Pirin Run 26.06 27km
90% climbing from Hotel Kempinski backwards dead dog route then to Vihren Hut.
The 1st race of the year on home soil, We went Saturday night to register and enjoy a cocktail of sandwiches and desserts put on by Kempinski Bansko who are main sponsors of the event to keep energy levels up J
Sunday morning prepped the bike last minute checks done and made the short warm up ride from Razlog to the start at the Hotel Kempinski in Bansko.
The course is mainly uphill with plenty of climbing The previous years I had finished in 4th in 2014 and 3rd in 2015. Arriving at the start line I saw many handy cyclists who I knew could push me. So we shot off at 10am up the ski road and left onto the dead dog trail my team mate Ilia taking the lead so I just sat behind him until the climb up to St Nikola . Then I saw Mitko making a move, Mitko is the probably the 2nd or 3rd most fit cyclist at the moment in Bulgaria he finished 2nd the previous week at Vitosha.
So I followed him for around 5 minutes until we got up the top of dead dog climb I looked back and no one was behind me so had a nice cruise thought the woods get my breath back and have a sip of energy drink I currently use the Long energy drink from sponser.bg which I found to be really effective onto the tarmаc and began the climb to Vihren at this point Mitko was gone , I checked behind me no one in sight so I began the nice climb to Vihren hut. As it was a Sunday you had to watch out as there were many cars going up and down the roads.
Every kilometer or so I made a quick glance behind to make sure no one was gaining on me but never saw anyone coming until the last 1 km a guy in blue was flying up .
Time to get out of cruise control and get to the finish line and very happy I was to get 2nd place. Very happy