Endless season

Nice weather continued also in past week so I got an excuse to get out before

work and do 1 hour flight every day. It is a tight race every day like this, coming home at 3 pm taking a shower and eating before I catch work at 4 pm.
Very stable days but we still managed to soar the ridge here also this time everything was done much lower. Slowly I will get to know each rock on the ground here :) It all helps a lot for the days when we will get to race this one as it will all look much higher then this days :)
Aeros Winter race is coming in March 14.03.2012 - 25.03.2012 one of the two weeks in between, the we have nationals also in Vipava valley 25.06.2012 - 30.06.2012, traditional Kobala open in August 13.08.2012 - 18.08.2012 and Italian nationals in Gemona. Then we have Buzet with Croatia open and Bassano, so I have like 5 to 6 races in radius of 3 hour drive. Not bad :)

Since some day are just to stable for flying it is nice to walk up the mountains as well. You get to see places where you usually fly over. We went bellow Krn last Sunday where I got to see the small gap that saved me on nationals this year where I flew trough to the other side of the valley. Not making it would have taken me another extra 10 minutes. Nice to see things from the ground as well. Here is a picture taken at the place pointing at Polovnik ridge in Soca valley.

Oh and yes, I made it to top 50 in GoPro contest because of your votes. Thank you for that. Today they will publish the first 20 winners that get new Hero 2 and everything they make. First two even get the sponsorship worth of 2500$. Fingers crossed ;)

GoPro contest

My dear reader, I will use my blog also to ask you for your help by voting on my pictures in GoPro contest. I entered the contest with 4 selected pictures from this year and I hope they will satisfy your eye with them.

Just follow this LINK and click VOTE for me.

Help me get this price so I will be able to make more interesting pictures and videos for you ;)

Thank you

The magic Vipava valley

Bad weather in the beginning of October made last Thursday look like a day to fly. Even do I started to work at 4pm I was still in the mood to take a chance.

It was just a small bubbles flight. The weather for next days showed that we will have lots of flying days and reliable Lijak take off although facing to the West and with wind from the E, it was still possible to fly normally.
I worked all weekend late night and flew during the day so I was more like a zombie but the joy of flying during the day made me come back to work with a smile.
I counted more then 20 pilots on ramp take off on Monday. Many new Slovenian young faces on take off, many of them making the licences for pilots. Hang gliding in Slovenia is on the big rise for sure.
Friends from Italy and Austria just made it like summer has even not ended and our season is just on going, of course the weather made the whole thing more true :)
Flying trough and above the clouds, fast ridge runs, close formation flying, all the fun you can get in endless playground in the sky.
Better quit talking and get you to the real "show how" of last 6 flying days!

November

6 days of flying behind me, here is just a shot of what is about to come in video edition as well :)

16th Ljubljana marathon

Another goal achieved this year. The idea was to run the 21 km run, the half marathon as an excuse to start training again with running. I don`t know when I got back to the addiction like running can become. I was already doing runs in the summer when we had many off flying days like Worlds, so I tried to use every free time to do some running.

This is like a meditation, after 5 km your mind shuts down and you can go on forever. August was too hot for stuff like that, but after coming back to Gorica I soon started with a small runs in a forest area right next to my house.
My first attempt to try the 21 km was after we had a conversation with friends after ... beer and they all agreed it is not that easy to run that long. Next day I went for it with small "meoooww" in my head and did it with out problems and under 2 hours which I assumed was fairly good enough.
The next try was marathon. Don`t run the last week, eat pasta.... Ah... No, I still went for a run, because it felt good to me. My only concern was tarmac road all the way and my knees.

I felt good waiting in the box for the run, the band "The stroj" that plays only on instruments made of garbage, where playing loud music so it kind of felt like you danced your way trough the start gate. They are just amazing, I felt the bass in my loungs while I watched the start of a 10km run 2 hours before my attempt.

First 4 km where painful for my knees and muscles so I was looking strange as the marks for km where passing me so slowly. After that I got in to the right mode and on 15 km I started to race. I did not know if I am doing the right thing there but I felt I can do it. Like with comp flying, I was jumping out of the slow "gaggle" and tried to get free way to run faster then the other group. Mostly everyone where running on the right site of the road as we drive our cars, so I had a nice place on the left doing my own thing. Earplugs and some good music turned off all the noise on the way, I only saw people yelling and smiling but never heard them :)

Last 5 km I felt like a bullet and was passing most of the people and came in to the goal with 1:40:18 time. 10 minutes less then my "meoouw" run :) I think I could do it better but for the first run was ok.

So this goal is now behind and I can focus only on Lanzarote trip that is waiting for me in December. Our friends are now competing at Canugra classics, Jonny is already kicking some ass with overall lead after his knee surgery, bravo Jonny!

Anyway, here in this video you can see how it looked when runners from 10 km run started. 18000 runners showed up to show how much sporty nation Slovenia is.

Ok, I must admit, I walk like a duck today ;)

Run can be seen at sports tracker

Autumn

It is all turning around so fast that it seems like I was writing that just few weeks ago.

Back again, back to Nova Gorica to work. But it is not all so dark :) as here I can fly mostly all winter, so a good spot to be if you are not on Australia :)
Imagine, just yesterday our guys flew for 92 km in the middle of October, well, I was grounded at work...
The week before I was on take off and got to flew for nice two hours, I should be happy to be where I am.

Cucco horses

Searching your old videos sometimes come up with some interesting things. Then one day you learn new techniques and you can do old stuff better as well.
This one is taken from a video from my N8 Nokia and it got an artistic overdraw. I don`t know the names of the horses, I only know Zac Majors in the picture, waiting for the traffic at Cucco mountain :)