Salewa Athlet Summit

Morning in my car. Sleeping on the road again. Monte Cristallo behind me. I’m now where I belong – in the heart of the Dolomites. The next stop is Valsegg situated in Gitschberg-Jochtal, no climbing for me there but it’s going to be fun to experience something new.

The Summit starts with interesting insights into the social media topic. Algorythms, trends, influencers, dates, grownig followers, and the importance of this medium in today’s world. But in all in this virtual chaos I found one recurring thing. A positive one. To be successful you have to stay yourself, to be true. That’s all that counts in the end if you want to go a long way.

Let's do some training now. Phil Weber shows us new warming up routines. Although I like stretching, I never thought that rolling my muscles with the ball could be so painful. After the training I know where my weakness points are. Gluteus-maximus is the key to my progression. Now I know how to improve my training sessions. It was a good opportunity to get to know eachother. Aaron, Simon, Arnaud, Francois and me were brought closer together. We laught doing some strange looking exercises. Crawling on the floor, smearing our back on the wall, doing some squats, and walking with our legs tide together with elastic band. We looked funny. But it all appears to have been a good workout.

Gitchberg-Jochtal in the morning is a beautiful place. Especially when you see three paragliders landing in front of your apartment. This view set something in my mind. I want to try this. Imagine the feeling - flying over the mountains. Even climbing the tallest wall is not so cool when you are going to reppel or walk down to the valley. How great will it be to climb and fly at the same time. The seed was planted. There won't be a better opportunity to try this, than to fly with Aaron. I decide to have a go.

7am, we walk up the hill – 700 vertical meters. There are four of us and we have 3 gliders. We are in a good mood and chat about our families. My lungs start to work heavily as the hike steepens. The power you get from doing one arm pull ups and hanging on a tiny hold, which is required to climb the hardest bigwalls, has nothing to do with running up a  hill, trying to catch up with Aaron. I’m moving slower. But I keep going, telling myself not to stop. I made it. Finally on the top – I didn’t stop. I speak to Arnaud who was right behind me – "Aaron is fast." "Oh yeah, he is" – he smiles, breathing heavily.
The award is priceless. I jump into the harness, a few steps and we are flying over the mountains. Wow! An undescribable feeling…. unbelievable freedom.

Aaron is in charge. We see a hawk. He got thermal. We join him and we start to climb up into the air. It’s time for me now to fly. I take over the streering. Put down and up, we slow down and speed up. I start to feel what is all about. I do some turns. Nothing but a smile on me face. I’m flying. Get back to the pilot. Aaron starts to sink in the air – what a strange feeling. Now we move to do some spins. Yeah! I can’t stop the feeling and start screaming aloud… It’s so cool!

We land near the apartment. We stop on the grass. The glide after landing collapse on the roof of the building. I hear- “You’re the climber. Climb and get it back”. He doesn't have to say it twice. I'm climbing the roof and moving the glide gently to the ground. Wow! This is better than morning coffee. I’m so steamed-up – in a mood ready to conquer the world.

In the afternoon we have an interesting conversation about the future of sports. Where is it going, what are and will be the trends in the future. What made it a cool session was exchanging some great ideas as a group.

One of the main points of the Salewa Athlete Summit was the presentation of the projects for 2019. There are some really cool ideas coming up. I’m not going to write about them now. Stay tuned!