We had a nice technical middle distance course in the rockies part of the terrain with lots of stony fields. I did not push too hard and I did one mistake towards 12 control. I did see a runner going from 12 to 13 and I did not took that in mind - I though he is correcting his direction towards 12 so I ended up on 13th in stead of 12. Lost around 1:30min.
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/QyJX_gi7yWQ

Nice training with forked mass start. We pushed hard all the way - I did choose one wrong route-choice and did a mistake as well to the same control so I dropped some places and had to "climb" back to the top.
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/y2aLwI729c4

Pretty solid performance with one small miss on control 6. I did not check my compass when I hit the two depressions and was a bit off towards the one where the control was. I did run easy and cut the last part of the course from the video cause I lost my contact lense right before 13th control.
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/P5I0dP9C4kI

Did a good start but I did some mistakes in the second and last part of the course probably when I got tired. Small hesitation to 9th and then almost a fatal big miss to 12 control. In the end it was quite tough to keep Dani behind me.
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/KFm24Frn6hs

Traditional long distance (local) race Troyan Marathon was nice as always. I ran an OK race with some mistakes.
I did miss 5th control with a minute and then took a wrong route choice to 6th loosing another 1:30-2 minutes. Actually I was pushing a bit more in the first and last part of the race and since I was in sight with the main competitor for the day I was taking it a bit easier in the mid-course.
HEADCAM VIDEO: https://youtu.be/acKiu7L-fI4

Did a decent performance until 24th where I did ended up on a well visible single stone right before the reentrant before the control and I thought - ok maybe I went too much to the left.. so I could not match the map with the terrain and had to go up to the road to fix the things. Lost about 2mins. To 25th I did another 1:30 miss in the circle, shitty bushes and not as big rocks.. Another lost minute to 31st where it was all green and you couldn't understand where the control should be.
Right before 10th control there was another trench but I managed to not loose much time on that one. Another crucial moment was on the way to 23rd, right after the road after 22nd I was a bit confused as it was quite open north east of the road but decided to stay on the compass and luckily I did locate myself.

I had a good lead thanks to the first two legs Kiril and Dimitar and I had to stay cool and keep it clean. I did not force the pace and everything went smooth although it was quite open terrain and not very technically demanding except a few controls.

Headcam video with my race: https://youtu.be/mB34cusuVUw

Relay & middle distance terrain of BUL Champs for Youth and Masters 2024 near Dryanovo - I have been checking the terrains in advance so this was a training run right after the race itself - I filmed the run to give the chance for the non-running competitors and coaches to see what's inside the forest.
Nice and interesting, in some places tough terrain. I did good performance but as I said I've been on these controls few weeks before the event.

I did run the M21 course and was 2 mins faster then the winner of the day.
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/aS5RqTHwo50

I have been checking the terrains in advance so this was a training run right before the race itself. I have been running the exact course few weeks before but still I did two big mistakes. 1:30mins to 4th control and about 4 minutes to 12th control +. some others as well. Nice, interesting and tough in some places terrain.
I did run the course 2 mins slower then the winner of the day - Dani Nikolov.
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/SibW4D64Mvk

Nice ultra long distance. Enjoyed it but lacked aggresiveness. I also was shaky on few places and lost some time here and there. A minute to 6th where I expected it to be difficult to run down in the valley and know where to climb but still I did even less efforts to know what I'm doing so did the worst. Almost forgot about 8th when planning the long to 9th but luckily saw it early. Bad going out of 11th and a minute lost to 15th - no clear plan for atacking the control. The biggest miss today was towards 16th control - I had a bad plan for the last part of the leg and then I did even worse execution so in total I lost ~3mins.

Nice, open and generally flat terrain. Good race except few small misses and of course two quite sub-optimal routechoices where I wanted to skip going into the deep valleys. Of course I lost some time on these, especially on 15th control. I lacked power in the end since the Night champs were the night before and an Ultra long was waiting for us on the next day.
YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/nPLv9M-TwWI

5th +20secs (hesitation)
13th +30secs (route + miss)
15th +40secs (route)

Did enjoy another night champs :) I did a few mistakes - towards 2nd control I thought I will easily see it and missed about 40secs. Then to 7th I changed my route to straighter one which cost me more than a minute since the valleys were veery deep and steep. A small one to 8th as well. The rest was good.

Decent performance. Did a stupid mistake to 4th where I did not check the details at all and ended up on the wrong side of the wall. Bad micro-route choice to 7th going through the 1st control. Suboptimal to 14th as well but just a few secs.

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/Cl0tD7bLDyo
I ran the 2nd leg for the Bulgarian team in M21. I started fine although I had to make a few stops towards the long 1st control but all went well. Towards the 5th control I stopped to show where we are and then towards 6th I did it once again. I was thinking about the performance of our teammates as a coach and tried to be in favour which is actually so stupid. In the end I fucked up my race with these side thoughts. I messed up the terrain and direction towards 6th in a very open area and then I was even more out of control to 7th. Very wrong direction and not thinking when I saw something is wrong made me loose a lot. Afterwards I got back to the race and pushed hard.

Quite tough and varied long distance. Nice terrain. I did wanted to save some climbing and did a big miss to 8th control-stupid. Than I missed a lot also on the controls in the green part 18-20+ as I was quite bad on going out of the area as well. Also a miss to 23rd control where I couldn't read the map properly. In the end these were way too many mistakes.

I started well but then suddenly a lot went wrong and I got more than 6 minutes lost in the end. You can see what I did on the Analyze my orienteering #67 video on Youtube: https://youtu.be/eW6UKMh2ydY

Did an OK race with some small misses. A hesitation to 3rd where there was also a hole in the green next to the control. Wrong going out of 10th control and a hesitation right before 11th. In general a good race but the shape is not good enough for final.

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/qThqN0Vy-OI

I saw the course beforehand while following the WUOC race and it was quite like what we had expected anyway. I did a stable performance but did two notable mistakes to 15th and 18th costing about 20-30secs each. For 15th I did not see the hole where I left the path on the map (under the line) and thought I was a bit further down on the hole I saw. For 18th I was not sure where to look for the control, the forest got greener and I did not match the terrain with my expectations.


Splits WUOC Middle: http://wuoc2024.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/splits_WUOC_2024_Middle.pdf

Control picking training during a trainining camp of the Bulgarian national team in Hungary for the upcoming European Orienteering Championships in August 2024. Continental terrain with quite steep slopes and lots of valleys. I did two big mistakes to 36th and 43rd - if there were flags it would have been different but still..
VIDEO: https://youtu.be/5-NF_QSt3ak

This 61st episode of the series is from the 1st leg of 10MILA 2024 in Nynäshamn, Sweden. So much fun, 317 teams on the start line and me starting behind with bib number 271. I had a very stable race but did one notable mistake to 4th control - about a minute lost (while racing/finishing I thought it is more like 1:30-2 minutes). Finishing the race I was 59th +2:46min behind the current leader on leg 1.

In the end our team got 113 position with only Bulgarians on all 10 legs.

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/1P9DkGlVa50 - Analyze my orienteering #61

Dryanovo Cup 2024 - day 2 - a middle distance in a typical terrain for the area. In the same area the National champs for youths and masters will be held in the autumn. I got an OK race with one mistake - I maybe got distracted because I stopped to show where we are on some kids and then did that ~2min mistake to 8th control.
Video: https://youtu.be/wD7yCp_bHQU

One extreme mistake to 11th. I saw "movement" and the control down on the slope - decided it's mine and that I was too high - when I went there I saw the code 67 but didn't check the description (I had remembered the 11 and 12 are 67 and 76 or vice versa) and in fact this was my 12th but I didn't realized so continued towards 12 starting from 12 :D. In the end when I relocated and found 12 again I realized my mistake and run up to 11th and back loosing about 4 minutes in total. Shit happens. Otherwise quite OK race with few suboptimal situations.

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/ZAWPwVBp4cA
Pazardzhik Cup 2024 - an area near Peshtera city with lots of meadows and open forest with steep slopes. In general straight was the best and only option but still I found few places to go around. I did relatively OK job except the long leg to 7th where I fucked it up bad and lost about 1:30mins.

Area was nice and difficult especially in the beginning on the slope.
I did elatively good job but still made a lot of small mistakes. I did notable mistakes to 3rd,13th, 18th and 24th.