The camp in Ribarica continued till 30th of May when the opening ceremony of 2nd Balkan Mountain Running Championships was held in the center of Teteven. On the next day a very tough race was expecting us – it was raining all the day. So the championships began on Sunday with the junior women followed by junior men, then the women and in the end – the men. The lap was about a minute longer than on the National Champs. In the team ranking the junior classes and women got 2nd places and the only medal and a champion title got Milka Mihaylova in women class, 8580m course (2laps).
There was it, the time for the toughest discipline, 12870m in men class. I was in good shape and thought I could do it quite good. Because of the rain the previous day, some slippery downhills, some falls from other athletes, I decided to run with spiked-shoes (with small ones) adidas Neptune. But in the end I analyzed this as my biggest mistake as my foots were sore. It was worth a little as it was dry mostly of the course and when running on asphalt I was struggling. I started my race in the middle of the group and tried not to be very fast as there were 3 laps left. In fact when I passed the first one 19:14 (1s slower than on the 1lap-race last week) I though it will be a hard one to finish. I definitely needed a slower 1st one. It started to be very hard in the uphills. I succeed in passing some guys and made a kind of regular 2nd and 3rd laps. I was walking the most of the uphills but passed the 2nd lap 21:23 and the 3rd in 21:49. In the end I got 7th place with time 62:27. The winner of the gold medal was Erkan Kuc Turkey with 56:33 followed by the orienteer Ionut Zinca from Romania with 57:29. 5th and 6th were the other Bulgarians – Shaban Mustafa 60:18 and Stanislav Lambev 61:50. We succeed in getting the second spot in team ranking once again this day. This competition was selection race for the European Mountain Running Champs in Telfes, Austria on 12th of July for the Bulgarian team. As I secured my third place from the Bulgarians I got the rights to participate in such a big event in Athletics as an European Champs.
Right after the competitions and the price giving ceremony I left for Gorna Oriahovitza missing the banquet and the closing ceremony of the Balkan Champs. I got time only to rearrange my luggage and then left to Hungary where the selection races for the Bulgarian team for WOC were going to be held. It was a long trip with the mini-bus and after such a race it wasn`t as nice as it could be with a fresh body. We went to the accommodation place in midnight so on the next day (02.06) we got an easy training with map. I fell down and hurt my knee badly in a stone.
MAP:
TrainingOn the 03.06 was the first selection race – for Middle. I had no desire to run this discipline on WOC but still wanted to make a clear and stable run. BUT I didn`t. Once again, as on the previous middle test in Sevlievo, I made a mistake for the 1st control. Then I ran well before making the next mistakes for 7th, 8th and a biiig one for 10th, plus some more misses sent me to the bottom of the results. Best time today was made by Kiril Nikolov who didn`t participate in the official classment for the middle but he was 5min faster than the first guy. The team for middle on WOC is Petar Doganov, Ivaylo Petrov and Ivaylo Kamenarov.
MAP:
Middle selectionOn the next day (04.06) it was the second selection – for sprint distance which was prepared from Josef Polak and was held in Slovakia. This time I should have been with a much better adjustment to the race as this run was decisive if I wanted to run Sprint on WOC. I couldn`t say so when I finished. I made a bad race – mistake for 2nd control about 40secs, mistake for the 6th about 50secs and some more small misses grabbed me far from good run. Even I didn`t feel the tiredness from the Mountain running, the traveling and the starts, later on I think that I didn`t have the freshness in my running which I mostly have on sprint races. I wasn`t concentrated at all as my thoughts, exactly as the previous day, were in my knee which caused some problems. Best once again was Kiril Nikolov with 15:31. Second came Petar Doganov 17:24. The third place which is going to give a permission for participating in WOC Sprint wasn`t decided this day – Ivaylo Kamenarov and I had the same time - 17:28. Vladimir Atanasov got 17:32. The question mark that we made will be decided on the coming National Bulgaria Cup. Then the final decision about the WOC-teams will be made as all is unofficial now.
MAP:
Sprint SelectionThe last day (05.06) of the camp was a long selection. It was again in Slovakia by Josef Polak. The terrain is quite close to the real one for the WOC Long final. The course was 15.5k with 505m climb and 23 controls. It was raining the whole morning. This was the 2nd individual distance I would like to run on WOC. I tried to change my mood before the start in spite of the knee problem. I made three notable misses – for 2nd, for 12th and for 18th controls, about 1min each. Altogheter with the small ones I made about 4:30 misses. In fact it was a nice run on the background of the bad ones the previous days. The winner of the day was again Kiril Nikolov with 2 and some minutes faster than me. Ivaylo Kamenarov came 3rd on the same difference.
MAP:
Long SelectionAfter the race we went back to Miskolc and visited the Bath-cave Tapolca. In the evening the most of the team left Hungary going back to Bulgaria.
After the prize-giving and closing ceremonies together with Kiril Nikolov, his coach and two others boys we went to Belmeken where I was going to start the high-altitude training camp before WOC. Kiril had started it a week earlier. In fact it is just two of us who are representing the national orienteering team on that camp. The conditions here are nice and the weather isn`t as hot as in the lowest part. We are training hard some days and are having good time here as it is full of many other athletes from different sports. 
Ivan Sirakov
