Together for Adventure Racing in Europe

In general we can say that project went according to the plan, reached the expected goals, in certain areas even outperformed. We are pleased with the results which will not be forgotten, but will serve as foundation for future deeper collaboration which we are already planning.Core activities in of the projects were the international training camps. Each camp was organized by one participant as a hosting organization. Each of the camp was focused on a particular discipline and/or skill. Location of the camp was aligned with expertise of the hosting participant, environment suitable for particular discipline and/or skill and timing was aligned with time of the year suitable for the discipline.Members of that participant and project coordinator than trained together, share their experience with racing and training together, built and developed the best practices and proposed basic concepts of common methodology. The attendance of coaches and physiotherapists proved to be very useful. Those people were highly skilled in the ways how human body works and added their expertise. One camp culminated by a race, which was a part of adventure racing world series, where the participants implemented their skills. Coordinator traveled to each of these camps to ensure continuity and consistency of the methodology.Communication and dissemination took place throughout the whole period of the project as well as we kept on communicating it after the project finished.At the beginning, we (with the partners) set up dissemination strategy, compiled a list of relevant contact for dissemination. We set up a web platform that is the central hub for dissemination of the the project, than on the kick-off meeting we set up the policy for the outputs and were producing them throughout the whole project -videos, press reports, articles, answers to quetions.The projects were:Kick off meeting – Czech RepublicOne of the objectives was to fine tune the collaboration and to make sure the outputs for the methodology are coherent. The whole project was focused on practical skills and their use in real situations. So our strategy was be in place early enough to be efficiently implemented on all following camps.Training camp 1 – Sweden – kayaking, packraftingHere we take opportunity to make this camp even better, so changed the dates to August and instead of paddling on lakes, we could paddle in the Baltic sea. As mentioned in the project application, this training culminated with a race and proved to be a great success.Training camp 2 – Slovakia – mountain running, proper recoveryWith mountains towering over 2500 m. of altitude and long technical ascends and descends, Slovakia was an ideal place to train mountain running skills. Also the date choice was great, so we could use the mountains without the risk of storms and all safety guidelines were followed.Training camp 3 – Czech Republic – navigation, mountain-bikingThe terrain in Czech Republic is very challenging and variable, requires different techniques. We were able to combine two sets experiences - adventure racing and orienteering - and convey the most efficient orienteering procedure for use in adventure racing. This camp involved both orienteering on foot (running) as well as Mountain Bike Orienteering (MTBO).Training camp 4 – Germany – ultra running, running efficiencyThis camp was be focused on staying efficient even when fatigued and keeping good posture. Here - expertise by a physiotherapist and expert running coach was a game-changer apart from others running camps. This camp provided great benefits to public health (results were shared extensively).These camps server as a great meeting points for building and reinforcing of a European network, we are already building on it, preparing new sets of activities and using this newly set network as a foundation for wider and deeper collaboration.