The second weekend in July was possibly the most manic weekend of my life! With Claire Pollard and Daniel Nolan, two other TREC competitors, we ran the Battlefield TREC event, a training and competition fundraising event in aid of the White Horse TREC Group’s Development Squad, of which we are all members. The competition comprised the maximum eight classes and of the 60 riders 30 also attended one of the two training sessions that offered training either for newcomers to the sport or those wishing to move up from Level 2 to Level 3.
Two venues were used to provide classroom training, navigation, bearings and grid reference training routes, two PTV courses, two map rooms and two separate POR competition routes. An army of 30 helpers over both days were just enough to enable the event to run although I don’t think the word smoothly could really be used as a description! Friday was set up day with most of the PTV courses being built. I was lending Wiz to a competitor for the weekend so he was brought over for me to use for the demonstrated course walk.
Saturday was training and PTV day. Daniel and I were up early to dash around putting the finishing touches to the two PTV courses before flying back to the corralling venue to run the first training session. My wonderful sister was drafted in at the last minute to get the short PTV course up and running and I then arrived at the PTV venue to get the judges out on the big PTV course. In the afternoon the classroom element of the newcomers’ training was run twice to allow for competitors who were tied up on the PTV course and I reclaimed Wiz for the navigation training ride. Thankfully we used part of the Level 2 competition route, I say thankfully as whilst out on the ride I spotted a large hole in a critical position of the competition route so a last minute adjustment to the finish was made to remove the danger.
A wonderful group of competitors interrupted their sunbathing to dismantle the PTV courses for which the organisers are eternally grateful! That evening competitors and judges enjoyed a pleasant time in Claire’s garden and the raffle raised a further £130 for the GB WEG squad.
Sunday was POR day but I was not best prepared for my early start after my boyfriend Ed had been up most of the night being ill. He later worked out that it was due to him having consumed river water whilst trying to fix a faulty irrigation pump but a horsebox without a toilet is not the nicest place to spend a day being ill. The checkpoint judges were positioned just in time for the first competitors out on the POR course although I’ve never seen a map room assembled as quickly as our Level 1 map room was! A few issues cropped up throughout the day meaning we unfortunately weren’t able to produce any final scores, but competitors travelled home after enjoyable rides leaving us organisers wondering how we’d survived!
After a week of persuading the complex scoring programme to function correctly, as well as mulling over the queries that had been raised on the day by competitors, provisional scores have now finally been released so Rachel, the adjudicator for the weekend, is now fielding the list of queries that are coming in.
Now that the Battlefield event is finally behind us I am concentrating on Wiz as I’ve realised that the European Championships in Austria, if we’re selected, is only six weeks away – eek! The Austrian terrain is what’s concerning me the most as Warwickshire isn’t the hilliest place, so I’m aiming to up his fitness levels as much as I can with the facilities that I have access to. We complete interval training in a field with a slight hill twice a week although I’m sure that the horse flies there are the worst in the county!
On the weekend Daniel Nolan and I headed to the Bredon Hills as this is the best hillwork available within an hour’s drive. Wiz and I completed the 200 metre climb from bottom to top three times on Saturday and I was pleased to discover that he coped with the first climb better than he did last time, only requiring one stop part way up rather than two.
Finally, after a break of two months, we’ve got our next TREC competition and I’m starting to feel concerned about how rusty I’ll be. Added to this, I also received an email informing me that I’ve made it onto the short list for Austria and final squad selection will be made after the weekend, no pressure then!