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.

KOL juniors on the SpeedBoat to Denmark

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

Russian roulette

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

Kongsberg O-Lag in the bus
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.