Extreme Dog Race – Motocross Opatov 2025

Fantastic atmosphere, enthusiasm, energy, but also strain, exhaustion and fear.

On Friday evening, a 3 km night race with headlamps was run with a number of obstacles. There was also water and mud, of course. First, Natálka flew through the course with Bella and the absolute fastest time among the juniors. Then Erik and I started. Me with Frozen, Erik with Amiga. Interval starts after 30 seconds gave Erik such a lead over us that it meant that we waved to him at the start and then we didn’t see him again until the finish. With Amiga, they easily overcame all the obstacles, swam across the pond, ran up and down the motocross hills several times. They crossed the finish line with a time of 15:13 and they won their category so clearly. Frozen and I left everything on the track, maybe even our lungs. But the running was good in the cool of the night, and we hurried on, refreshed by the swim. Then came a tricky climbing wall, where I somehow didn’t get my step right at the end and missed the bell. Before we could continue on, we had to take a handicap – run up another adjacent hill. As if there weren’t enough of them on the track. A little further on, Frozen had to poop, so we lost another valuable dozens of seconds. But we fought on and then we ran smoothly to the finish line.

After the race, it took us quite a while to turn the dirty hairy balls back into something that at least seemingly resembled white dogs. We also washed the mud from ourselves and rushed to the announcement. Erik and Natálka accepted the prizes for the two 1st places. Then we had to také care of the dogs, feed them, take them out for a walk and around 2 am we went to bed. After 3.5 hours of sleep, the alarm clock inexorably pulled us out of bed, so let’s get everything ready for the day’s race.

The organizers never spare us, so we were in for an even more difficult race, longer and with more obstacles. We started on the 10 km long course. The sun had been peeking through the clouds since morning, so we knew it would be challenging. Already on the top of the second hill, I felt like I was dying. After the night race and the sleep deficit, my legs were heavy, my lungs couldn’t keep up and my heart almost jumped out of my chest. But we didn’t give up. We gritted our teeth, put on a smile for the photographers, and pretended it has never been so easy.

We survived and, within the limits and possibilities, we enjoyed the race. At the finish line, we proudly hanged the finisher’s medal around our necks and thanked God that it was over. To our great surprise, we read on the scoreboard that Erik and Amiga were the absolute fastest duo on the long course across all categories out of 49 participants.

The juniors came in the afternoon. Natálka with Bella and Karolínka with Dangee. Karolínka didn’t have her day. We know, that if she doesn’t sleep well at night, she’s pretty sensitive the next day. Before the start, she suddenly got really scared and started to cry. We offered her not to run, but she didn’t want to give up. In the end, she ran slowly and it took her at least half the race to calm down and understand that Dangee would help her, wait for her if necessary, and together they would manage everything. They did! And at the finish line she had a smile on her face already. The fact that they finished last was completely irrelevant. The most important thing was that she overcame herself and managed everything despite her initial fears. Hopefully next time she’ll start with a smile. Natálka, as usual, managed everything with ease, wasn’t scared of anything, and like a seasoned matador, she whizzed through the start – finish line in style, once again taking first place among the juniors.