First heat
If you’ve got a little female puppy at home, first heat might catch you off guard, so it’s not a bad idea to make some preparations ahead.
2022 Canicross Events
We recently wrote about planned musher races. The canicross events aren't being left behind and the fans of running with a dog have plenty to look forward to this year.
Winter or no winter - running enthusiasts are true to their sport throughout the year, whether running alone or together with their four-legged companion. You can look forward to the first canicross event of this year very soon.
Let's start by looking abroad. At the turn of April (28 April –1 May 2022) France will be hosting the Canicross World Championship. Up to 800 male and female participants are expected to take part in the event together with their four-legged companions to compete in four disciplines: canicross, relay, bikejoring and scooter. It is going to be a spectacular event and you can get a glimpse of what's to come in the video below.
But now let's return back home, where along with dog mushing and dog sports in general also running with a dog is growing in popularity, therefore canicross and other sports-related to that, and also competing in them.
As the season opener, we have the Leskros Chariťák from 28 January to 30 January 2022. It is a charity event and the proceeds from the voluntary start-donations go to the U Šmudliny dog rescue kennel in Tachov. The results are taken by the competitors themselves and then uploaded into a shared system.
This charity event is not the end of the Leskros series but only the beginning. You can look forward to four more races spread across the whole year.
Leskros Březňák 12 March 2022 in the Plzeň Region
Krušný Etapák on 10 June -12 June 2022 in Ore Mountains, where the competitors will be challenged with almost 14 km over three stages
Leskros Botokros on 17 September -18 September 2022 in Benešov u Prahy, with Sunday being all about canicross
Leskros Sady 22 October 2022 in Nebílovské Sady
With the idea of 'measuring strength from anywhere' comes the Virtual Run with Your Dog. You can try several categories, find out which one suits your dog best and then focus on it for the rest of the year, which is how the organisers describe the idea of the event. The event will take place between 19 February - 27 February 2022.
From the smaller amateur events that are opening this year's season it's worth mentioning the Kouřimský Kopeček. As the name suggests, it will take place in Kouřim at the end of February (26 February 2022).
Should you like to try cross-country running among narrow rock formations, we recommend not missing out on the Czech Cross - Labské Pískovce on 3 April 2022. A similar off-road race is planned in the heart of Czech Canada, in Kunžak (3 July 2022).
Other than the winter individual start-run, the Run with Your Dog organisation has something else prepared for this year - a calendar of all interesting dog races, including the local ones. In the events section, you can even find events that aren't purely canicross orientated such as biathlon, obstacle racing, etc. It's definitely thumbs up from us. https://terminovka.behejsepsem.cz
One of the main events of the year is undoubtedly the Dog Epic Race, which takes place from 27 May - 29 May 2022. It's a canicross stage race in Jizera Mountains. The Dog Epic Race, therefore, precedes the Krušný Etapák race, which is scheduled for the following month in yet another beautiful Czech mountains. Mountain running enthusiasts will have an abundance of canicross in May and June.
Finally, let's mention one curiosity from the world of canicross racing - the Czech Championship in Canicross for Bohemian Spotted Dogs. This is organised as part of the Jöringový Trhák race on 28 October 2022 in Stará Boleslav. If you have a Bohemian Spotted Dog at home and like to run with him, you should definitely keep an eye on this event.
Many canicross races haven't been mentioned in this text, as well as those that are on the edge of obstacle racing, where we should mention the Dirty Dog Challenge organised by Živé Sokolovsko and others, which we'll focus on in one of our upcoming articles.
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