Success at the ICF European Championships

Ginetta George — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 19:49:30 +0000

Some of the DogFit Team were delighted to travel to Chevetogne in Belgium this weekend, to support the British team at the European Canicross Championship.

At the end of the competition, we caught up with DogFit Trainer, Sarah Gilliam, and DogFit Ambassador Georgie Lambert to celebrate their amazing successes. We also took the opportunity to ask about their training leading up to the Championships.

Poppy resting before her event!

SARAH GILLAM:

Tell us about your training leading up to the Europeans?

We really stepped up our training after the TDM (Trophée des Montagnes) earlier this year and focussed on improving and building up for this weekend. Part of that involved working on mixing up the terrain and building up our speed over 5k.

How have you achieved that?

We’ve really concentrated on a better quality warm-up and cool down, with an intense 5K session in the middle.

What is the most challenging part for you and Poppy competing at this level?

Because it is separate start times, you are always running on your own, and not in a group. It can be really difficult to gauge how you are doing as you have no concept of your competitors and how fast they have been before you. Are you too fast at a particular point, or too slow – it’s really not easy to tell. So we just focus on running our own race and that would be my advice for anyone competing at this level. Trust yourself and your dog. Believe in all the hard work and training you have put in.

Nutrition-wise for Poppy, what advice would you give?

Hydration is super important. I always make sure she is drinking enough, even the day before. Very small breakfast 4 hours before the race and definitely lots of water.

Sarah has been canicrossing for 5 years and runs DogFit canicross classes in the Nuremberg/Bavaria area in Germany.

Sarah and Poppy came 8th overall, which is an amazing achievement and testament to the training they have put in.

Georgie and husband Toby, both achieved 3rd place in their classes.

GEORGIE LAMBERT:

How did you qualify for the Championships?

We have been taking part in the BSSF Events earlier in the year. To be invited onto the team, you need to achieve a qualifying result at two of the competitions.

Tell us about Queen Bee?

She is still quite young and this is her first Championship event. She really gave it her all – given the conditions, which were really wet and muddy. We are very excited about the future.

What hydration tips can you give?

Sometimes it is difficult to get Queen Bee to drink enough, so I give her goats milk in her water, this really encourages drinking and hydration. She loves it!

Given the really muddy and wet conditions, what trainers were you wearing? (We should add at this point that Georgie runs Alton Sports so has access to an extensive range of trail trainers)

I wear Inov-8 Mudclaws which I feel give us the best grip.

What’s next?

We are traveling straight from here to Sweden to take part in the IFSS World Championships.

How do you feel about the result this weekend?

Ok so totally chuffed and completely shocked is a good way to start to sum up my emotions this weekend! This was our first international race together in our first season of racing!

We finished 3rd in the European championships! A medal!!!

Here is a snippet from our Instagram Stories – you can see how muddy the conditions were too!

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Dogfit BlogCanicross Success at the ICF Europeans 2019

Success at the ICF European Championships