IvanSirakov.com ::: Orienteering

Jukola, EOC, Tiomila..

2010-06-24 в 21:41:36

It`s been a long time since my last post in the English version of this website. I`m a bit lazy to translate and write the same thing twice. So now I`ll try to tell everything with few sentences.

It was first the Tiomila race. I was 10th last leg for Kongsberg OL and I knew it will be very tough and long race for me. I tried to avoid the mistakes but finally I ended up with lots of small ones. I`m not sure but all together about 5minutes. My speed on the 17.3k long course wasn`t as good as it should’ve been but that was the shape at the moment. Finally I sprinted into the final taking the 60th place for the club. You can see the map in my archive – ivansirakov.com/maps.

Then it was some time in Bulgaria, some competitions and a training camp just before the European Orienteering Champs in Primorsko. I’ve been chosen to run sprint, middle and relay. I made a really stupid mistake to the 1st one in the sprint loosing 30secs and some small after that (5, 5, 5, 15) so it was pretty much for a sprint race. I was 5 seconds out of the final!

Then it was the middle qualification, two big mistakes and of course out of the final again. I was disappointed about the result but I couldn`t do anything at that moment. I thought it is the physical shape that would be weak but it was the technical.

I started the 1st leg in the Relay together with Petar and Stanimir, the same team as in JWOC 2007 when we came 7th. I started well but then I made some mistakes and at the finish I was 3:43 down to the leaders at the moment. We finally took the 20th place in nations but we were faster than the other Bulgarian team:). You can see the maps in my archive – ivansirakov.com/maps.

Then I was back in Scandinavia – this time for Jukola. It was a great experience to run this year`s Jukola. Many top elite runners made big mistakes and there were big changes and differences all the way except for Halden who took the lead after the 2nd leg. They took the victory home and 1/7 of the victory was brought to Bulgaria as Kiril Nikolov was part of this winning team! Great! What about my race, my team? We also made some big mistakes.. but finally we took 68th position. I was 5th leg and my big mistake was to the 3rd control – about 5 minutes. But otherwise I`m happy with my race as I didn`t make any other real mistakes. I lost 2:30 after that but it`s all about stops and route-choices.
MAP: Kytäjä-Jukola 2010

TIO is comin`

2010-04-27 в 16:31:54

I`ll take part in my first Tiomila during the coming weekend. I`m very impatient right now for that experience. I`ve improved my technical skills since I`m Norway and I`m really looking forward to it. The only problem is that I have some shit injuries but I hope everything will be OK very soon.

I haven`t written anything since the Spring cup trip but it was mainly because I was a bit lazy to translate my articles. I`ve written much more articles in the Bulgarian version of the web :). But here is a review of the past weeks.

Together with my teammates Harri and both Mortens we were in Kristiansand for a week long training camp. We chose to do such a camp as there was still a lot of snow in Kongsberg. Sooo we had some tough and difficult trainings and some nice and pleasant as well. The worse part for me was that I twisted my ankle really bad on the KM Natt – already on the 3rd day of the camp. So I couldn`t take all of the camp.

Next weekend (16-18.04) the scenario was near Halden – NM Natt and Norwegian Spring. As long as I`m a foreigner I couldn`t run in the NM Natt so I had to start with the guests at 23:30. My ankle was still sore so I ran just 1st and 3rd part of the race. It was quiet OK for me as I`m not really used to run night orienteering. It was a relay next day and I got the 1st leg. I didn`t make a good race but still without big mistakes. The weekend ended up with a long distance. I made a lot of mistakes and two of them were big ones. I wasn`t so concentrated cause of the pain in the ankle and also it was hard for me to read all the details in the circle so most of the mistakes are right there.

The next 4 days I was only riding a bike cause of the pain in the ankle. On Friday I finally got a map in my hand and went for a short course in the nearby terrain. It was really nice training. The next days I went for the competitions in Moss - Lørdagskjappen and Smaaleneneløpet. It was a middle and long. On Saturday most of the good runners were competing but it wasn`t like that on the long on Sunday. The terrain for the middle was really special and as one of the guys said this was one of the most technical terrains in Norway. First part of the course was really hard but I made just some small mistakes. Then a big mess for the 6th control followed by a big miss for 10th. The end of the course I ran together with Anders Nordberg. It was really nice to see him in action.

The long distance was chasing start from the last day. The terrain was different from the previous day – it was easier technically. I started well and made a good race. I felt technically confident and that was good. I made one or two small misunderstands. I was satisfied with my race – probably my first almost clean race in Norway. So now I`m looking forward to Tiomila and my 10th leg! When you see Kongsberg O-lag suits in the forest just get out of the way! :))

You can find my all maps on ivansirakov.com/maps. Choose the right category or all and have fun.

Spring Cup and a camp in Sweden

2010-04-05 в 11:55:58

The 20th Spring Cup was held around Hillerød last weekend. Traditionally it`s one of the biggest events in the spring. It started with a night relay on Friday and continued with Classic and Relay in the weekend.

On Friday morning KOL departed with the club bus to the Danish forests. When we arrived in Denmark we had some free time with barbeku and so on. I was set on 4th leg of the night relay. My teammates did a really good job and after 2nd leg we were about 30secs down to the leaders. I was waiting for the 3rd leg on the changing when I heard “Ivan, Ivan..” and I though: “Ok, I`m here, why is he screaming like that. I see Harri is coming”. Some seconds later Severin was into the changing place and was trying to pull out my headlamp. I got worried and told him not to do that. He succeed in changing it. Replaced mine with another one – better. There was some stress on the starting line and some small problems into the forest with it but for sure it wasn`t the problem this night. Everything has just started. I took the map and ran. I tried to have a safe way to the first control and I was a bit confused when I didn`t find it. I made some loops around the forking and.. still couldn`t find mine. After some time I was again back on the road and took the same going to the control but this time I found it. There wasn`t a control flag! F.... And now I see, I`ve been 10m away on the first try but I didn`t see a flag there. I thought this is just a sign on a tree. What a stupido! Now I know – there are just reflectors on the controls. What about the rest of the race – more and more mistakes.

On Saturday the Classic distance was held. Everything was fine. I got a nice warm up run and I took off my clothes into the bus and went to the start. I got a warm up map but thought: “It`s better to go and see what`s up on the start – number bibs etc”. When I went there I had to look at the start list to see what bib I should take. Oh I wasn`t on the right place there. I wasn`t at 11:41.. oh where I am? I was at 11:21. Lol, already late. I got my bib as quickly as I could and rush into the race. Nooo, a really bad start again. I was 15mins late for the start and then.. I looked at the control.. running.. I was already 50m before it and then realized that this is 2nd and the 1st one was really short. Went back and again the rest of the course was pretty bad with lots of mistakes.

On Sunday it was the Relay race. I had a task – to avoid mistakes. In fact the whole relay had this task. I was first leg, 11.5k I started a bit slow I guess because I was running for few minutes and then I could catch my teammate from the 2nd relay, a not so fast Bulgarian and so on. This day went well – I could succeed with the task. I was really concentrated and was checking the map and the direction as much as needed. I can say I don`t have more than 30secs mistakes on that day. I was 4:10 back from the winner of first leg. Kiril Nikolov was a first leg also, I was 4:00 behind him. It`s reasonable not to be fit but the good thing is that I made no big mistakes.

After the competition we got into the bus and went for Sweden – Kristianstad where we had a 3days camp. We were accommodated in the club house of PAN-Kristianstad which is 20m away from the beach and the conditions inside were also quite nice.

On Monday morning we ran a regular course but by pairs in the beginning. In the afternoon some of us made a strength training lead by Julia Gross and Severin Howald in stead of going to an O-training. We saved the course for a night training. We ran two loops but the second was a mass start – it was really fun and faast.

On Tuesday I made 3 trainings – in the morning we ran a relay - 2 men 4 legs. In the afternoon we ran on a terrain that didn`t look to me as a Swedish terrain and in the evening we repeated the terrain from last night. We just ran different courses. It wasn`t so hard to find most of the controls with the reflectors.

On Wednesday we made just one training because everybody was soo tired and we also didn`t have an alternative for 2nd training. The terrain was really tough with a lot of stones. After the training we went back to the road to Snowy Kongsberg. There were 5 more cm of new snow.

In the weekend we drove some time away from here and made some technical trainings. It was really nice. And of course we had an Easter party on Saturday night. Real fun! :)

See all the maps on www.ivansirakov.com/maps .

Already in Kongsberg.. and a camp in Denmark

2010-03-17 в 00:50:21

My trip to Norway, Kongsberg was about 20 hours long but still everything went well. I`m pretty happy with the host-family and with everything here. I like the town and the nature around it – it`s all very beautiful. The only not very good thing is that there is a lot of snow and I cannot run in the forest. There are a looot of maps all around!

The house and the surroundings

Together with all the juniors squad we went for Denmark on 10th of March and I`ve got to know each other with them. We got 3 map trainings on Thursday and Friday and 1 jogging session in the evening of Friday. Saturday and Sunday we participated in the Nordjysk 2dages competitions. In fact most of the members of the club also came to this camp-competitions. Altogether the KOL members were about 120. We had a dinner together on Saturday evening.

The both trainings on Thursday were around Silkeborg with less snow. In the morning we had a normal course but on the afternoon training we had a corridor, only contours and so on. Between them we had a great grill-lunch in the club tent. The Friday training was arranged on a sand dunes and was very interesting but also there was a lot of snow so it came quite tough.
MAP: Camp Norway, Silkeborg 1
MAP: Camp Norway, Silkeborg 2
MAP: Camp Norway - dunes

On Saturday the 1st day of Nord2dages was held. The H21E course was 11.9k and mostly in the green. There was also a part of the course in the sand dunes. I was late in the startlist so I mostly had tracks to follow. It was boring and tough. Very tough! A bit after the middle of the course I almost hit the wall and it was very hard afterwards to get to the finish.
MAP: Nord2dages 1st day

Laura Vike, Julia Gross, Severin Howald and Ivan Sirakov on the local paper

On Sunday the course was also 11.9k but the map wasn`t so green and I liked the terrain more than the previous day. It was much more interesting on some places. Maybe because there weren`t so many tracks as the previous day. But the snow was a bit worse – as it was deeper and we were making holes. It was tough but I was saving my energy on the worst parts – walking and trying not to make holes. So that day I had enough energy in the end which was quite amazing with the big break I had had. Ah and I made one very big mistake on that race. You can see it on the map.
MAP: Nord2dages 2nd day

First competition for 2010 for me

2010-03-06 в 23:21:09

Today I participated in `3rd of March` Cup. The weather wasn`t as good as most of us wanted but still there weren`t any rain or snow – it was just cold and windy. The competition was held in a park in Pleven city. The mens course was 7.6kms long with 25controls. The winner came Ivaylo Kamenarov with 41:20.

My run went just around the plans except two main mistakes about 2nd and 3rd controls. I saw some knolls left to the 2nd control and as I was looking for a holes field I thought that there is it. But I was wrong – I was heading in the right direction and these knolls were just knolls which weren`t on the map. For the 3rd one I was trying to run straight but it didn`t happened in that way so I had to run almost in 90degrees to the control. The open field just before 8th control is rounded with fence and that`s why I went around. All in all the course was matter of running. I got 2nd place with 42:38 and the 3rd place went to Ivaylo Petrov with 43:54.
MAP: `3rd of March` Cup

3rd of March – Sopot and Hisarya

2010-03-06 в 00:05:59

3rd of March is National holiday in Bulgaria. A piece contract was signed on 3rd of March 1878 between Russia and Turkish empire which ended the war between them and after about 5 centuries of slavery Bulgaria established its borders for 3rd time in the history. On the very same day but 2010 me and some o-friends went to a trainingday in Sopot and Hisarya. It was very pleasant weather and there were some very beautiful views.

Kiril Nikolov made the morning training on the map of National Champs in Middle’09. We started the training with a Corridor, continued with course on an edited map and finished with a fast sprint. After I finished the training I saw I had ran about 100mins with map in my hand.
MAP: Sopot - Corridor
MAP: Sopot – the edited map
MAP: Sopot - Sprint

Between the sessions we got a nice lunch in the closest restaurant followed by a culture program. We went on sightseeing. We visited some symbols of the history – the oldest church in Bulgaria, one of the Vasil Levski’s (one of our main revolutionary) hiding-places and so on.

In the afternoon we ran a normal course on the Hisarya map where the terrain was more than interesting. Even that the maps is a bit old it was as accurate as needed. I got more 80mins with map so I’m pretty happy with the day.
MAP: Hisarya

Tomorrow I’m going to participate in ‘3rd of March’ Cup where we will face a 7.5k long course with 25 controls. Even I don’t like much the terrain choice of the organizers as it’s a park I’m looking forward to it as I miss the map contact. I’m also going to meet a lot of friends just before my leaving for Norway.

PS: I’ve got a new map archive (DOMA) but still it’s in process of fulfilling. It’s accessible on ivansirakov.com/maps where you can still find a lot of maps and of course the newest ones.

I`m here!

2010-02-23 в 12:23:27

It`s been a long time since my last article but I didn`t find the time to write or simply I didn`t have desire to do it. I think that very soon there will be articles more often than now because I`m going to Norway on 08.March. I`m already pretty impatient about going there and starting to train.. orienteering.:))

Last weeks I went to some procedures about recovering my old injury. Finally I found the right guy to treat it and his diagnosis is better than the first ones and the more important – the right one.

By the way weather in Bulgaria is quite warm and nice. It`s spring already.

/Training 20.02./

Maps are updated

2010-01-12 в 09:37:32

Firstly Happy New Year to all of you! Wish you health and happiness!

My maps archive from trainings is updated. In the end of last year and in the beginning of this one I was on a training camp in Primorsko together with Elit2000 team. The weather, atmosphere and company were very nice! Thanks to the team leaders for the organization.

I had only two days at home after I went back home from the camp. Then I went to Sofiya on a camp from the Athletics Federation. My main worry now is to choose the best decision about recovering from the injury which is bothering me from the World Champs. I made some examinations including Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. Now I’m heading to the next treatment and I hope that this one is going to recover the injury fully.
You can see the maps from the camp and one more in the section Maps from trainings.

Top10 sportsmen awards of my city G.Oryahovitza

2009-12-17 в 23:12:50

Today (17.12) the top10 sportsmen awards of my city Gorna Oryahovitza were held. Organizer of the ceremony was once again the Sports Association in the city – Lokomotiv and the honoured guests were the city mayor, the chairman of the city council and so on. The ceremony started with awarding 15 young talented sportsmen of all sports and after that the team of the year was awarded – our mens handball team which gained a top3 place in the country this season. Then the time had come – the top 10 sportsmen of the city were announced – I got a ninth place. There were represented several sports in the top10 – 3 Arm wrestling, 2 athletics, 2 wrestling, 2 sambo and 1 plane-rocket shaping?. I’m participating in the inquiry with my results only in athletics as I’m competing for a city club. I don’t know which results were representing me in the inquiry but I can mention most important. I god a silver in the National Cross Country Champs in J23, bronze in National Mountain Running Champs in Men and a participation in European Mountain Running Champs (59th place), Balkan Mountain Running Champs (7th place) and a Balkan Cross Country Champs (17th place). I can also mention my gold medal in National University Cross Country Champs and an unofficial 4th place in National 10000m Champs running the distance in 32:15. I’m happy that I’m in top10 of the city once again. Sportsman of the city became Plamen Donchev who achieved bronze medal in wrestling from the Deaf Olympics in Taipe. Greetings for him and all of the awarded sportsmen and I wish them much more successes during the following year!

New season, new clubs

2009-11-12 в 13:38:38

During the new season I will compete for new clubs – in orienteering and in athletics. My new club in Orienteering is one of the strongest in Bulgaria - Variant 5, Targovishte. In between I will have my first international orienteering club - the Norwegian Kongsberg OL. In athletics I will represent the new member of Bulgarian Athletics Federation – Brown Team, Veliko Tarnovo.

One of the most important things which I think that every orienteer who wants to become one of the world-elite is to train and compete in Scandinavia. Everyone will confirm that the way going to the top is passing through the Scandinavia. I have thought to go there for the last few years but finally I decided that 2010 is the year that I should go there.

In the middle of September an opportunity came on the internet – project of Kongsberg OL, Norway. They want to bring some foreign young promising orienteers in their club and make some connections between them and their youngsters. There could be an advantage for both sides. So I was one of the candidates about this project as I liked the place and the opportunities. In the end of October I was told that I`m one of the chosen guys. We will be two boys (SUI Severin Howald and me) and two girls (SUI Julia Gross and LAT Laura Vike).

Kongsberg is a nice town surrounded with orienteering maps. The WOC`78 have been there. It is situated about 70kms south-west from Oslo and is about 2hours from Halden and 3hours from Kristiansand – in these both big orienteering centers there are Bulgarians. I think this opportunity as very good and I will try to use it best. With the experience gained there I will raise my technical level and it will be very useful for the future.

I was competing for SKO “Trapezitsa 1954” Veliko Tarnovo last 6 years and now it came time to change. I`m grateful for the support and our time together with the team. My new orienteering club in Bulgaria “Variant 5” Targovishte is one of the best in the country – there is a lot of work with children, it arranges several competitions as one of them is Velikden Cup (one of the biggest O-competition in Bulgaria) and not least there are very good orienteers running for it. Kiril Nikolov, the 6th man on the WOC Sprint this year competes for this team too.

In Athletics I was competing for a local team – “Locomotiv-26”. During the upcoming season I will represent one of the best teams in Bulgaria in Orienteering – “Brown Team”. Yes I said Orienteering but they are now going to be a member of our Athletics Federation so I will be part of the athletes in the team. This is one club which was growing and integrating very fast in the surrounding atmosphere of the sports. Their fresh and intelligent board handle the managing of the team very good. Personally I always had the happiness of receiving their support.