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| From Bear is coming home |
No, I am not Bear Grylls, and I am not going to show you how to survive in the open wilderness. I am just going to tell the story how I spend the last weekend on the Medvednica mountain. Medvednica would be lousy translated in English as Bear's mountain. Hence, the title. So, here we go!
As usual during my short visits to my hometown Zagreb, there are plenty of activity. Friends are calling me to join them for a beer or two even barbecues. My girlfriend is guiding a group of academy students to the exhibitions and museums of Vienna. Needless to say, I was invited too. So, at that Saturday, I could choose from several attractive leisure activities, but no, not me. Instead of couple of beers, I have decided to sweat some blood on the slopes of Bear’s mountain, before the return to my current hometown in Germany.
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| From Bear is coming home |
It is about two years since I have taken part in my first trail running race. Here, I have extensively described that experience (sorry, Croatian version only). This time, there was not so much excitement as the first time, since meanwhile I have also taken part in several other trail running races in the frame of Croatian trekking league and also in several multidisciplinary adventures races. Some of them documented, but most of them still waiting to be written, and now I will invest some time to briefly document my last trail running experience.
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| From Bear is coming home |
At the start, there are many acquainted faces. “Usual suspects” known from other adventure races, and even better known from various adventures’ online-forums. However, there are not so many people as usual, only about 70 bears, ready to run against wild, women and men, mostly in thighs. About 50 of them on the shorter (30 km, and about 1500 m height difference) distance and about 20 of them on long distance run (55 km and 3300 m height difference).
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| From Bear is coming home |
Before the start, you can taste the smell of temptation. Usual nervousness could be felt in the air. People are copying control points from the map, and exchanging instructions between each other. I am trying to remain cool. I was grown up in the area, and I know the mountain. Organiser is saying his last words, and we are moving towards the start line in the tunnel, waiting for the go signal. We are waiting for several minutes here, but it is pretty cold inside here, and these minutes seem like hours. Finally, with the start signal, we are leaving the tunnel like wild animals released from chains. And hear we go.
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| From Bear is coming home |
Thanks to my Nokia N78, I have recorded my track, so I will not go into much detail here. The entire route with speed and time needed to cover the distance between control points could be seen here (some more picture also included) or alternatively you can see more or less the same information on the map below.
View Bear is coming home in a larger map
After the furious start on the slightly sloped road, we have to calm down on the first steepest slope. As usual I have more than two litters of water in my backpack. It was really not necessary to bring that much since there are natural water sources in the mountain, but I prefer to remain independent of the conditions on the route. On the other hand it is not easy to run with such a heavy backpack. Other things that are mandatory on the trekking league races are first aid kit (whistle and rescue blanket included), headlamp, map and compass. Except that, I was taking with me a wind-stopper, trekking poles and some power bars and fruits in my backpack.
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| From Bear is coming home |
We are very slow on the very steep slope before the first control point. It took me slightly more than a half an hour to cover the first 3.3 km. After that, terrain goes downward towards the Medvedgrad castle. Most of the people are running, but I want to avoid a risk of overuse and save my legs from injury. I am joined with two other guys that I have met on the Velebit and Risnjak trails. We are going on the moderate pace to the second control point. Somewhere on the middle between two control points, we were joined with some other guys. They tried to run faster, but some of them got lost, and at the end came after me.
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| From Bear is coming home |
At second control point, Medvedgrad castle, there are about 9 km behind us, and 21 to go. We are moving on. Before the third control point, we have met just one racer coming from opposite direction. Since, we were not exactly sure where are we, at the moment we thought that we were lost, but that was not the truth. Actually, she losts control and her way. After the third control, we hardly met anyone. We were passing on the northern side of mountain, across the renowned FIS slalom piste.
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| From Bear is coming home |
We were not sure if we took the longer way than others since we hardly met anyone until the forth control mark. We have met two racer, from the long distance category. After, stepping over Horvat’s steps and fifth control marker, there is one last steep slope over Hunjka, and then downhill over Danjka towards the last control mark and final run down. My friends decided to rush down, while I was saving my knees on moderate pace.
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| From Bear is coming home |
I was quite surprised with myself when I finished the race. Somewhere about the middle rank or slighlty worse, but for me this race did not have competitive character at all. For me it was more important not to exhaust myself. Complete results are here. Perhaps I could do that at slightly faster pace. However, at the end I am glad I did not. After the massage at the end of the race, and several pieces of pizza, couple of beers, I guess I was able to go to the after-trekking party in the legendary punk-rock-alternative club Jabuka. Unfortunately my return flight was scheduled for the next day early in the morning, so I have had to skip that one, but I hope that other trekkie enjoyed their stay at after-trekking party in Jabuka. I will have to wait some other chance to practice my bear’s dance.
