International Rider Training

The weather gods were feeling kind last weekend when the TREC Ireland international riders training took place in Kinnity. The Saturday mornings map room session was a busy affair with everyone hunched over their maps concentrating on tracing intricate routes from the master maps with accuracy and speed. Hilary Barnard was a mine of information as we bombarded her with questions on all things TREC.

After lunch we split into two groups with Hilary taking one and Adrian Flynn the other. It was an afternoon of measuring distances, following routes, reading bearing and being aware of geographical features around you. We survived the trek with little more than a threat of drizzle.

Sunday morning started dry but bitterly cold which was soon forgotten as we marched up and down trying to establish our mystery location. There followed an exercise in drawing routes from a traceur’s point of view which was very informative but exhausting due to the inclines.

After swapping around groups, we set off for a very pleasant hike across the mountains with that rarely viewed object known as the sun shining weakly on us until we had completely lost our bearings. The maps were unfolded and the work began of trying to pinpoint our location.

After establishing our location and finding a few other locations on the map we headed back to our start point.

Many thanks must go to all those involved in making the weekend possible, our trainers Hilary who very kindly travelled all the way from the UK and Adrian, the Karens, Mairead and of course our search and rescue dog Bear whose services were fortunately not required. Roll on next month when we have the chance to train with Thierry Mourouard