Run20:44 3.16 km (6:34 / km) +223m4:51 / km ahr:138 max:154
Up to the start. Vitosha is steep.
Orienteering50:56 5.8 km (8:47 / km) +209m7:26 / km ahr:157 max:178
Rerunning the NSA cup I missed the last weekend in Bistrica. Map was looking far too tasty to miss it before heading home so took the boys out for a treat.
Map was actually quite weird since the mapper because of the number of pits he mapped which was in the order of thousands decided to make the map 1:7,500 but leave the symbols on the 1:10,000 scale. That was very confusing to my distance estimation sense as well as obviously the legibility of the map with that amount of detail.
The actual training was quite horrendous in terms of tekkers, couldn't really make sense of the contours in the tricky bits and also struggled a lot to find the mini square tapes on the controls since I could never be sure I am on the right pit indeed so leaving by saying 'it must be here' felt wrong.
Will upload the map later but seems like a prime training spot for WUOC middle just need to fix the mapping issues by getting rid of all pits and rescaling the symbols.
Run25:16 [1] 4.78 km (5:17 / km) +62m4:58 / km ahr:131 max:144
Extra miles on the trails with Petar and Stefan to top up a good day of training.
Run1:11:44 10.9 km (6:35 / km) +646m5:05 / km ahr:144 max:169
Early morning to go to the up and up/down trials course with Petar and Stefan for some scouting and the idea of some thresh reps on the uphill. A minute into the harder effort I sensed that I am indeed still ill and could not breathe at all whilst Petar felt shite from the orienteering weekend so quickly me and him transitioned into easy gentle run while Stefan was crushing vertical meters ahead. Course is looking steep and tough for a road runner like me but main thing is to get healthy on the start line.
8 PM
Run42:41 8.84 km (4:50 / km) +117m4:32 / km ahr:137 max:148
Shaker in the dark. Fine on the flat compared to my asthmatic breathing this morning.
Run10:53 [1] 2.04 km (5:19 / km) +13m5:10 / km ahr:117 max:128
Genuinely sick of shake-outs.
10 AM
Run21:18 4.09 km (5:12 / km) +35m5:00 / km ahr:134 max:159
Up. Quite sluggish feels which writing this now with hindsight could be the illness I woke up on Monday with. I seem to be nailing with Dommaraju Gukesh precision my colds with the 5ks I am running this year. Shame that isn't giving me a shot at world champs.
Run race 15:40 5.0 km (3:08 / km) +36m3:01 / km ahr:166 max:197
Beroe 5k - 15:40 (timing is saying 15:32 but once again my chip must have been hacked)
Quite excited for the first ever certified road race in Bulgaria, atmosphere wasn't quite the Podium Festival but made me happy as a patriot.
The race itself was big 'meh'. Went off fairly quick the first k at 2:51 but that was due to the 20m of negative elevation. Then was immediately in no man's land for the rest of the run. Hard last two k with 15m of climb in each to finish me off. Nothing really to be happy with even if I can't tell how much slower that course is with that climb and the two 180 degrees where we literally stopped and turned around but in the books now.
Run20:49 3.44 km (6:04 / km) +54m5:37 / km ahr:153 max:167
Chatting with a gal which was telling me all about her prep to get selected for Euro off-road champs. On the other hand I was contemplating how fed up am I with racing at this point. Really need some time off.
Run40:11 [1] 8.52 km (4:43 / km) +45m4:36 / km ahr:130 max:142
Arrived in Stara Zagora and went straight into a course recce and bib collection. Interesting profile by the looks of it with 30m downhill on the first 500m and the same 30m climb on the last 500m...If you see a bonky last k don't worry - it's the hill, not the pop. Two full stop-and-turn-around U-turns on the course as well but in general seems like it could be great fun even if not the quickest of races.
Run45:15 9.66 km (4:41 / km) +138m4:22 / km ahr:144 max:160
Morning easy with Vanko. Candidates heating up better than I could have dreamed of.
7 PM
Run47:34 9.49 km (5:01 / km) +61m4:51 / km ahr:127 max:164
Easy wan with Petio. Feeling good these days with RHR dropping back to 42/43 range for the first time since August. Weird why is that but the whole time in Edi I have been sitting on 45-48 consistently. Probably better sleep at home considering it's not 8 degrees in the flat.