I have been a bit busy since last weekend and I think my brain didn’t yet realise what happened… One of my dream goals this year was to win the Swedish national championship for the third time in a row. I hadn’t tried that before and no one else in Sweden had done that before, so I thought that was a fun goal to have. I knew it was a challenge for my self in many ways, and agility is agility, which means there are soooo many things that can happen during a run. It’s still kind of unreal but yes, we did it, we are Swedish Champions for the third year in a row!
Nettan and I had a fun, long road trip on tiny roads up north to Sundsvall, where the championship took place. We took it slowly and made several stops for flee-markets, interesting flowers, beautiful lakes and nice cafe’s. It’s always a great energy boost to travel with Nettan and our pack! We had an interesting and fun weekend in Sundsvall and the competition and the courses were great!
Lilli qualified already on Friday by winning the agility course and I was really pleased with our run. Ziv didn’t qualify for the final, unfortunately. I was really happy with her performance but not so happy with my self. One small planning mistake caused a dropped bar in the second run and in the first run, I forgot to look at my dog for a second. But she was great and did so many good things, my little coyote!
In the jumpers run on Saturday I wanted to push the course time and change my handling choice right before the start (Lilli was already qualified, so the result was not important for the final). I just forgot to plan my verbals when I changed plan, which caused an elimination in the end of the run. This together with my planning mistake with Ziv really annoyed me. So, for the finals, Nettan and I planned everything extra carefully. But I was a bit late for course walk and I had troubles to make decisions and get organised in my head… So I got a bit stressed at first. But after some discussion with myself and Nettan my head got organised right in time for my run ;o)
I was so focused and so excited for the run and I had to force my self to walk as long as I had planned in the start. Not just take the leash off an run…! Ha… it was hard but I managed to get as far as I needed and when we started to run it was just so much fun. I really enjoyed the course and Lilli, what can one say. She is just amazing, a real super-star. Her focus and talent is just unreal and I admire her so much. And on the top of that, she is so much fun! I think she enjoys the victory lap more than anyone else. We have had many successes together, but I think this is one of the most special achievements in my career. Both Lilli, Nettan and I were so happy.
Do I need to say that the 10 hours drive home was easy? And on the way home, we stopped by and visited my parents and went to a meeting. Then we stopped by at my place to pick up Nettan’s car and after that, we continued to Nettan and went for an amazing concert that Nettan’s sister in law arranged. She had put together several really talented musicians and it was just a fantastic final of this very special weekend.
