Run Norge på langs 2021

Detailed video about the project

I've been working on preparations of this Norge på langs (NPL) project about 5 years. I created this detailed information video for the 2020 attempt. But the new Corona situation canceled several planned winter and spring 2020 film projects, including big heliskiing project in Canada, which was supposed to be the source of the budget for NPL. So I was forced to postpone the run across Norway to the year 2021. But the information in this video from 2020 is valid and most ideas remain the same.

 

 

Goals and message of the project

There are 3 main goals on this trip. All equally important!

• 1) To experience NPL, finish NPL and set the most beautiful and clean "benchmark variant of NPL"
  
  Petr has a few own rules. He wants to be fast. The goal is to run all the runnable parts, of course. But at the same time, the priority is to find and establish "the most beautiful path across Norway", not the easiest or fastest! It often means long detours and a very hard wild terrain with no trails at all.
  
  The goal is to stay off the asphalt roads as much as possible, ideally just to cross them!!!
  
  This is paradoxly especially hard in the first 100 km on NPL in the very south of Norway. There 99% of the NPL thru hikers simply walk all the way to Setesdalheiene on the asphalt roads, as there are no connected marked trails and the terrain is super bushy and rocky. And the biggest challenge is the narrowest and incredibly remote and difficult part of Norway between Narvik and Sulitjelma (details in the video above). Petr will try do the first "wilderness run across Norway" as clean as possible.
  
  
  
• 2) World class adventure movie about NPL + attractive daily reports 
  
  As we are filmmakers, filming strong, totally honest and authentic story about our trip and about "NPL story" generally is an absolute priority! NPL is a super interesting adventure and it is worth telling the world about it. We believe that a great film can start a new legacy like for example famous PCT - Pacific Crest Trail in the USA. Just nicer and harder! 
  
   
• 3) To do something for "greater good"
  
   It's not only the journey of the body but mainly the "journey of the mind."  In our daily reports we want to talk about meaningful values, better life routines, self-discipline, environmental issues etc. We also want to use the attention of the people, who will follow this journey to support, a dog shelter (as our little sporty dog will run the big part of NPL too).
  
  We are open to even much bigger ideas in this field. For example to run a charity for a dream of disabled athlete or child. Let's think about this together!
  
  

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BUDGET

The budget for the expedition (not postproduction of the film and book) is purely for the raw costs of the expeditions. The biggest part of the budget will be used for 2,5 months rental of a car (van or small camper) for the support film team (details about the car are in the text below), food, and necessary missing equipment for filming and "surviving like small drone, small camera, solar panel for the run etc. 

All the 2,5 month work of the crew and the runner is not included! We all will be doing it because it is our dream to experience such an adventure. This is better motivation than all the money in the world! So we are ready to give it all we have. The raw costs of the long project are estimated to:

120 000 NOK 

Details about our offer to the sponsors/partners, see below please. 

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Date and route

July 2021 till September 2021

Best case scenario would be to run about 50 km per day = 60 days. However... It won't be real every day. Our route often leads through totally pathless Scandinavian wilderness. In some parts Petr will have to find a way through the labyrinth of steep rock walls, deep fjords, glaciers, wild rivers, wetlands etc. In such parts, to run 1 km takes 4x more time than to run 1 km on marked trail in the "civilized mountains". But yes, the goal is to do it fast anyway.

The route is perfectly planned and was chosen very carefully according to its beauty and variety! It might be slightly changed on the way north according to the current physical and weather state. We want to surprise the audience by its variety, so before the start of the trip, we keep it secret. We tell the detailed plan in advance only to our partners. 

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Team

Petr Pavlíček - runner and at the same time the main filmmaker of the expedition, author of the project

• experienced outdoor filmmaker, photographer and traveler, author the all videos and most photos on this web-page. 

• 6 years of close cooperation with the world's best climber Adam Ondra and top class outdoor brands. In years 2012 - 2014 Petr and Adam have literally put unknown Norway (in terms of hard climbing) on the world climbing map, through filming and promoting their big movie Change

• ski mountaineer, trail runner, climber, vegan, organizer of the big running races and creative campaigns

• expert about Norway's landscape, he's visited Norway 41 times. Since July 2020 living, filming and training in Lofoten in northern Norway - watch some of the first Lofoten projects 

As a child, Petr was training martial arts every day for 12 years. Could it be the reason why he is willing to suffer so much? ;-)

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Bára Vávrová - she's gonna fully support this project as a photographer/photo editor, writer, driver, cook, sometimes also as a pacer

• very good and creative photographer, skilled at post-production and Photoshop, traveler, organizer of the running races
• climber, ultra runner, vegetarian, she also knows Scandinavia very well, this is gonna be her 24th journey to Norway

Bára in her element. Pure Nature and her phantasy create art...

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Jan Stindl - video editor 

• very good film-maker and especially great with video editing and post-production, graphic designer who will help with daily reports from the expedition.

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Čenda the ultradog - crazy runner, beloved by the audience, positive element

• ultimate dog sportsman with short legs and small body but enormous enthusiasm and endurance. He run many 70+ km races with us and still was able to fight other dogs behind the finish line
• he will run for other dogs in the dog shelter in our area

Another support - we will meet bunch of other people on the way North, our Norwegian friends. One mountain guide from Bodø might join Petr on wild glacier above Sulitjelma, another kayaker from Tromsø shall borrow Petr a sea kayak to get to Magerøya island, where lies mysterious Nordkapp. We might also invite some influencers to accompany us during our stay in interesting parts of the Norway.

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Media output of the "Run Norge på langs 2021" project

Feature length film - artistic documentary about the project and NPL idea generally. Petr has big experience in this field after producing 2 bestselling feature length movies about the world's best climber Adam Ondra. We will get a lot of good materials. So we are also considering creating a "Run Norge på langs series" (several shorter movies) 

Daily reports on social media and on the web page - as long as it will be technically and physically possible (mobile phone reception), both Petr and the support team try to do authentic, honest and visually attractive daily reports directly from the trip. Photos, short video stories, sometimes livestream, with facts about the current area, map etc.

Materials for our partners (see below) 

Book - beautifully made paper book with a lot of pictures, stories, tips and some of our thoughts

Reports in local media, destination companies, cooperation with influencers 

Public presentations - festivals, races, photo exhibition, TV shows if we succeed

Bára waiting for Petr in a meeting point in the wild mountains of Sulitjelma during 2018 training trip

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Cars and logistics

This project is really challenging in terms of logistics. We need a van or a smaller handy camping car. We need the big car from more reasons.

 

• Base - our trip shall be a run and a film project at the same time. This means, the runner needs to have relatively light backpack, max 10 kg, it is impossible for everyone to run with 25 kg backpack, especially for so many days. So he must have a small support team. One, sometimes 2 people. The whole 3000 km trail will be divided into many shorter segments with "resupply points". Usually on places where the runner will be crossing a road or a civilized place. There the runner will meet the support team, resupply, change the batteries and SD cards with filmed footage, he will film the daily message for the social media, get care of small injuries etc. Then he continues running and the team will drive to the next resupply point, where they meet again, sometimes several days later.
  
  
  
• Editing room - important aspect of the trip is "Editing and posting materials on the road". We want to bring the audience many daily reports (see above). That's why the support team has to have bigger car with electricity, internet and (a space for) table, where the support team can spend long hours working on computer and sleep, no matter the weather outside etc.

It is simply impossible for the support team to spend more than 2 months on the front seat of fully loaded small car, in long cold rainy days somewhere in Jotunheimen of Finnmark, without the ability to sleep, cook, edit movies and photos in the car. This is Norway. Weather can absolutely affect this project. So we must be prepared for the worst case scenario. Currently we own Škoda Kodiaq, but we need something of the size of VW Transporter/Multivan or Ford Tourneo Custom. Or anything suitable for the project needs.

Our "base camp car" during filming the project Arctic Challenge 2018

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Why is our project "different"?

Our journey has many interesting aspects. Sports, adventurous, entertaining, motivational, educational and also commercial. It will be historically the first really "honest" off/trail run across Norway or if you want "a clean variant of running Norge på langs". Running on the road is great sport achievement, and yes, it is much faster! But too monotonous and honestly not interesting, to our taste and perception of an adventure, compared to the raw beauty of true Norwegian wilderness. This clean wilderness variant will bring us incredible variety of stories, activities and therefore possibilities of getting unique material.

We choose the most beautiful, various and remote way within our powers. We will simply try to make it more interesting for us = for our followers. How?

 

1) Variety of activities

• Climbing a few iconic Norwegian mountains - within the bounds of possibility (current weather and the current physical shape), Petr will try to climb to the top of Galdhøpiggen, Kyrkja, Store Svuku, Kvingtinden, Okssolten, Istinden, Stetind and Halti + many less known mountains on the way. 

• Blåmannsissen glacier traverse - the "only" way how to get from Sulitjelma to Narvik fjellet further north with "dry feet" and not using the main E6 road and Sweden. For details, see the next paragraph "Staying in Norway" or watch the video above.
  
  
• Sea kayaking - in case of steady weather, the runner will try to get to Magerøya (here lies mysterious Nordkapp, the final destination of our journey) on the sea. People normally use the 7 km long underwater tunnel.
  
  
• Canoeing on rivers Susna and/or Altaelva and crossing southern part of lake Femunden and part of lake Røssvatnet.

Enjoying total freedom deep in the remote parts of Femundsmarka

 

2) Staying only in Norway!

Another huge challenge of this trip, beside staying off the roads, is to try to stay only on Norwegian soil. Sounds obvious, but it is not! Not if you want to stay off of the roads and civilization as we do. Why? Norway is a very long country, but in one part, it's really narrow. We are talking about the part between the towns of Fauske and Narvik. The narrowest part between the fjord and the wild border with Sweden is only 6 km wide. If you want to go north, you must use the only road, famous E6 + ferry boat. But we try to skip both.

West coast of the narrowest part of Norway with one of our aims Stetinden (left summit)

 

This part of Norway is really special. Incredibly deserted, the harsh heart of Lappland/Sápmi, far from any roads.

In the east, it is marked by the very straight border with Sweden. West border is made of really curvy, wild and bizarre coastal landscape with enormous rock faces (higher than El Capitan in Yosemites) falling straight to the deep fjords, creating countless bays and peninsulas, which you can't cross. In between, it's a untouched land of steep mountains, glaciers, strong glacier rivers which you can't wade, big parts are covered by snow the whole year.

Everybody who goes NPL uses in this part of Norway either E6 road and the ferry or continues north from Sulitjelma through Sweden with much milder terrain.

 

Petr and Čenda during the training and exploration trip to remote parts of Norway

 

We try to stay in the mountains of Norway. Any quick rescue action or even just support for the runner is practically not possible here. It will be really tough, unsupported and possibly dangerous and slow 200 km. Sounds hard, if you keep in mind that it will be after about 1900 demanding km already. But if we organize it well and the weather allows (it can snow here heavily anytime) and if Peter manages to stay injury free, it is real.

Summer mountains in the most narrow part of Norway observed from Stetinden - still a lot of snow

 

3) ON-LINE publishing straight from the expedition

As stated above, we will do our best to publish photos, texts, facts, stories and sometimes also small edited video reports straight from the road. So not just a few quick Instagram-stories, but relatively high level of newscast. 

The main runner Petr will be also the main cameraman. That is ultra challenge. But filming in hard conditions is Petr's everyday bread. He is used to film in any weather, in any terrain and in any year season. He is often out in the mountains with heavy backpacks full of film and photo equipment + all the gear needed for survival. This is his job specialty. Here, on this trip, he wants to use all the latest technology, so he will be able to still be relatively light to run and at the same time he will have good classic or "360" cameras, small drone which can follow him and film him running anywhere, light clothes and food to be able to do both running and capturing interesting situations on the road.

Petr at work, following runners, bikers, climbers or skiers anywhere. On the trip he'll have much lighter film equipment

 

The support team is an essential part of the project and must do everything to show high performance. Solving the logistic problems, supporting the runner in any needed scenario, filming and photographing additional footage for the film and for sponsors, writing the diary (base for the upcoming book), editing photos and videos for the web page and social media etc.

Support team Bára and Patryk cooking and waiting for Petr on strategic point during training trip.

 

We will try to reach new level of sharing such complex outdoor project, but at the same time, we will put huge emphasis on preserving the authentic and genuine spirit of a small and pure adventurous journey.

Courageous words, we know, and maybe we fail. But life is to be lived so we at least try it very hard...

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Partners and sponsors

As you can hopefully see, this is a complex thought out project. We will cooperate with partners, who are not in direct competition with each other. If you think you might also be the right partner of our project anyway, please contact us! 

We offer you being part of one of the most interesting adventure projects of the year.

We have never seen similarly long running/hiking project being documented like we want to do. It will also be the first really serious commitment to make this extraordinary adventure, which Norge på langs truly is, famous behind the borders of Norway! 

"Extreme sport aspect" of this project is just one of many "layers", our aims are much deeper than this. In fact, we are much better filmmakers/photographers, than runners. This project might draw the attention of many different groups of people. Runners, travelers and simply many people who are interested in adventure, mountains, Norway, healthy food, cars, self development and people who like adventure stories without sure end...

Anything is possible. Feel free to suggest new ideas, we are ready!

 

What we offer

1) Product placement

Make your products shine in highly followed multi-thematic project. We know what we do and thanks to our contacts and another activities, we are able to get this project to quite wide spectrum of audience. How?

• Social media - together we have about 50 000 followers on Instagram and Facebook. This number is not very high, but it will go up, because, honestly, so far we have been quite slack and inactive on this field, as our work has not depended on social media at all so far!
  
  
• In order to create the audience for the trip, since June, we will start to produce many social media posts, reports etc. from the preparation for the expedition. We are living now in Lofoten in Northern Norway, so we have the most incredible playground for almost any outdoor activity! We will capture physical training, logistics training etc. We will also work on "development of our daily reports". This is important, because time efficiency of this process is crucial to be able to do it regularly "on the way". and not waste too much time needed for running.
  
  From the trip itself we will share tips and tricks for all of this + advice about how to get the right equipment, the budget etc.
  
  In all of this there is a huge space for presenting our partners, even before the project starts itself.
  
  
• Sport and cultural events 
  
  In the Czech Republic, we are organizing one of the most popular big ultra marathons called Zapomenuté hory (Forgotten mountains), here will be the first preview of the upcoming film in October 2021.
  
  In Norway, we are in close cooperation with The Arctic Triple, an organization organizing 3 different big spectacular races in Lofoten. Lofoten Skimo, Lofoten Ultratrail and Lofoten Triathlon. Our NPL movie might be premiered on their newest innovative "Lofoten Live project". 
  
  We will be also invited to large variety of adventure film festivals etc.

• Media reports - after main partners will be clear, we will use several ways to promote our project in a sympathetic way in different media. We are talking to Visit Norway about becoming a media partner. Thanks to our ability to create quality materials and years of experience (especially from years of creating materials and "PR" for world's best climber), we know "how to sell us" :-)
  
  

2) Taylor made visual brand content

Our trip will be long and the team will be there to create. We can produce great audio visual materials with your product in the most beautiful country of Europe. With running/outdoor content, but also "almost anything" else. It can be an authentic part of the project or simply artistic activity for the promoting the product itself. Only phantasy is the limit...

3) New business deals and promotion in both Scandinavian and Central European markets

Similarly, big and attractive projects really help to "open the door" for negotiations with new partners. Thanks to our knowledge of the Czech (+ Central European) and Norwegian "outdoor scenes" we might be able to connect very interesting subjects.

Norway has already brought us many extraordinary experiences. We feel that this summer will be a total smash

Why you shall trust us?

We love big challenges and we have experience in creating sport documentaries. We are filmmakers, who think deeply about what they are doing. This is not a job, this is lifestyle and NPL is Petr's big dream. We are very active sportsmen and we dare to say we generally know the Nature of Norway more than many Norwegians, as we have spent many years exploring each county of this amazing country. We are living in Lofoten, where we are creating and training basicaly every day - small preview HERE

We also made mistakes in the past and we have learned a lot from them and know exactly what such complex project requires. We have this project in our mind for several years and we are willing to give it all we have!

Let's create something truly amazing together...