anyone drown. But can you believe everything that is written somewhere?  They say life vests are allowed for dogs, wouldn’t it be better to allow them for people? After arriving at the place, I was a little relieved that 3 guys were floating on the surface on paddleboards and chasing every starter from start to finish of the water part. We thought for a while about how to do it. Whether to swim in shoes already, or to take them on in the depot before the scootering. We figured that since we run literally every race in wet shoes, we see no reason to change that here. So we ran straight into the water fully equipped. The water was nicely warm so it was surprisingly quite pleasant. At first, Frozen didn’t understand why she should swim as far as the other side of the lake, when the shore is much closer next to us, so we struggled half way, but luckily at least she didn’t want to drown me. The guy in front of us on the paddleboard saw us, so he started calling Froren by her name, then she understood and went forward. We successfully survived the first critical part of the race. The second, even more critical, was yet to come. I’m not very friendly with the scooter either. Frozen has never tried scootering before, I have… twice and I have to admit that I’m scared as hell of it and if I can choose, I prefer to stay with my feet on the ground. Well, hopefully Frozen won’t kill me. So after getting out of water, we just put on a helmet (I would have preferred a space suit, but it didn’t fit in the mini box at the depot) and then in only my bra and shorts we set off towards almost certain death. Frozen fortunately understood within the first twenty meters that she has to pull even with that strange machine behind her and she just galloped in front of me. I am incredibly grateful to her that she did not drag me around and maintained a constant, pleasant speed of up to 20 km/h. She reacted beautifully even to side commands, if I didn’t confuse where the right and left were, we wouldn’t have to untangle ourselves after turning to the other side at the crossroads. We arrived at the depot alive! I dropped my helmet and went on to the running part. I wad already in my element here, running is the only thing we can handle comfortably. Only the legs were a bit stiff after the previous parts but somehow made it to the finish line. Well, we didn’t excell at our first triathlon, but we survived and that was the goal of the day! Erik and Natalie have more adrenaline in their blood, so they enjoyed the race to the maximum. Due to her age, Nataliewas not allowed to start in the regular category, for safety reasons, swimming was restricted under the age of 18. So she had to start in the fun category, where instead of swimming, she waded along the edge of the pond. Well, somewhere she turned a little more towards the center, so she swam a bit in some places , but she managed everything perfectly. And she even finished first in this category.

A dog biathlon race was held here at the same time. It wouldn’t be Natalie if she didn’t insist on starting in the second race as well. So she did. Here they ran about 3 km and shot 5 times from a laser rifle while kneeling. Well, she could have skipped the shooting straight away, had 5x penalty written down. This way she would have saved time at least. Shooting is not her strong point, so she missed all 5 shots, got 2,5 mins penalty time, but even with this she finished 2nd in the junior cathegory 17 seconds behind the first.

Thanks to the organizers for this unusual experience, we enjoyed it so much.