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29Jan2015

Following the swallows

It’s not only birds that fly south during the winter. As you know from some of my previous posts, the heavy men of the British rowing team also head to warmer climes during the cold dark weeks of the British winter. Despite being marginally less dainty than swallows, we also thrive in the African warmth and training for this two-week period is seriously good fun.

At our annual cross-training camp, we complement the grueling ergos and weights with a daily cycle over the hills, passing through town after town in the Mpumalanga countryside. Actually, the bike rides aren’t that much fun. We push down hard on the pedals, working to maintain as constant a speed as we can for the duration of the ride, usually around three hours. As a group we aren’t natural cyclists – carrying body weights of around 100 kilos means progress uphill and on the flat is exhausting. As I mentioned just the other day in an interview for BBC Radio 4’s today programme, the risk of accidents is reduced by using heavy mountain bikes to reduce speed and increase control – it’s only training after all. We’re not trying for any speed records here, but as coach Jurgen says, “We can’t wrap you up in cotton wool”. Two days after saying on air to the British public that accidents are rare and we are a sensible bunch of guys, I took a tumble off my bike and left a fair amount of my skin on the road.
It was the very last 30 seconds of a three-hour cycle, during which we had to shelter for 20 minutes on the road side as thunder and lightning crashed around us. The storm slowly moved away so we clambered back onto our wheeled steeds. Shivering and wet through, we cycled the last 10 kilometers back home like mad men.
Coming into our town, Dullstroom, the rain had stopped but the roads were slick with water. As I turned into the driveway of our hotel I very lightly tapped my rear break in an attempt to make it round the corner. Instantly my back wheel slipped out from underneath me as if it was on ice and I found myself crashing onto the road using my right elbow and hip as a break. Adrenaline surged, frustration and anger immediately came to the surface. I was on my feet before I knew it lifting my bike off the road and hurling it into the verge. I was so angry with myself that I’d let that happen so close to the end of the ride. It was a stupid mistake, which could have meant a season ending in injury or worse. I was hurt, but luckily no real significant damage had been done. Wheeling my bike back to the hotel on foot I walked straight into the shower to discover the extent of my skin loss. Thankfully I had landed well – with deep grazes on my elbow and a scrape on my hip, healing would be quick and I wouldn’t miss any training.

Despite an uncomfortable night when I woke stuck to the sheets and a pretty constant stinging, I was able to get back in the weights room and on the ergo the next day. No harm done and I learnt a few lessons:
• Firstly, don’t touch the break as you ride around a corner on wet tarmac. No matter how good at skidding you think you were as a kid, it’s different as an adult and there’s nothing you can do if the back wheel goes.
• Secondly, at the end of a ride, when you’re exhausted, wet and desperate to get back home, use your last bit of energy to think clearly – unlike me who just wanted to be back in bed! It’s never worth the pain of an accident.
• Finally, I’m no cyclist – I knew that before and it had just been confirmed!

Although I started this blog on a negative note, the camp really is a highlight of the year. Jurgen writes a programme that is relentless, physically and mentally taxing, but we are human. We all need a break every now and then. Over the years, Jurgen has learnt that he gets better performances from his athletes when they’ve had a chance to recover, recuperate and rest their bodies and minds. This comes in the form of a half day, when training is finished just before lunch and the afternoon is ours to do as we please.

In the past we have taken a trip into the nearby Kruger Park for a short safari afternoon. This year we chose to visit the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Centre. It’s a fantastic place that specialises in breeding and releasing cheetahs which, like many species of African wildlife, are threatened. Spending a couple of hours being driven round the centre by the incredibly passionate and knowledgeable guides gives a real insight into the plight of wildlife in Africa. The breeding programme for the cheetahs has been very successful and the centre is well-known throughout Africa for its work. Other residents include two young, male white rhinos whose mothers had been killed by poachers. The youngest is only three months old and lives with a tiny sheep that has become its closest companion – the little rhino was terrified of anything bigger!

As a wildlife lover with an interest in conservation this afternoon trip was fascinating. It allowed us to experience the country in more depth than we could ever have done on a normal training camp. It prepared me for the next few days of hard graft on the road and in the gym, and was an experience I’ll never forget.

As the camp draws to a close, I’m looking forward to my early return back home to my family. The camp has certainly done its job – I’m fitter and stronger, have escaped the arctic conditions in England for a while and I’m mentally prepared and excited about piling up some serious miles in the boat. Here’s to 2015!

Alex Gregory MBE

25Nov2014

Reconnaissance in Rio

I thought it would be a bit of fun. After a couple of weeks back at training, our three-week post-World break was long forgotten. A short trip to South America would fit into my schedule very well, thank you very much. This was something I wasn’t going to turn down in a hurry – a once-in-a-career opportunity to visit a different part of the world, without the pressure and stresses that come from a major event. I was taking it seriously but I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps it was more of a treat than a necessity. How very wrong I was.


An evening view over Rio from sugarloaf mountain.

We were flying off to Rio de Janeiro for an Olympic familiarisation and orientation training camp. It was to be a mixture of site visits, acclimatisation and training. A joint trip organised by GB rowing and the BOA (British Olympic Association), it was to prepare us for what we may face when the 2016 Olympics arrives. This is something that happens before every Olympics; before 2012 it was a small-scale affair, around London, on a bus.

We arrived in Rio late one evening under a thick blanket of warm South American air. Immediately I could smell the difference and I loved it. Weaving our way through city streets, forest-clad mountain peaks and beach-front drives, we arrived in a tiny, nondescript hotel in an area called Ipanema. It meant nothing to me. I was dazed, my time zones were out of sync and I was feeling a little sick. I felt excited about the coming days, but otherwise desperate for sleep.

The next morning I was awoken by the sound of traffic beneath my window. It was difficult to grasp where I was to start with as I looked out to the street below. The trees along the roadsides were covered with epiphytes, vines clung to the canopy and stretched down to the pavement – there was a prehistoric look to them all. There were a couple of guys lowering a wardrobe out of the window of an apartment opposite me, three floors up. The wardrobe was hanging precariously by what looked like a long, frayed shoelace. There was a chap below standing helpfully with outstretched arms, presumably waiting to catch it if something happened, like the shoelace snapped. I’m sure he would have been fine though, as he was wearing his protective Havaiana flip flops. I had woken up in a different country, that was for sure.


Preparing for a session on the ergo, looking out over the lake.

We were to meet as a group in the hotel lobby to walk our new commute to work. We would be training at the famous Flamengo football club, which was around 25 minutes from our hotel. En masse, 30 British rowers turned right out of the hotel doors and were all instantly stunned to see the sea shining straight ahead of us. An expanse of shimmering, glistening ocean stretched out before a vast beach of beautiful yellow sand. Palm trees framed our view and arched over us as we took the 50 or so steps onto the famous Ipanema Beach. Pulling our eyes away from the view, we moved through the streets, block after block towards our destination. The streets were already buzzing and you immediately had the sense that people had been awake for many hours before us. Even at 7:30am there were people well into their day’s work. We walked until the towering high-rise buildings opened up and we could see the spotless blue sky above. Stretched out ahead of us was another vast expanse of water –this time it was the city’s lagoon, or Lagoa. It forms a central focal point to the city, framed around all edges by busy roads and high-rise buildings, which are surrounded by huge, towering tree-covered cliffs. It makes an impressive attraction. Incredibly, this will be the lake we will race on during the Olympics in 2016 and for us to race not only within the confines of the city but right in its very centre, is going to be incredibly special.


The Lagoa - the statue of christ 2000 m away on the hill top.

Circling the Lagoa for another 10 minutes we arrived at our host club. Our training requirements were simple: a rowing machine (ergo) and a room full of weights. It’s rare to say sitting on an ergo is interesting, fun or even inspiring, but the machines were placed in the shade on the water’s edge. We spent hours on those machines looking out at the rowing course towards the start line. Christ the Redeemer stands tall, high on a mountain peak, arms outstretched, overseeing the city, and any rowers lucky enough to be on his waters. It was an incredible view, it’s an inspiring place, and motivation to race in two years’ time was rising with every stroke I took.


Standing at the iconic statue of Christ.

It wasn’t only the views that proved to be a motivation. What struck me more than anything during my time there were the people. There was a welcoming atmosphere that hung with me from the moment we arrived to the moment we left. All warnings and concerns of safety quickly disappeared. Striking up a conversation with someone was easy, people are happy to stop and talk, say hello as you pass, and there seems to be a genuine interest in one another. We became friendly with the rowers at the club. One young rower sat next to me for some of the ergo sessions, matching my rhythm, hour after hour. We chatted afterwards, as though we had known each other for years, and exchanged gifts when it was time to leave.

The best example I have of the passion and interest of the people was during one afternoon after a training session. I was walking back to the hotel, along the edge of the Lagoa, when a huge man in a vest stopped to chat to me. He was a local, setting up a small kickboxing ring on the grass to do a bit of training with his friend. We started talking; he was genuinely interested in why I was there, what I was doing in Rio and invited me to train with him. Looking at the size of him, the scars covering his face, and the jaunty angle of his nose, I thought it was better that I didn’t use that moment to take up kickboxing. Using the excuse of being very, very tired from my own training, I politely declined. He knew my game, but I felt that we were both better off after our exchange. Maybe he was simply looking for an easy target to kick, but I like to believe he was genuine. It was unusual, pleasant, interesting and something I wish we were more comfortable doing in this country. There were numerous similar examples where I was surprised by the friendliness and passion the local people had for life.


My Brazilian friend with my medal.

We were taken on tours to the sites of the Olympic Park, stadium and Olympic village, which, come 2016, will house 10,000 athletes and all the thousands of support staff that make up the teams. Much of this wasn’t yet fully built but work is well on the way. I left with an impression that things weren’t going to be finished early, but everything would be done on time…the Brazilian way.
I’ve only touched the surface here; the trip was filled with unbelievable experiences. I came home with a huge surge of motivation knowing that everything I do now is to ensure that when 2016 comes around, I’m sitting there in the shadow of Christ the Redeemer. I want to experience one of the greatest events on earth in a country where sport and passion are natural and part of life. London was a spectacular games and Rio will be even more so.


Ipanema beach at sunset.

Alex Gregory MBE
@alexgregorygb
http://www.alexgregorygb.com

08Oct2014

Season’s Finale…World Champs Gold 2014

I couldn’t have asked for a better end to a year. It’s very rare in rowing to have an unbeaten season, something I’ve only ever experienced once before. We finished our year at the World Championships in Amsterdam with a commanding win over the rest of the field, with USA and Australia winning the Silver and Bronze respectively. This result wasn’t unexpected based on form from previous events but there’s always uncertainty at the World Championships.


World Champions 2014

I’ve talked a lot before about pressure, expectation, what that means to me and how I deal with it. This World Championship final found us under pressure. An unbeaten crew in the season meant that if we didn’t win, it was likely we had done something wrong. I found the way to deal with this was simple: it was a case of knowing that through focused training for the last 11 months we had each proved ourselves worthy members of the crew. Through consistent performances as individuals and as a crew we knew we were good enough to win. This proof of speed and capability is a great source of strength at times when doubt may creep in. It didn’t combat the nerves but it reassured us all in our own ways that we didn’t need to do anything special. Sitting on that start line I knew that if I rowed the way I had been rowing for months, the opposition would have to do something they had never done before to beat me. We knew that if we all did what we had shown we were capable of time and time again, we would go fast.

Since the last regatta, at Lucerne in July, we had been through a demanding physical period. A mere three days after flying home from Switzerland we were back on the plane heading to our annual mountain retreat, Silvretta in Austria. As it often is at 2,300m altitude, the weather was unsettled and generally cold and miserable, making the long mileage tough and uncomfortable. The boat was running well from the start, however, and all four of us were performing excellently on the ergo and in the boat. This camp gave us an exciting chance to improve on our already great season, and finishing the two weeks there we were even more confident and excited to race.

One night at home to change kit, say hello to the family, then before any of us were able to blink we were as far away from the mountains and their unpredictable weather as it’s possible to get. Suddenly we stepped off another plane into the oven of the Portuguese summer, with temperatures rocketing up to 38 degrees. After the 5 degrees we had become accustomed to, this was a serious shock to the system. The coastal wind that blew was welcome on the face but not on the boat and we constantly had to battle with a persistent cross-wind for the duration. This was a very different camp, it’s designed as the sharpening final preparation camp where the mileage is really reduced and the speed work intensifies. After nearly 11 months of training, there’s not much more fitness we’ll gain at this point, it’s about holding that fitness and remembering how to move quickly!

For the first time since being selected in this crew we had our first wobble. After a week in Portugal, we had posted a really good time for a two kilometre practice race but there was still two weeks before the championships even began. We started looking for things to improve on that weren’t necessary and changing things that didn’t need changing. We started over complicating simple issues and found ourselves in danger of overdoing everything; we were losing the plot. A few days into this complication, with mounting frustration and the boat feeling tense and stressed we sat down and discussed what was going on. Jurgen was a fantastic mediator between each of us, who shared our frustrations openly. He forced us to look at what we had done already in the camp and the season, confidence in what you are doing is everything. He has absolute confidence that his methods and training programme works, we have followed his programme to the letter, we are a great crew, so with those factors together there is no reason change anything or look for more. Following this very open, honest discussion we gradually came together again and the boat started to run much more naturally once again. We were climbing out of our dip and thankfully moving to the other side.

I’ve raced in Amsterdam twice before. One terrible year in 2005 I blacked out during the final of the under-23 World Championships and another extremely forgettable World Cup event, the result of which I don’t even remember. My experiences and memories of the venue were certainly tainted and I was hoping to put that right this time. As we pulled up to the racing course for the first time, however, a feeling of despair came over me. The rain was teeming down, the wind was strong, it was cold and miserable. Taking to the water was an experience too; the contrast to Portugal where we had been the day before was vast. This was a small 2km-long lake, seven lanes wide, with crews of different sizes from all over the world circulating, which creates extremely uncomfortable water. It was lumpy, swirly and far from perfect. There was nothing we could do, this was going to be the reality, we just had to knuckle down and get on with it. Five days after arriving in Amsterdam we had become accustomed to the weather and water. We raced our heat, winning it comfortably. The same in the semi-final saw us lined up in the final as favourites and the crew to beat.

The pressure was on us, after this unbeaten season and the fastest crew at the championships so far, we still had to perform. George told me how nervous he had felt before the semi-final, a feeling I had in exactly the same way. As we waited to race we talked about how we were feeling, how nervous we were, what it meant and we laughed about it. We laughed at the strange situation we had found ourselves in and concluded that if we were given the chance to take seventh position but to have it all over and done with we would! Of course we weren’t serious about this but it helped to calm the nerves. It’s useful to understand how others are feeling at times like those and in a strange way I enjoyed the agonising wait to race.

We raced really well, it was nearly the perfect finish to the year. Our best start to date got us out ahead early and we controlled the race from the front. The US crew were strong and put us under pressure but we were able to hold them off and enjoy the run into the line in the fast tailwind conditions. As always there is an element of relief when crossing the line. Relief that we had met expectations, risen to the occasion and performed as we should. The over riding feeling for this win though was happiness. I was pleased that together as a crew we had managed to do something rare, something we all hope for in those dark painful days of winter. It’s a fantastic feeling to achieve something as a unit and for it to work in near perfect harmony.

My son Jasper was there in the stands watching so I was looking forward to seeing him. It’s not going to be for much longer that he’ll be able to watch his dad win medals so we are trying to make the most of that opportunity while he can. Having been away for nearly eight weeks, he was far more interested in playing with me than watching, but it was great to have him there.


Jasper & Me

So that’s it, another year over. My fourth World Championship title was a very special one in an incredibly enjoyable year. I’ve learnt over the years that putting the work in early means the rest of the year can be far more straightforward and rowing is so much more enjoyable when it’s kept simple. I’m currently an Olympic, World, European, National and Henley title winner, which is something that’s never been achieved by a British male rower ever before. As I move into the next season my target is to retain those titles!

As always, thank you Edison for supporting me in my sporting endeavours, it really does mean a lot!

21Jul2014

Lasting traditions

We do tradition well in this country. It’s something we take pride in, celebrate and deem an important aspect of being part of Great Britain. From royal occasions to sporting fixtures, we keep these traditions alive and well. One of the traditions that combines royalty and sport is Henley Royal Regatta. It’s an event in which we as the national squad try to compete as often as our programme allows and thankfully, we were able to race in this momentous year. 175 years after starting, the regatta still uses the same, very simple format. Two crews, side by side, racing the 2,125 meters upstream to the finish line. Over the years there has of course been some modernisation around the edges (grandstands are now erected), but everything remains as simple and as traditional as possible. To the rowers, nothing has changed. Out there on the water we could be back in 1839, racing against our competitors along the same straight-line stretch of the River Thames. Sitting on the start line, looking directly into the umpire’s boat, watching the red flag raised above his head, poised, ready for it to fall to his side indicating the start of the race transports you back to that very first race 175 years ago. It’s probably even the same little red flag!

 

spectators_stewards

The spectators are closest to the water at the start. Everything is tight and close, a mere inch excess room between the end of my oar and the bank as we guide our boat carefully from the warm-up area onto the start pontoon. Someone waits, lying on their front leaning over the edge, hands dangling into the water ready to hold our stern steady and secure for the start. In this position we sit a few feet from spectators, our feet tight in the boat shoes, theirs hanging in the water enjoying a picnic and a glass of Pimm’s in the sun. Generally, people are respectfully quiet for us as we sit trying to focus. It’s difficult not to look and become distracted by the murmuring, pointing and whispers. I find my mind wandering, wishing I could be there relaxing with them. None of these people is about to put their body through this terrible pain, this severe discomfort that will probably cause vomiting in about six-and-a-half minutes’ time. Why isn’t it me sitting there on the bank enjoying the day with some friends? But then I remember that not many people can do what I do, many will be watching us race past wishing they could be in my seat. I have this fantastic opportunity to do something I’m good at and that I love. It’s something I can never forget. 


For the first 750 meters my blade tip is within a few feet of the bank, the shouts and cheers are close, seemingly in our ears. I’m rowing in a boat with three members of Molesey boat club, self-named the Black Death, referring to their black kit and I suppose the terror they try to bring to their opposition. As the only Leander member of the crew, I’m out on a limb. All I hear down the course is support for Molesey, one of the disadvantages of being so outnumbered in the crew. This is another tradition, one that has grown in the modern era of rowing. Two of the largest clubs in the country, with arguably the most recent success, depending on who you speak to, are rivals to the core. There isn’t much love lost here and I’m outnumbered three to one. Thankfully, my crew mates are good men and allow me along for the ride! I happen to have rowed for Molesey in my early days and raced for them at Henley Regatta in the Thames Challenge Cup way back in 2003. This year my brother is also racing in black in that same event, so my loyalties are split.

Honestly, I dislike the animosity some people have for one club over another. I believe it cheapens the sport, brings us down to a political level where opinions are based on rumour or perceived evidence. I understand and fully condone rivalry on the water, it’s excellent to want to beat a crew from another club, even to hate them for those moments on the start line or in the closing reaches of a race where you are bow to bow, surging for the line, trying to expel every last ounce of energy from your being. Then you can hate your opposition, think whatever you need to think to get over that line first – that’s sport, but leave it on the field of play. There is a lot of unnecessary disdain – even jealousy – and it’s something I could definitely do without.

 

Henley2014

As the halfway point in the race approaches, you’re right out in the centre of the river at the furthest point from the spectators. The crews are hemmed into a tight lane, just wide enough to allow two eights side by side. Wooden booms mark the lane – enormous posts driven into the river bed with long wooden struts floating between each one. It’s an impenetrable barrier and the cause of many bitter disappointments over the regatta’s 175 years. If you collide with one of these beams it’s the end of your race, probably the end of your boat, too. These delicate racing shells don’t stand much chance against a 10x10-inch floating oak beam. It’s all part of the challenge of the course and the boat’s steersman has a huge job to do. There is a lot of pressure on getting and holding a straight line off the start. An inch or two too far to the left or right and you could find yourself in trouble. Add stream and a beady eyed umpire to the mix and there’s no margin for error. Luckily I don’t have that responsibility and Andy down in the stroke seat holds the reins. Andy steered us perfectly in both races, keeping us close to our side, but not too close that we feel uncomfortable. If one of us touched our oar tip on the boom, causing us to catch crab, we could easily break a rib, be catapulted out into the Thames or worse, all of which have happened before and are things we dread. It’s an art, a very tricky skill and I don’t know anyone better at it than Andy.


 

Henley2014

As we start to draw closer to the enclosures where the grandstands are built, the crowds are growing and the riverbank bends back towards the racing lane. Spectators are close again and you can hear every shout. It’s a great feeling to be leading at this point – to be racing for your country and club at the same time, to be leading the French by well over a length, to be in control and to have everyone on the bank on your side is unreal. The competitors’ enclosure is rowdy, loud and a hive of activity. It’s great fun to be rowing past that point, around 300 meters from the finish line. A surge of adrenaline climbs, matching the roar of the crowd. Edging closer to the line we reach the start of the Stewards’ Enclosure, where traditions are stringently maintained. The noise level drops, but polite applause carries us down the course. There’s an occasional roar from a Pimm’s-fueled rebel reclining in a river-fronted deck chair, but otherwise the atmosphere is civilized. As the line draws nearer we are shrouded in shadow by the finishing tower looming over us on one side and another structure rising high out of the river on the other. Crossing the line we slump down in our seats, muscles relaxed at last, but with acidic blood surging through every tiny capillary. This year we have raced two French crews to take the win in the Stewards’ Challenge Cup. It’s the third time I have won this event and that’s even more pleasing as it means we are still an unbeaten crew. A week after this Henley final we will be racing the final of the World Cup regatta in Lucerne, where we hope to prove our control and dominance on this event even further.

As the 175th Henley Royal Regatta finishes, everything is deconstructed, removed and pulled from the river, the town of Henley-on-Thames returns to its tranquil ordinary life. The event for which it has become world famous is forgotten by most for another year. Spare a thought for those rowers who, in a matter of days, will start the long road of training again. Another year spent training to try to grasp one of those elusive, Henley medals. That’s the tradition.

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18Jul2014

Happy to be racing in France

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It was in a different rowing life that I last visited Lake Aigubelette in France, a short drive to the east of Lyon. Then I was a skinny, young sculler heading to my first senior World Championships. This used to be the location for the final pre-World’s preparation camp for the GB men’s heavyweight team before the French realised the true virtues of the beautiful lake and threw us out. Despite a disappointing result at those 2007 World Championships in Munich, where we failed to qualify in the boat class for the Olympics, my memories of the camp remain strong and very positive.


It truly is a beautiful lake; deep turquoise water, warm to the touch and surrounded on one side by a towering tree-covered cliff rising at least 500 metres and stretching far beyond the water’s end. We access the lake from the village, a small spattering of houses along the water’s edge shrouded in trees. I was really looking forward to getting back to this place, racing out on the clear-glass water and hopefully improving on our performance from the European Championships a couple of weeks previously.


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This event was to take on a slightly different format to the one we’re used to in a world cup regatta. The standard heats would be replaced by a ‘time trial’ that would ‘seed’ the next race. This is fine in principle if the number of entries to the event allows for semi-finals. For us, with a relatively small entry of only 10 nations, the time trial meant we were racing for no reason at all. The result of the time trial wouldn’t change anything, it was nonsensical and, we discovered, optional. The reason was to provide practice for the officials. If weather conditions at a major competition like the Olympics become unfair, it’s possible that everything will have to be done in this time trial format. It would be a disaster if an Olympic final turned out to be a time trial with no side-by-side racing, as it would change the sport – but it is possible. We decided to use this extra (unnecessary) race to practice our start sequence and first quarter. We would then ease off and row the rest of the distance at training intensity. In our minds there was no need to expose ourselves and show our true cards and it was worth ensuring we were fresh for when the real racing started. As expected, we posted the slowest time, with some crews putting together a full race. Nevertheless, it was a good opportunity to practice what we need to be able to do blindfold come the final of the World Championships in August.


The following day the regatta started properly for us. We were drawn in a heat with crews we hadn’t met this season, with Canada the strongest on paper. Pushing off from the landing stage to go out to race is always a nervy time, it’s our final link to the land and, I suppose, communication with others. Jurgen never says much, maybe a word along the lines of “enjoy”, but this time, nothing. He bent over to pick up our shoes as we pushed away, free from the land. As we paddled out further onto the l ake and headed up towards the warm-up zone, I found the nerves fell away. We were moving into our realm, the place where as a four we spend most of our time. We were comfortable in this 25-foot-long, one-foot-wide, 5mm-thick boat shell. As we got closer to the race start area, the water became rougher and rougher. The lake opened up to our left, exposing around two kilometres of water open to the wind. By the time it reached us, the swell had risen to a very uncomfortable size and we were thrown from side to side. This made rowing tricky, to say the least. With no warning, the boat lurched down to one side, then the other. There was very little consistency from stroke to stroke and it was impossible to predict where the boat would be in our movement pattern. The only thing you can do in that situation is to keep your body relaxed, let the boat move the way it is forced and make the best of it. Water like that is not something we enjoy rowing on, particularly during the essential warm-up of an important race, but it’s not uncommon and we know now how to handle it. Despite the water, we were physically ready for what was to come. 

 

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Sitting on the start line 40 minutes after pushing away from land, we were called to attention. Ready to race, poised but relaxed, watching the traffic light, waiting for the starter to call ‘go’ and the light to change to green. The water had died down a little by now, our start was strong, long and powerful. It felt great to get moving and immediately I had a good feeling about what we were doing. We won the race comfortably over Canada, showing that we were really aiming to take on this event. We posted the fastest time of the two heats in a race that didn’t stress us too much physically. It was a good sign.

 

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 It’s rare that any of my family come and watch me race as most are abroad. My parents both have jobs, so time away is difficult to come by, but this time Mum and Dad managed it. It was great to have them there, especially in such a beautiful location. They spent a week walking beforehand, preparing their cheering voices for the inevitable battle on land of the loudest-cheering nation. The difficulty was finding time to catch up with them once in the race routine, as there’s so much to do before and after a race. This time I managed to jog down to the stands to catch them and spent an hour on the lake side, watching racing while chatting in the sun. It’s great to be able to enjoy rowing with them. For so many years I was miserable after a race, wanting to hide away and not speak to anyone. I suppose it was a feeling of embarrassment, frustration and failure. I felt like I let myself down time and time again and would feel disappointed that my parents had come to watch me perform badly. Thankfully, for now, here in France things are different. Those miserable times in the past allow me to appreciate what I do so much more and enjoy the good results when they come.


The day of the final was upon us. Australia posted the next fastest time to us the previous day, with USA close behind. They were the crews to watch, but none could be underestimated. The water was perfectly calm with very little wind. The wash from the umpire launches spoiled this pristine surface, they really seemed to make things harder for us as they stormed up the lake following every race. It was a shame, but something we just had to accept. I was nervous on the start line, but also very calm and confident. I truly believed we could win, but it wasn’t just about winning, but about developing our way of rowing and putting together more of the pieces that make up a really good race. It was about finding the rhythm that no other crew can keep up with. I was less nervous about the result and more about getting it right.

  

We got off to a good start – not our best, but it was fast and very quickly we eased our bows into the lead. I could sense we were ahead, but the USA and Aussies were hanging onto us. Moving through the 1000-metre marker at about three minutes in, Moe called for a squeeze and we applied the pressure through the stroke together. It’s something we practice a lot and is best described as an undetectable squeeze of power through our oars in the water. Barely visible from the outside, our bodies shouldn’t change, but our hull should lift as we hopefully increase speed. This move worked well, very well, and we quickly opened up a clear water lead on the field. It had worked, but the race wasn’t over. We hadn’t needed to sprint in any race so far. With 500 metres to go, Moe made another call, another squeeze and we felt our boat lift again. It wasn’t such a dramatic move this time, our legs were really burning, our lungs rasping but we all had to commit. 250 metres to go, about 30 strokes, Andy took up the rate, we were sprinting hard, but we weren’t pushed. We crossed the line five seconds ahead of the Aussies, a great feeling.

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We took our second gold of the season in a race we were pleased with. I think we all agree there’s more to come. We had probably rowed parts better in training, but that’s all part of the challenge: to transfer the skills from training into the pressure of racing. The next few months will be crucial in getting that right. We’re under no illusion that those other crews are the finished articles yet, either. Both the USA and Australia have recently come over to Europe, both crews will be adjusting to time changes after long flights, and both had substitutions on board, so were not at full strength. We really can’t rest on our laurels – we’re currently in a good position, but we must be quicker!

10Jun2014

The European Championships

This was to be the first time I’d ever competed in the European Championships and I was really looking forward to it. The Europeans are never on our racing schedule. Normally held later in the summer, they don’t really fit into our plans for World Championship preparation, but now the event is earlier in the year it’s a perfect fit for our first international race of the season.

I was excited for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was held in Belgrade, Serbia, which I first visited back in April 2012, the first world cup event of that Olympic season. It was a nerve-wracking time, but my memories of the place were very positive. It had been scorching hot, the water was surprisingly clean and clear with a long beach extending on either side of the 3km stretch of water with restaurants and bars strewn its edge – the atmosphere was electric. Even the nudist beach at the far end of the lake provided some entertainment, so as I’m sure you’ll understand, I was looking forward to getting back there! The second reason was the boat. I was selected in the coxless four following our extensive trialling period. It’s the top boat and a change from being in the eight last year. In many ways it feels like I’m coming home, back into the boat I spent four years racing in leading up to London 2012. I know the way a four should move, the way the opposition tend to race, I feel confident and experienced in the four, so was really excited to get racing. Finally, right from the first day of this new project we had been going really well. I’ve talked a lot in the past about how crews gel; some do, some don’t and some just take time. Thankfully, this new crew worked well right from the start and we immediately found good speed. It’s always such a relief when getting in a new crew for the first time – expectations are high and when it works, a real wave of excitement hits and you just have to ride it. This was one of those crews and as the three weeks we had to prepare for the event passed, the anticipation grew. I couldn’t wait to get out there, test ourselves against true opposition and put our new speed into action.

In preparation for the first event of the season every year, the whole team takes part in a ‘speed order’ where every selected crew races 2,000m and the times are all compared against each other. It’s a whole team affair and we can indirectly compare ourselves to any of the crews – men, women or lightweights. This comparison is done by working out percentages of world record times, so a ranking across the team can be accurately measured. We put together a great race and managed to come out on top in a pretty fast time for this early part of the season. This was the first test, an excellent start and a good indication that we were doing well.


A typical Belgrade Street

When I arrived in Serbia I was eager to get racing. After a short illness the previous week, I was thankful to be there, fit and ready. Belgrade was just as I remembered it, decrepit high-rise flats surrounding run-down industrial areas plastered with graffiti. Around another corner there would be a tree-lined street with large town houses, bars and shops. It’s a strange city with continuous reminders of its turbulent past. The lake is perfect for rowing: long, wide plus plenty of space for warm-up and warm-down areas. We rigged the boats and soon became accustomed to the water and its subtle differences to the water at home. I would say that every lake or river around the world has a slightly individual feel. Water is water, of course, but temperature, sediment levels, proximity to the bank and many other factors each create different feelings and perceptions of speed and connection. It takes a while to adjust.

The following day it was time to race. Time to put all the questions behind us and prove to ourselves that what we had been feeling in training was accurate and our speed was genuine. Lining up on the start line after a really strong warm-up, I was feeling nervous but in a very good way. I had confident nerves. Our start was strong and very quickly we found ourselves way out in the lead, clear water ahead of the closest boat. Sitting in the bow seat has the potential to have a great view of the race unfolding you, but sitting in front of me was the man-mountain Mohammed. It’s dark in my seat, he blocks out the sun and so I’m forced to focus firmly on a small patch of his back. I’m aware of where we are in relation to the rest of the field, but trying hard to concentrate on getting things right in my seat. We cruise home, lowering the intensity gradually over the last part of the race, it’s a really good start with a new European record time to go with it.


Race day

We find ourselves in a very similar situation the following day in the semi-final. We were critical of our performance despite the win in the heat and the need to improve on certain aspects of the stroke and race plan. We went out with commitment and intensity, streaming ahead early and gaining a clear water lead in the first quarter. We raced hard, but at the halfway marker (1,000m) we were in a quandary. We didn’t need to push on and damage ourselves physically before the final, so as discussed, on Moe’s call we controlled the power we were exerting, held the speed and didn’t push right to the finish line. The result was another clear water lead and this time we’d improved slight mistakes we made in the heat. Everything was going well.

After racing we ensure we properly warm down. Even though we didn’t put in a full race, including the sprint to the finish line, it was still a huge strain on the body. It made me sick and the lactic acid tends to make standing difficult for a while. We walk, row on the ergo, then walk again, during which time we replenish with plenty of recovery foods. Then it’s back to the hotel for a meal, time to unwind in our room, shower, lie down and rest the body. Each evening we take another walk to keep the blood flowing in our legs. It also serves as an exploration of the surrounding area. Before we know it it’s time for the final meal of the day, the evening crew meeting with Jurgen and early to bed.

The day of the final dawned and we left for our early morning outing, warming up the engines after a night’s sleep. We were all feeling positive and confident because of what we had already achieved that weekend, but eager to get everything right. The wait is always the worst part of any regatta. Sitting around watching the clock, willing time to pass. Eventually we found ourselves on the start line and were off.


The view from the boat

It was the final of the European championships. You must never underestimate your opposition, but we felt we should win this as long as we didn’t make any major mistakes. We took the lead early just as we had done in the previous two races and extended that lead right through to the halfway marker. As we came into the second half of the course, we squeezed on the speed, and with burning legs and grating lungs we surged forward, extending our lead just a little more. I felt in control of the field – someone would need to have done something incredible to have got back on terms with us now, but Greece was on our heels and not going away. We pressed hard on the legs right through to the finish line, something resembling a sprint taking us over the line, but by that point our win wasn’t in question. We are all European gold medalists for the first time, and it was a great feeling. It turns out the time was another European record despite the fact that we weren’t really pushed by the opposition. It was a really good sign that we could produce these speeds at this time in the season, a very pleasing end to the first regatta of 2014.


Medal ceremony in Belgrade

To top off the weekend, I managed a first in British men’s rowing. I became reigning Henley, national, European, world and Olympic champion, which is something that as far as anyone can tell has never been done before. It’s a record I’m very proud to hold and great motivation to keep the results coming!


Reigning Henley, national, European, world and Olympic champion

01May2014

Review of a wet winter

It’s been a nightmare winter for British rowers with water levels and flow speeds at dangerous levels for months. Not only has this prevented people from getting out on the water, but boat houses have also been flooded and whole fleets of boats totally destroyed. Rowers are a hardy bunch, however, and with few other options the cogs on the ergos have been heating up all over the country. Now that the flood levels have returned to normal there must be a whole country of very fit rowers ready to take on the national competition circuit, boat skills may be lacking for a while, but I’m sure everyone will be able to pull harder for longer!

Thankfully for us the lake we train on rises and falls regularly in line with the river level, but being separated from the river by land we can continue to train no matter how high it goes. The biggest issue was getting into the car park, but wading into icy water at 7am every morning is the perfect wake-up call for the day ahead. With eye-wateringly chilled feet, we would climb the steps onto dry land, warm up our digits as we changed, then step back into the water to pull the boats off the indoor racks. At its highest, the lake must have been well over six feet above normal levels. A couple of inches more and we could have rowed out of the boathouse. The conditions weren’t ideal, but at least we were able to get water time and complete the miles set out for us, technically improving as our fitness continues to grow. Every month we have some form of testing or trial, much of which is water based so it’s crucial to get this time whatever the weather, whatever the conditions.

Pictures of Caversham lake, wading in, the daily wake up!

My training has been consistently good so far this winter. I have been stronger than ever on the daily ergo, posting times that I have only ever reached before at a push. The physiological tests have shown improvements and the water work, training pieces and internal trials have given me an excellent position in the team. I can’t honestly say I’ve enjoyed every session. Heading out in wind, sleet and thigh deep in stinking flood water is not something I particularly enjoy now I’m in my thirties, but the satisfaction of those last few strokes at the end of a session is immense. Leaning out of the boat to reach the landing stage, pulling yourself towards it knowing you’ll soon be warm and dry indoors, out of the elements with the benefit from the session building up inside you, is something I love and crave. It’s a huge part of what keeps me going, what motivates me to keep training and at the moment I’m seeing the results.

We get a respite from the weather. It comes in the form of a training camp to Aviz, Portugal. A chance to get out of our pairs, take the tension away from selection for a couple of weeks and work on bringing the team together as a whole in the way we row. It’s a huge mileage camp where Jurgen really goes to town with the number of kilometres he sets us to complete. The idea is to sit in an eight or a four and follow the man in front of you while being followed by the man behind for hours at a time. It gives us the opportunity to break down our individual techniques and rebuild as a unit. It’s also one of the best and only chances to really enjoy rowing without an immediate threat of selection looming. We strip rowing back to the basics of enjoyment and improvement.

All too soon our time in the sun is over and we’re back on flooded home waters. Training resumes in pairs and yet again we battle with freezing wind from the north bringing white-capped waves over the sides of the boat. It’s a far cry from the flat Portuguese water, but it’s the time to dig deep in our resolve, so I put my head down and get on with the rowing. We’re home for three weeks before we head back to Portugal for our pre-final trial training camp. There’s just enough time to fit in a pretty serious physiological lab test to discover how effective my body is in oxygen uptake and absorption. It’s a two kilometre ergo test, maximum speed, flat out, the worst of all tests made more difficult by having to wear a mouth piece and a nose clip. This is to prevent any breath escaping and so ensures all inhalations and exhalations are monitored through the mouthpiece. It’s as fully monitored as possible and hard to beat on the pain front. Unexpectedly, with all this hardware attached I managed to produce a personal best, which is great to have at this point in the season. The data gathered will show how effective my body is during intense physical exercise and will be used to make sure I improve and increase efficiency while on the water. Transferrable skills are the aim of the game and ultimately everything I do on land needs to be transferred into boat speed. So far so good, but I know there’s plenty more that needs to come!

The dreaded lab test, head gear and all!

 

23Apr2014

Final selection trials, 2014 – winter is over

I’m writing this on the evening of Easter Sunday, the day after Moe Sbihi and I crossed the line to win our GB final selection trials. I have plenty to fill you in on from the past couple of months but while the event is fresh in my mind and emotions are still being felt, I need to get this into words.

It’s the biggest national event we compete in, and by the biggest I mean the most important. It always feels to me like a mountain to climb, a hurdle of stress and worry, one that must be overcome if I want to compete for the reasons I’m in this sport – international racing. I have competed at these trials every year since 2003. Many have been a disaster, some acceptable, plenty pleasing, but up until yesterday only one that was a success.

In 2009, I changed discipline from sculling to sweep rowing and was lucky enough to be put in a pair with Pete Reed, who was fresh from his first Olympic success. We won the trial and this was the springboard I needed to be selected in a boat that would give me the best chance of winning a World Championship medal. Since then, despite becoming both World and Olympic champion I have never made that top spot at our final trials and have become well acquainted with second place. I was determined to change that this year.

Moe and I have had a fantastic couple of weeks leading up to this event. From the beginning of our partnership we felt a comfort and compatibility in the way we applied our power. Boat speed after all comes from what happens under the water, so this was a good start. Delayed by a mild but lengthy illness on my part, we quickly came together and posted some fast times in training. We held this speed for the two weeks on training camp in Portugal and returned to the UK confident in our chances. All we had to do was replicate what we had been doing in training and not make the mistake of trying too hard to do something special. The problem is that I wanted something special to happen here. I wanted to be able to show what we as a crew are capable of when it really matters. In training behind closed doors we can produce great speed time and time again; the pressure was on, it had to be done here.

As we arrive at the venue, the Redgrave-Pinsent Rowing Lake in Caversham, memories of past trials spring to the surface. Those disappointing years when I had the ‘potential’ but couldn’t produce the goods when I needed to; those times on my own in a sculling boat when everything I did in life revolved around achieving a good result at these trials. For weeks, even months beforehand, I would wake feeling my heart hammering in my chest with nerves and worry. It was the fear of failure and letting people down. Those memories, however deep I have buried them over the years, still bubble to the surface at this time of year, dull but irrefutably present.

Due to the forecast high winds on Easter Sunday, the trial was to be completed all in one day instead of being spread over two. This was no big issue; in fact, it would play well into our hands. We have both had a great winter of training; we are pretty much as fit as we could possibly be at this time of year so three races in one day, however tough, were going to be okay for us. This would change nothing to our approach.

During the pre-race morning paddle I couldn’t quite shake off the tension I had been feeling. It’s difficult to describe, but it’s when your body doesn’t quite move in the loose fluid movement it’s used to. Tension in the muscles that can’t be released, it’s almost a subconscious freezing of my inner core. Nothing to worry about but I just had to keep reminding myself to relax. We sat watching the time trials of the events before us, battling against the ever-growing wind. This headwind would make races long; correct pacing would be essential. I felt calm on the start line and every now and then I would feel a wave of enjoyment. This would disappear as quickly as it arrived as I remembered how much I wanted to do well – the tension was still there.

Our start was clean; the first pair to race down the course meant we had an open lane ahead of us and we quickly settled onto a good, fast rhythm. It wasn’t quite what we had been feeling in training, but we were into the race and feeling okay. Calling a slight rise in the pace at the halfway marker was spelling trouble for me. I knew we needed to raise our effort to maintain speed but everything was starting to become really hard. I felt the pain and knew the upper limits of my capabilities in this race were quickly coming into reach. There wasn’t much further I could take this and we still had a long way to go. Half heartedly making the calls as our race plan dictated, we moved into the last 500m when my body started to lock up. It’s as if your bicycle brake gets stuck down and is rubbing constantly on the rim. My legs felt like lead, my stroke shortened and I was clinging onto Moe’s movements for dear life. Crossing the line was an absolute godsend and with blurred vision and searing pain through my body we paddled the boat back to the boat house.

Racking the boat as quickly as possible, I had to run. Blood pumped behind my eyes, my temples felt like they were going to explode. Diving for a quiet corner I slumped onto my hands and knees and wretched loudly, producing a stream of vomit. It took 10 minutes for this extreme reaction to abate, my insides were strained and empty, and my eyes were bloodshot and watering. This is the reaction I often get after a morning race; it’s normal for me, although this was an extreme example. The tension and nerves probably contributed, but I always find the sickness is like a pressure release. I immediately feel looser and more internally relaxed; although my body has been severely irritated and I have suddenly developed a cough that will last for two weeks, I feel so much better. After a long warm down to flush out the huge levels of lactic acid, a big meal and a short lie down, I was ready to face the opposition again in the semi-final.

The results of the time trial had been released; we had been beaten into second by the crew we were expecting to be closest to. George Nash and Andy Triggs-Hodge are both excellent athletes, so we knew they would threaten us. They proved they were going for the win with that opening performance, but after an honest discussion with Moe we knew we hadn’t yet produced anything near our best. We had fallen into the trap of wanting it too much and trying too hard, and over pacing the race on my part cost me physically. Despite still feeling terrible, I knew I would now be able to perform to a far higher standard after releasing the tension inside. Lining up on the start line of the semi-final there was one thing on our minds: row naturally and row our own race. The start was clean despite the rough water, and we quickly moved to the front of the pack. Easing out to a comfortable lead we simply maintained our pace right through to the finish line. No need to show our cards, we had command over the field behind us, control over our speed and most pleasing for me, I had control over my body. We were back on track and warming up for the final.

One of the most difficult things about having three races in a day is the time in between. Roughly three hours between each race allows for an hour to warm down and a quick snack. We refuel for 30 minutes, leaving an hour for quiet contemplation, which for me was spent desperately trying to ward off sleep. The lethargy I felt was difficult to control after the adrenaline high, the body’s reaction to intense physical exercise and mental stimulus that seemed to multiply tenfold in the comedown. I needed to lie down to fully relax my body. As soon as I was horizontal, whatever surface I was lying on, the softest mattress or the coldest concrete, it felt like the most comfortable place in the world. When the time came to change and prepare for the final this feeling remained, but I was ready to get the job done. I was ready to show what we could really do and looking forward to having this stressful nerve-wracking day over and done with. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but was sure that if we reproduced what we knew we could, we would win.

Sitting behind Moe on the start line of this final I felt calm, still slightly lethargic but filled with excited nerves. The wind was strong on our backs with the water bouncing up around us. The words of Moe’s prayers drift back to me and have become strangely comforting. His words in Arabic have become the norm and tell me he is prepared and ready to face whatever we come up against. I know Moe is feeling good; he hasn’t used up everything today, not even close, and he turns to let me know that. I’m in the driving seat here, I hold the reins. If I say ‘go’ he will respond and it’s my job to stay with him. Once again we get off to a good clean start, the pace is instantly high and we move together just as we have been in training. I see nothing but Moe’s back as I count strokes. After 250m I look up to see we are in the lead – it’s a great feeling. You can’t win a race off the start but you can lose one. We haven’t done that here, we have started well.

Our rhythm develops through the middle part of the course and we extend our lead to clear water over Andy and George on our left. There’s a larger gap to the other crews on our right but I don’t allow myself to look over. Through the 1,000m marker we slightly increase the pressure, the boat lifts and I’m feeling strong. The other pair comes with us and as expected they start to apply their pressure. The race is on, it’s all about holding it together now for the final three minutes. I know Moe has plenty more to give but how much more do I have? I need to be able to go with him and add to the boat as the rating increases. I hold off making another pressure call; they come back level with us, perhaps edging their bow ball ahead with 250m to go. The move has to come now; I force a sound out, Moe knows what it means, and we push hard under the water. With everything we have we increase the boat speed, the rating rises and we surge ahead again. I’m putting everything I can in to holding the boat straight; I’m willing the finish line to come. We are back in the lead and I’m sure we are going to win this; everything we have done in the recent weeks tells me we have the speed needed to hold off the opposition. In training I must now trust. Eventually 0.83 of a second ahead we cross the line to win.

It’s incredibly satisfying to have won this race; it’s cemented my position at the top of the team for this year and although in the grand scheme of things it means very little, the confidence this gives me in my training and technical ability is invaluable. We will all have to go through this process two more times in the following years leading up to the next Olympics. Positions will change and I will have to work even harder to hold my standing ahead of the others in this incredibly strong squad, but for a few days I can enjoy the result.

Crew selections will be made in the following two weeks.

The GB rowing team announcement for the coming season will be on 14 May.

Our first international competition of the 2014 season will be the European Championships, Belgrade, 30 May-1 June.

19Mar2014

Alex Gregory in South Africa

Watch my latest video blog documenting my training in South Africa.

13Jan2014

Mixing it up in Boston

Swapping and changing crews around has always appealed to me, particularly through the winter period when most of our training and racing is done in pairs. To put unexpected combinations together, thus levelling the playing field, is a step into the unknown and a good challenge to keep us all on our toes. It’s a chance to row with members of the team we wouldn’t usually get a chance to row with. This became reality when Jurgen decided to mix us all up and join some of the more experienced guys with the newer athletes. This is a fantastic opportunity to pass on the technique and experience we have developed over the years in the team and to learn from fresh enthusiastic young blood.

I was lucky enough to be paired with Matt Tarrant, who was new to the team in 2013. Matt stroked the coxless four to fifth place last August in Korea at the World Championships. There is no doubt he is a talent, and with a gold medal from the U23 World Championships to his name he has a bright future. I was very pleased to be paired with him and despite never rowing together before, knew we could give it a good shot. We gelled well from the start and found a rhythm in which we could both sit comfortably and confidently. I was in the stroke seat and Matt allowed me to row my length and rhythm and adapted to my technique very quickly. It’s really important in a pair to allow each other to move freely and not force compromise. We discussed this and both agreed we were on the same page right from the start.

Training consists very simply of miles – miles and miles of low intensity training – and this is what builds up our main base fitness over the course of the year. These miles on the lake at Caversham allow us to build up second nature too. They embed the feeling of the other person sitting behind or in front of you in the boat. They allow you to know without thinking what the person is going to do next, how they are going to move and react. It’s all about feel and this second nature comes from those hours together on the water. Training was going very well with Matt, we showed very good speed and with more intense pieces added to the programme, we managed to post times that placed us right at the top of the team. I tried to pass on a calm relaxed attitude, to never get flustered by anything that happens on the water and to be confident in what we were doing. This is easy to do when performances are good and times are fast. Always in my mind were the times in the past where I have done everything perfectly in training, won pieces, posted the fastest times, but when it actually came to the important race or trial someone else would beat me. This is something I have learnt to be very aware of, but not to get worried by, it’s all about performing when it really matters and using training to your advantage whether the fastest or not. I think we dealt with this really well and learnt a lot in the few weeks we were together.


Training at Caversham Lake

We travelled up to Boston (Lincolnshire) for the dreaded 5km time trial with plenty of confidence, but never complacency. There are too many highly skilled extremely experienced athletes in the team who thrive on hurting themselves badly for a long time, which is simply what you have to do in this race. Paddling up the 5km stretch of water from Boston Rowing Club to the start line, we knew there was going to be a strong headwind to contend with in the last 3km. The water was looking and feeling rough, so we needed to save enough energy to be able to cope with that effectively. Sitting behind me in the bow seat, Matt talked us through the race as we warmed up in his typically calm, simple way and we both felt relaxed and ready on the start line.

Without going into too much detail, this race hurt – badly. We started off in a great rhythm, very relaxed with a slight cross tail wind following us down the course for the first 2km. Once round the sharp corner, the wind hit, the water picked up and we were suddenly struggling, fighting our way through the waves. Matt stayed calm, sitting in my rhythm and using his power to propel the boat through the wind, ever closer to the finish line. I was concentrating on maintaining our good length of stroke despite the gusts pushing us off balance. The calls to squeeze on our rate and intensity came at the expected times from Matt and both of us with burning legs and lungs sprinted for the finish line. It felt like an appalling display of technique from me in that last 500m, but after 20 minutes of racing I couldn’t hold my form and just did anything I could to get over that line.


The last agonising stroke of the Boston trial

The reports from all the other crews limping off the water were very similar, “impossible to tell how we did” or “that wind hit us hard”. It’s a huge relief to hear that others fared in a similar way to us. As the results filtered through, it came as very pleasant news that Matt and I had won, finishing three seconds ahead of the next crew. We had done enough to win the trial and put ourselves in a great position for the next few months’ training. We had worked well together, communicated honestly, in detail but without complication. We made a good partnership, we have got to know each other much better in the way we deal with situations on and off the water, the way we train and the way we race. If we find ourselves in the same crew later in the year, we will already have an advantage. This project was an excellent change to the norm and our win at trials finished it off very well.

Matt Tarrant and me

Link to GB Rowing team write up about the trial:
http://www.britishrowing.org/news/2013/december/14/gregory-and-tarrant-amongst-winners-boston-lincs

 

04Dec2013

Fours Head of the River

I was pretty excited about getting into a quad, a boat I haven’t rowed in since my devastating 2008 season. I had been suffering from recurring rib stress fractures all season, and with the final chance to qualify a GB quad for the Beijing Olympics looming I just had to be fit. Unfortunately, a mere two weeks before we were due to fly out to Lucerne for the qualification regatta I took a dodgy stroke during a training session and searing pain shot through my ribcage. I knew I had just reignited a problem that had only recently gone away and I was in trouble. I was taken out of the boat and my chance of going to the Olympics was over. That was the end of my Olympic dream and I was a hair’s breadth away from giving up rowing for good.


At the 2007 World championships racing in a quad

That was my last experience in a quad, so five years on it was a pleasure to get back in that boat class and start again. I was stepping into the seat of the recovering Pete Lambert, who has been out of the boat recovering from a slight back problem. Pete has been with us at Leander and in the GB squad for a year now, and I am pleased to call him my friend. Pete is a great character, fun to be around, extremely popular and a very impressive athlete who, despite his relatively small frame, pulls his weight above and beyond. This was highlighted last August when Pete stroked the GB quad to a historic bronze medal – the first ever World Championship quad medal for GB. He is a class act and someone I did not particularly want to replace – a hard act to follow.

Since my sculling days I have kept a close watch on what has been happening in the sculling world, and I truly admire the crews out there winning medals. It was something I could never manage, or even get close to in those days, so I have always watched the techniques and rhythms of the top crews of the world with interest. I was excited to try and put into practice what I had imagined over the years, and in the stroke seat of the Leander quad I was given this opportunity. Backing me up in the boat was Charles Cousins, a phenomenal athlete, who I truly believe over the next few years will develop and grow into one of the world’s best scullers. Johnny Walton, another very skillful athlete relatively new to the team, with the heart and racing ability to match anyone out there, someone I could truly trust to put everything he has into the race. Finally Matt Langridge, one of the most natural rowers I have ever had the pleasure of rowing with. All in all a great crew – this was going to be fun. We would be racing one of Tideway Scullers’ ‘great’ boats and I was really excited about coming up against the current world’s best single sculler Ondrej Synek, the World champion quad stroke man Valent Sinkovic from Croatia, the Azerbaijani sculling star Aleksandr Aleksandrov and GB’s very own Alan Campbell. There was no doubt we were up against it, but we would take the challenge by the scruff of the neck and give it our best shot.

The few days we had to prepare for the race were fantastic. We put in some good mileage and had some solid sessions while training on the river at Henley. The boat felt good, we gelled well from the start and, most importantly to me, we had fun. It was not only a break from our routine, we were excited about going out to race and discovering how we fared against some of the best in the world. This race is a seven kilometre time trial held over the reverse boat race course, Mortlake to Putney.


The course from around the halfway marker through Hammersmith bridge towards the finish

We set off first – crew number one. It was soon clear that the tactic of Tideway Scullers’ super crew was to chase us down close behind. With barely clear water between us through the start line we were under pressure from the word go. We had discussed this possibility before the race and had decided we would stick to our plan: stay calm and cool, whatever they did. They were soon upon us, clearly moving faster through the water and as we settled into our race rhythm they made a push and very quickly moved alongside our boat. All credit to the two steersmen of both crews, as we were centimetres from a clash at one point, which was thankfully avoided. Sticking to our steady race rhythm, which was supposed to see us build in speed over the length of the course, the Tideway crew were able to move ahead of us and therefore control the race from the front – the position we had so quickly lost. I didn’t feel at all demoralised; I believed we could still pull together a good strong race and really wanted to push them more and more down the course, and hopefully keep the gap they had on us to a minimum. Once we were through the first marker of Barnes Bridge, the water really became pretty rough, we struggled a little and caught a few crabs here and there, which upset our rhythm and thus we performed poorly in this section. Once we turned the bend and the water flattened out we came onto something that felt good, sustainable and on the higher tempo we had planned. From here we had lost the Tideway crew and were racing ourselves. There were some good motivational calls coming from inside our boat and we kept pushing right to the line, but of course we were way down on a much faster crew.

The result wasn’t totally unexpected. What was disappointing was how quickly they had overtaken us. In hindsight I think we should have been able to adapt our plan in order to react to what the other crews were doing. If we had I don’t necessarily think we could have beaten them, but I’m sure we could have held them off for longer and given them a proper race over the first half of the course. We should have done everything we could to stay ahead for as long as possible and deal with the consequences of that further down.

I don’t row for the ‘Fours Head of the River’. I row to compete internationally, with my main focus on World Championships and the Olympic Games. Events such as this one are to proudly represent our club and to have fun, to race for enjoyment with less pressure and to take things a little less seriously. These events are important for our sport at national level and I go to them to enjoy rowing, whatever the outcome. Obviously, the idea is to win but if that doesn’t happen I don’t dwell on the result. I had fun preparing for the race, with guys I enjoy rowing with in a boat class I am not used to but loved improving in. The race wasn’t ideal but I enjoyed the event and revised some important lessons in racing. All in all the week has been a positive one. Fair play to the winning crew; they were a class act and I need to do a lot more sculling if I want to get closer to them in the future!

11Nov2013

Family matters

The timing was (almost) perfect. I arrived back home eight days after Daisy was born when I was about to start my three-week annual break from rowing. I was returning with my third world title, but honestly, all I was excited about on that long plane journey, long wait for baggage and the slowest ever taxi ride home was picking up my daughter for the first time. Korea had been special, a momentous occasion for us as a crew and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I was ready to put rowing to the back of my mind for a good couple of weeks.


The first time I ever held 8 day old Daisy

Meeting Daisy for the first time was strange. I hadn’t been there at the beginning of her life, which I’m sure is usually a bonding time for everyone involved. When I watched Jasper being born four years ago, he immediately felt like he was ours, like he belonged and I was meant to look after him. But walking in the door eight days after this new baby came into the world, to me she was just an object, a thing, of course a baby, but not necessarily mine. I loved her immediately, she was sweet and I could see her resemblance to Emily and Jasper, but it took three days for the real bond to form. Everything clicked one evening when I was bathing her and as I looked down into her eyes it all just fell into place. The contact we had together there and then sorted everything out and she was suddenly mine, she felt like part of me and I felt as though at that moment she forgave me for missing her birth. (It will take many more years for Emily to forgive me!)

The three-week break just disappeared. We always try to fill them with activities, to make up for the family time we miss during the year while I’m away on training camps, but this year it was as though time was getting sucked away from us. Before I knew it, I was back on the lake, circling round like a fish in a bowl.

It was great to be back training. Life is different – I would say hectic now with two children, but something I discovered was that my fitness really didn’t drop off much during those three weeks. There is simply no time to stop and vegetate with a four-year-old and a newborn, so life itself becomes one long training session. I returned to training with renewed vigour, excitement about the year ahead and feeling in really good shape. My weight had suffered a little in Korea; white rice and vegetables for three weeks, although delicious and healthy, just wasn’t quite enough compared to the high-carbohydrate, protein and sugar diet I get at home. It was a big change and took its toll on me, so while home I really tried to pack in as much food as I possibly could while I had the chance to build myself back up again. This seemed to work and I came back heavier, stronger and only slightly less fit than I had been in Korea.


The single is a lonely place.                                                                                                     
The time had come to get back in a single scull. Sculling is where my roots lie in the sport and I have spent many painful years trying to reach a standard to be able to compete with the top scullers of the world. I attended four World Championships in sculling boats, but each time returned home mortified at the outcome. In some ways, sculling is a different sport requiring slightly different skills and rhythm. Although I am comfortable and capable in a single, when it comes to racing, I just haven’t yet found the answer. We are all encouraged to dust off our singles during this first six weeks of the season and get some miles under our belts in the lonesome craft. We spend hours each day honing our skills and pushing ourselves through the wind and waves in ridiculously unstable racing shells. The blisters develop on hands and fingers within the first 2km of a 200km week and remain painful and disruptive to all aspects of life for weeks, until finally callouses form. The single is a lonely place, the only person to blame for a mistake is yourself. A couple of the sessions on the water dragged on for what felt like longer than my three-week break, but there is always the feeling of immense satisfaction when returning home at the end of the day knowing those lonely hard miles will make me fitter and stronger. The fact is, I loved getting back out there on my own. It has been four years since spending any length of time in a sculling boat, so the sessions brought back memories and provided a real challenge. It’s all too easy to fade into a state of comfort, especially in a sport as monotonous as ours. Getting out there developing a new skill is important and when I return to my ‘sweep’ boat, I know I’ll be better off having spent this period in the single.

23Sep2013

A long way from home, Korea 2013

Crossing the line in the lead to win the World Championships is a feeling that will never be forgotten. As with most races that go well, it’s a relief that immediately floods in, closely followed by a deep lactic acid burn! After the final in Korea I felt this like never before and really couldn’t enjoy the moment.

We cross the line, stop, slump down in our seats and there’s a few shouts, a fist pump or two. Phelan the cox still has fully functioning limbs, so he stands and celebrates with exuberance for us. I’m in a bit of a state after this one, my vision is blurred and I can hardly bend my knees to row on again as Phelan directs us over to the landing stage to receive our medals. I crawl out of the boat, head pounding and really have to put in a huge effort to stand upright. We all congratulate each other there and then with big manly hugs, although mine I’m sure are limp and weak. We are of course all genuinely pleased for each other. This time we have done something that has never been done before – no other British eight has won the World Championships title. It’s something I was very proud to have achieved and to have been a part of.

For me personally, this has been an extremely special trip. As a family we have become accustomed to events happening around us, with me often having to miss them. A wedding here, a party or family get together there, but never before have I missed quite such an important event. Daisy was born on 25 August, the night before our first race in Korea. Luckily I was present for the birth of Jasper nearly four years ago, but sadly this time I was 5,600 miles away. We expected this and planned accordingly. It was possible that she could be born once I had returned back home, but it was going to be unlikely. Low and behold, the day of our first race and still a week to go in Korea, things started happening back home. I went to bed knowing that at some point in the night I would be awoken by a call from my mother-in-law, telling me of the birth of my little girl. At around 2.30am I was awoken by a call. Clambering out of bed and rushing into the corridor I was told Daisy had been born and all was well. I obviously didn’t say much or appear particularly emotional because I kept being asked if I was okay. I was more than okay. I was exceedingly happy that everything had gone smoothly, that baby and mum were fine – I was just tired and had a race the next day!

So, waking the next morning on a bit of a high, I told my teammates, who were all incredibly supportive. We raced the heat with conviction and excitement. It had felt like a long build-up to the start of the competition and we were all itching to stretch our legs and get out there to race. We won the heat, beating the USA who had so convincingly beaten us just a few weeks earlier in Lucerne. It was a great start to the regatta and a day I will never forget. The day I missed my daughter’s birth!

Qualifying straight for the final meant that we now had a week to sit and twiddle our thumbs. Of course, training continued and actually it was imperative that we continued to keep our bodies ready to race and in sharp form. It’s such a difficult task to find the balance between race preparation and enough rest. We dealt with the training well, using two days in the middle of the week to fit in some long race pace pieces, which gave us a good couple of days for recovery in the lead-up to the final. It was a difficult time for me because I was so eager to get back to meet my new little girl. I spoke regularly on Skype and was sent photos daily but it was no substitute. However, we had a major job to do and I had to make sure I remained focused and showed the other guys that my mind wasn’t wandering back home too much.

At last the day of the final came. The plan was to go out hard, raise our boat to top speed early and maintain that right into the second five hundred metres. The plan was all about consistency and reducing the time
drop-off between each quarter. To maintain speed throughout the length of the course sounds obvious, but it is mentally and physically a difficult thing to do. It’s a hard way to race and makes for a painful journey, but there’s no doubt that’s what we did and needed to do. The Germans had the lead over us to the first marker, but over a matter of a few strokes we managed to pull in front and ease ahead. This was our plan working – keeping the speed up, not letting it drop and pushing out into the lead. We kept inching ahead and really pushed into a commanding position through the middle of the race. Normally this would be a good feeling, but honestly I wasn’t aware of where we were relative to the other crews. My eyes were boring into Pete’s back in front of me, concentrating solely on pushing my legs; my mind was shut off to how much this race was hurting! The lead we gained grew a little and we maintained it through the main body of the race. In the closing few hundred metres the German crew came back at us fast with a sprint that was noticed, but they were running out of room to catch us. We ended up winning by a small margin to become the first British crew ever to win the World Championships gold in an eight.

Back in 2009 at the start of the new Olympiad, I ended the season with my first Worlds win. It was a good start to the run-up to London, and now we have started the same way in the run-up to Rio 2016. Time is ticking; I must now keep the momentum going!

30Aug2013

Enjoying the mountains…

As I sit writing this in my room in South Korea, we are just a few days away from our opening race of the World Championships. Six weeks have passed since Lucerne, where we had a very disappointing fourth place finish, but this has been flung right to the back of our minds. We have been through an intense period of training at altitude, where we have broken down our stroke and built it back up again from scratch. We have had a crew order change, refreshed our outlook on the next and most important stage of the season and, as a result, found speeds we weren’t finding before.

Our altitude camp in Silvretta was almost a repeat of last year. We arrived there on the back foot having been beaten and desperately needing to find something new. Jurgen often says, “losers train harder,” and that is certainly what we did. We sat down as a crew and discussed in detail our goals and objectives of every session in that three-week period up the mountain. Every water session needed to have a specific purpose. We needed to move in unison so every mile on the ergo would be side by side, becoming mirror images of each other. Everything was aimed towards becoming as close together as possible in those few weeks and, without going as far as chewing our dinner in time, everything else was done together.

The four of us stretching our legs

My aim for this year has always been to enjoy what I do, and make the most of this incredible opportunity I have to be a full-time athlete while I still can. While my body is able and my ambition remains, this year is to be enjoyed. London gave me what I needed; now I’m rowing with a little less pressure on my shoulders. With this in mind I took more time to look at and enjoy my surroundings up there in the mountains. I have been visiting this place for three weeks every year for the past seven years and have never really taken the time to appreciate where we are. Thousands of tourists drive, walk and cycle past us every day, taking photos, with our lake being the main attraction. We are the mad English guys rowing round and round, getting changed in the van as they stroll past. We row hour after hour in a dark garage and lift weights in the car park. We are a tourist attraction ourselves for a short time. But to us the lake is a tool. We are in the mountains not for the views but for the oxygen-depleted air, and there are no tourists in our team. We are there to do a job, so just this once I took a few seconds every now and then to stop and look. The amazing spell of good weather helped a lot. In my seven years of training there, at some point every time it has snowed. There has never been a week without wind and icy rain but this year was different. It was as if the mountain gods were smiling down on me, allowing me to soak it all in. Bright blue cloudless skies accentuated the snow-capped peaks and the sun shone down on our backs as we built up the mileage on the water. I really was enjoying myself.

The lake from above


The lake and our boat

Free time comes in dribs and drabs on this camp. With three training sessions a day, five meals and a 15 minute walk (uphill) from our rooms to anywhere, we are left with very little time for relaxation. I managed to catch an episode of ‘Dexter’ – this year’s chosen series, read my book or just tried to recover from the strains of the previous sessions by lying still. The fatigue builds up over the days and weeks; we are effectively broken down and, just like pacing a race, you must last the distance and cross the finish line. By the end of the camp I was empty and physically exhausted, but in a good frame of mind. The whole crew completed every session very well – this fact alone will bring us an enormous amount of confidence coming up to racing.

Our home for three weeks

As Silvretta drew to a close, we pulled in the buoy line for another year. Most of the long mileage for the season was done, we have the fitness in our legs and our lungs are strong. All that’s left is to introduce the real speed work, to transfer everything we have worked on at low intensity to high racing rates and speeds. It’s here in Korea that we sharpen ourselves up to the point ready to race.

Phelan Hill and Andy Hodge enjoying the view

It’s exciting travelling so far to compete in a place we have never been to before. With such intense, hot, humid conditions, South Korea is so different to anything we are used to. It has taken a week to get comfortable outside and the training sessions on the water have been tough, but I’m gradually finding it easier to work and move as my body adjusts to the heat. We have to drink litres and litres to maintain hydration and eating is difficult with a stomach full of fluids. White rice is the staple and I’m fast becoming sick of it. But I’m feeling strong, the speed work is improving every day, the boat moves well and we feel confident we can put some good performances together. Top two in the heat will send us straight through to the final a week later – that’s the aim. Now we must put everything together, do what we have done in training and the result will be there for us. Nothing is going to be easy; our opposition are fast and we must race with guts and heart, but, knowing the guys I’m with, that’s exactly what we’ll do.

09Aug2013

A roller coaster season…

With the racing season well under way, the last thing any of us need is to get ill. It started with swollen glands high in my groin – these developed over a week until they were the size of golf balls. I needed help. A blood test indicated I had glandular fever. This was a blow and it came as a huge shock; I had only ever heard bad things about glandular fever and the time it takes to recover. It was an immediate halt to exercise, rest at home for a week, then another blood test to see if any improvement had been made.

We had recently returned from the Essen regatta, somewhere we do not usually attend but this year it fitted into the calendar very well. Essen is a traditional German regatta, great fun to be a part of and a very different experience to the formal World Cups we are used to. Racing is held over two days with a different event each day. I raced in the four, where we were beaten on the surge by a fast German crew that just managed to out sprint us on the line. However, the main focus and preparation had been for the eight on the following day, and so with fire in our bellies after the narrow defeat the day before we attacked and stormed into an early lead. We won the race, beating the reigning Olympic champions Germany, and finishing off the weekend very well.

Not long after returning from Essen and with preparations for the Dorney World Cup well under way, I was taken out of the boat and sent home to recover. It was a frustrating time knowing that I was going to miss out on the first international regatta back on the Olympic course since the Olympics. After a week off training the results were positive. There was a significant reduction in the infection and I was given the all clear to start exercising again. I was to take it steady, with a week of light aerobic training and weights. There was no pressure for me to get back in the boat before the regatta; I wouldn’t be racing so I could take my time, build my strength slowly and get back in the boat when I was totally recovered. I made use of the time and enjoyed it.

Leading in the closing 200m at Henley

The Dorney World Cup came and went. I stood on the bank and watched the guys pull back from a poor result in the heat to win the event overall. Considering the unsettled lead-up this was a very good result and something the crew were quite rightly proud of. The next day I was back in the boat along with George Nash (Olympic bronze medallist in the pair) who had been finishing his studies at Cambridge. We hit the ground running, I was feeling well recovered and strong and the boat seemed to fly. We had an excellent two weeks of training where we were finding speeds we hadn’t seen before. Motivation was high, we were all looking forward to the Henley Royal Regatta where we would race in an international event called ‘The Grand’, representing our clubs. It’s a chance to really enjoy a historic, traditional event on the Thames, something we all relish and love being a part of. The entry was small but we came up against Washington in the final, who had beaten Poland to get there. We were expecting a very tough race. We started hard, rowed well, the boat felt energetic and had plenty of life. We gained an early lead before the end of the island, three hundred metres, in and maintained this for the next two thousand metres. Crossing the line we discovered we had won in a record time, the fastest crew to have ever rowed over the Henley course. A proud day for us all in front of our friends and family.

The 2013 Henley Crew

There was no time to dwell as we were back to training the next day and on the lake preparing for Lucerne, the final World Cup of the season and a regatta with a big emphasis. It is the last chance to test speed out against the competition before the World Championships, to find out what needs to be done or how far ahead you are. Full of confidence from Henley we headed out to Lucerne sure of a good result. We would be meeting the German eight again and a new USA crew. We were under no illusions that these crews would be quick, but we were confident with the speed we had.

Pre-race preparations - Lucerne 2013

At the start - Lucerne 2013

The heat was underwhelming. We were missing the spring we had felt from Henley, that excitement in the boat and the long confident strokes we had been working towards in training. We found ourselves in the repêchage, which again was lacking. There was something not quite right, we weren’t locking onto the speed we had been getting in training and we couldn’t quite put a finger on why it wasn’t working. Thankfully we made the final, but we were beaten into fourth place. An extremely disappointing result, and one we had not hoped for. There was a little confusion among us about why we hadn’t performed, which we discussed at length. I believe there are a few genuine reasons for it, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that we were beaten by three crews that were better than us on the day. We have some work to do in the next month before the World Championships, but just like last year before the Olympics, that is exactly what we will do. It’s no bad thing to be beaten,as it will give us targets. We now know the winning crew is three seconds faster than us so we must gain more than that to be winning in South Korea. We will head up to our mountain retreat in Austria and go back to basics, revisit each and every part of our stroke. We will push ourselves that little bit more knowing we aren’t good enough and we will arrive in Korea a new boat and a new crew. Whether we will have done enough we will soon find out, but every day until 1 September we will be thinking about the USA, German and Dutch crews that put us behind them in Switzerland. Don’t write us off just yet, we have plenty more to give.

Watch the final from Lucerne here:

http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/fisa/site/index.html?video_id=11838

04Jul2013

What is teamwork?

I’m really excited to get back in the eight after taking time out to race in pairs for trials. It’s good to be back in a team again, in the mix with my rowing family. I can now stop seeing everyone as my competitor and we can start to work together again and move forward as a team. It’s exciting to be part of a big crew, and in rowing there’s nothing bigger than an eight.

Teamwork is something that comes up so often in all walks of life. It means different things to everyone, but I’m not sure if it is always put to best use. I believe that if everyone knew the true benefits of teamwork, tasks could be achieved so much faster, more effectively and efficiently. Everything we do in rowing relies on working together as a team and so over the years my perception of what good teamwork is has developed. I’m sure there is no such thing as ‘the answer’, but I’m on a journey of discovery and enjoying the challenges and rewards when the answers are found.

Rowing is unique in many ways, but one of the most interesting parts of what we experience day to day is our interaction with each other. Teamwork is a necessity; without it we wouldn’t even get to the start line of a race. It is present in every boat class, between every athlete and every coach. The whole British rowing team is defined by and relies upon teamwork in one form or another, but it is never more apparent than in an eight. It relies on eight athletes, one cox and a coach working together in mind and body, to ensure that everyone is moving in exact unison. Any tiny difference in timing, positioning or mindset can have a negative effect on the speed of the boat. Everything we do in our training and racing is directed towards maximum efficiency and boat speed, so reducing those discrepancies is of paramount importance.

Rowing is often about deception. The best rowers make everything they do to onlookers seem easy and effortless, despite putting their body through excruciating agony. This can also cause difficulty for the coach, as often everything appears to be going well from the outside. It may look as though the boat is flowing, the crew look to be rowing in time, in harmony, and moving in the correct positions with no obvious problems. But so often, all it comes down to is a feeling in the boat that only we rowers are aware of. The boat may feel heavy, sluggish and mistimed, and as a result we don’t hit the expected times. This is where our teamwork is tested. We must use our senses to feel and hear where a discrepancy is being made. We communicate through movements, all eight of us experimenting on command of the cox. This is difficult; it takes skill to subtly feel and make a change together as a unit of eight individuals. When the right change is made we will feel the hull puck up, the bow will surge forward, the coach will notice the surge of the boat and he will see the difference on his stopwatch. It’s so good to hear one of the guys calling out “yes” or “good” when they feel that change, especially when you feel it too. It brings confidence, excitement and enhances the positive feedback from overcoming a problem. It’s so incredibly satisfying to work through problems together while out on the water in relative silence, in a crew where unity and movement is the answer. That is teamwork.

Communication is key, physical communication transferred to one another by our movements in the boat. But of course, verbal communication is equally so. Before every session we will discuss what we plan to achieve, how we are going to do it and how we are all feeling about it. After the session, once the boat is back on the rack, we discuss whether we achieved our goal for that session, what worked, what didn’t and how we can change things the next time. Everything is open, everyone has their say, and everyone is listened to. There can be disagreement as much as agreement. Not everyone has to feel the same way about everything; we are after all ten individuals (coach and cox included), all with different perceptions of feeling, motivation and beliefs. However, one thing links us all above everything else – we all want to win. It doesn’t matter how we get there as long as we eventually meet in the same place, on that finish line, in the lead.

After a great start to the season in Sydney, the team has felt incredibly strong, which bodes very well for the coming months leading up to the World Championships. With a couple of changes in the crew after trials, the project continues with enthusiasm and vigour and, I must say, the eight is a good place to be.

                       

11Jun2013

Final trials

With Sydney behind me, I find myself back on home water with peeling skin beneath layers and layers of kit. The recent World Cup down under was a teaser for what’s to come later in the racing season, but now we are back to the routine and my least favourite part of the year.

Happy to be back on home water. Caversham Lakes – cold, windy, but still a bit of sun!

Jumping from an eight straight back into a pair is a tough thing to do. The speed of the eight is enormous in comparison to the far slower pair, and that takes some getting used to. Pete (Reed) and I get off to a shaky start to say the least, and we really struggle through training. We have no qualms about admitting that we are not a natural combination in a pair and the differences in our boat-moving fingerprints really show up. Rowing is so reliant on the crew moving in absolute unison with immaculate timing, so any minute discrepancy can upset the balance and the run of the hull through the water. We found this to be the case right from the start but it was a situation that we couldn’t easily get out of. Everything we tried seemed to make very little difference and when we had exhausted our ideas we were left to fight our way around the lake every session. When sitting in the stroke seat it is so important to set up a strong consistent rhythm for the person behind to follow and work off. I found this difficult in our situation so I felt I was letting Pete down. Pete is an incredible athlete with amazing physical capabilities and because of the way we were rowing we were not getting the most out of him. It was a very frustrating time for us both.

There are always tough times in rowing and I’ve learnt that if you just stick out those times you will come out the other side a stronger athlete. Of course, we ploughed on in our own inefficient, uncomfortable way and discovered that when doing timed pieces, we were very competitive with the rest of the team despite our slow training speed. We discovered that as the rate increased, there was less time in each stroke for our differences to show, so we came closer together and moved better as one. It was by no means perfect; we really had to work hard physically for the speed but it was there – the confidence we needed!

A spot of free time between sessions.

Before we knew it we were on a plane again, this time headed for Portugal, our usual pre-trials training camp venue. Soon into the camp we came to the decision to swap seats, so Pete would stroke the boat and I would move to the bow. This seemed to help our situation, as suddenly Pete could use more of his immense strength, move freely and get the most out of himself while I could adapt to his movements and steady the boat from the bow. As the days get closer to the trials the atmosphere changes, each pair closes down and becomes reliant on their own small unit. We shut our competitors out and conversations become forced and uncomfortable. I always find this a shame – teammates one day to enemies on the water the next. It’s an annual occurrence but one I will never get used to.

Fully prepared and ready to race we head back home to Caversham, the home of British rowing. It’s unusual to hold this event here but I’m glad of it, as it brings a slight sense of familiarity that helps me keep calm and relaxed. We start the two-day racing programme with a time trial, setting off one by one down the course at thirty-second intervals. We have a good race, forcing every ounce of energy and power from our legs in the closing hundred metres. Time trials are tough, there are no tactics involved as you risk not getting into the top 12 and missing out on the semi-finals. It’s all about racing hard from start to finish then waiting for the results! With a thorough warm down behind us we discover we have come a pleasing second place, a good start to the weekend. We move into the semi-final later that afternoon and take control of the race early on. We race hard and put together the best rowing we have so far this season. It’s a good day’s work and we head home feeling positive and relieved that we managed to pull it together when we needed to.

Sunday dawns and finals day is upon us. There is a matter of pride at stake here as the winners of the final can claim to be the leading pair in the squad for a year, which gives bragging rights as well as putting them in the best possible position for crew selection. We go out to win, but early in the race we fail to find the same rhythm we had the day before. Crews we comfortably beat are alongside us for far more of the race than we would want. We press on and gradually move ahead, but Andy Triggs-Hodge and Moe Sibhi have taken a lead and are controlling the race in front of us. This powerful, slick combination have been consistent in training and have shown great speed right from the start. They maintain their lead over us and cross the line victorious. Bragging rights are theirs, we come home second.

Racing at final trials. We both represent Leander club.

It’s not too disappointing considering the difficulties we had leading up to this event. We finished in the position we needed to be in, despite it not being the one we wanted. Crew selection is the next stage and Jurgen will make the decision over the next couple of weeks as to which boat to prioritise for the coming season. As ever, the important thing is to keep performing and pushing the training on to show that I am invaluable to whichever crew I am put in. The season really starts now.

06May2013

Victory in first World Cup regatta of the new Olympiad

Watch Team GB row to victory once again in the first World Cup regatta of the new Olympiad. Held in Sydney, Alex Gregory and his teammates achieved their first international victory since London 2012. Having moved into the eight, and with two newcomers, the team has made a fantastic start to 2013 and the new racing season.

26Apr2013

Sydney, 2013 – first World Cup of the season

Arriving in Australia was everything I expected it to be. The heat hit me like a smack in the face, waking me with a jolt after 24 hours in an unhealthy, air-conditioned aeroplane cabin. After the winter we have experienced, this is just what my body is craving and I immediately start to feel my muscles relax.

The Opera House, taken from an afternoon trip by boat to Manly Beach. We’re real tourists!

We spent the first four days in Sydney acclimatising and slotting into the new time zone, which I managed with relative ease. It’s absolutely unheard of to have free time on a training camp but here, for these rare four days, the afternoons are ours. We finish training and head off to the chosen activity of the day; most popular is to get our pasty white torsos out on one of the local beaches. Sydney Harbour was a must, with a stroll around the Opera House and a meander through the city. I had the chance to meet up with an old school friend who I hadn’t seen for six years. Incidentally, he was the friend who first introduced me to rowing 13 years ago, so it was really quite an emotional moment meeting him and thanking him for doing so. However, this precious free time came at a cost, as Jurgen managed to squeeze in a sizeable schedule of painful gym work for us to complete before we could enjoy ourselves too much. With the promise of the beach in our minds, the daily ergo and weights were an accepted necessity.

Bondi Beach – the preferred destination for post-training relaxation.

These four days of enjoyment had to come to an end, so, after a three-hour bus ride south we found ourselves in the vastly contrasting town of Canberra. There was immediately a different feel to the camp; we were no longer tourists but here for business. We were here to compete in the first World Cup of the season; in fact, the first international event since the Olympics. I was competing in the men’s eight, which comprised a mix of athletes: two of my crew mates from the Olympics, a couple from the Olympic eight and two new members of the squad; Matt Gotrel and Lance Tredell were being thrown in at the deep end. This was to be their first senior international regatta and as an older, more experienced athlete, I wanted this to be a special and successful trip for them. These guys are both exceptional athletes and fitted into the crew extremely well right from the start. It was a pleasure to train with such enthusiastic guys, and from the first stroke I knew I could count on them. We spent 10 days in Canberra with a heavy programme of mileage on the water. It was an exciting boat to be a part of and started off with a very strong platform from which we knew we could build an effective race performance.

Early morning on the lake in Canberra, 11 March – my birthday!

We were all thriving in Australia, and astounded at how much the weather can affect mood and attitude. Rowing in an all-in-one rowing suit, instead of three layers with leggings and a woolly hat, made life so much simpler. We weren’t restricted in movement and I found I was always ready to perform. My body felt constantly warm and so the physical effort of ‘warming up’ just wasn’t such an issue. I loved every aspect of being there and preparing to race.

As the days to the event grew closer and we travelled back to Sydney, I started to realise what this regatta meant to me. We were soon to be racing on the Sydney Olympic course, the same water that Steve Redgrave won his fifth and final Olympic title on. Since the summer of 2012 I will forever be a part of the coxless four history that he started, and now here I am, back on the shores of Penrith, about to race again. What’s more, the Sydney Olympics was the first time I had ever paid even the slightest bit of interest in rowing, as it was in that same year that I first stepped in to a boat, thanks to my friend Alex who I met on our third day in Australia. Everything was linked, everything was falling into place and it all felt good.

The venue met all expectations; it was how I imagined a grand Olympic course to look. Preserved in the Sydney Olympic spirit, it has been used solely for rowing ever since. We trained and prepared on the lake for a few days before our heat, but we were all raring and ready to go. This was fun, exciting, and there wasn’t the overbearing, crushing pressure I had felt the last time I raced during the Olympics. I really enjoyed the feeling; the result didn’t really matter. Would any race ever matter again? However, I wanted to prove that I could win in a different boat class. I wanted the new boys to be encouraged by standing in the middle of the podium with a gold medal hanging around their necks, and feel the pride that comes with that moment. We won the heat with relative ease. Pressure from a strong US and Australian crew in the first half meant we had to work to cross the line ahead, but it was a strong first performance. We came away with some clear ideas on how to improve our performance, but felt positive and confident.

Men’s eight, plus cox: Phelan Hill (cox), Andrew-Triggs-Hodge, Pete Reed, Alex Gregory, Moe Sibihi, Matt Gotterell Lance Treddle, Tom Ransley, Dan Richie.

The morning of the final was a little more tense. There will always be nerves from the uncertainty about what’s going to happen. I know how much every part of my body is going to hurt, and that makes me nervous. I will probably be sick afterwards and will definitely have a pounding headache for the rest of the day, followed by a cough that will last for weeks. However, if we win, it will be worth it. We attack the race from the first stroke; a fast committed approach sets us up well for the first quarter. I’m not used to the noise the start of an eight’s race brings. Six coxes screaming through their microphones at their crew, shouting instructions, motivating the rowers; the clunk of 48 oars across the lake and the spray flying from the blades, which slice through the puddles. Its an incredibly noisy place to be, but that heightens the senses and brings adrenaline pumping in excess. An eight’s race is fast, the markers come quickly and before I knew it we were extending our lead, stretching out past the half-way marker and ahead of the rest of the field. The race was over in a heart-pumping flash and we finished a good length ahead of the closest crew. This was a great start to the Olympiad and a perfect end to one of the best trips I have been on with rowing, but I was most pleased for our newcomers who achieved their first international victory. The racing season has begun.

The crew with our gold medals – the perfect way to end a perfect trip down under.

Click the link below to watch the final of the men’s eight:

http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/fisa/site/index.html?video_id=11292

17Apr2013

Some like to rinse cottage cheese…

I recently started reading a book about one of the most intense rivalries between two athletes that has ever been seen. During the 1980s Dave Scott and Mark Allen were far and beyond the world’s best triathletes and dominated the triathlon scene. Their rivalry came to a head in 1989 during the Hawaii Ironman. After seven hours and 58 minutes of racing side by side, Mark Allen edged out into the lead and broke Dave Scott, who came in second. It was these athletes’ vastly contrasting approaches to their training that really struck a chord with me.

Mark Allen (closest) and Dave Scott during the 1989 Hawaii Ironman. They were side by side for seven hours, 58 minutes.

Mark Allen was a natural talent. He was easy going, quiet, insular and even laid back, whereas Dave Scott was an unusually hard worker, incredibly tenacious and anal in his approach to his training lifestyle. He carefully measured and recorded everything, including his nutrition routine (that was so strict he would go so far as to rinse his cottage cheese to remove excess fat) to get the best performances possible. This is an extreme example of an athlete wanting to be in total control, removing any variables that may hamper performance. His method worked for him and suited his personality, but what really fascinates me is that everyone is different.

Nutrition is a major factor in performance and is something we all take very seriously, but I take an unscientific approach to my dietary needs. To me, food is fuel and I have come to learn over the years how much I need, when to have it and what will happen if I don’t eat enough at different times of the day. Each individual is different and we all react differently to quantities and qualities of food; some get it right, some get it wrong, but generally we all hold our weight stable and maintain energy levels day in day out for years.

I have always struggled to eat enough. I’m not someone who particularly enjoys stuffing my face and I will rarely finish my plate and fill it up again out of pure enjoyment. It certainly became an issue in the lead up to the 2008 Olympics, when I was constantly struggling to hold my weight. I battled with myself at every meal to force food in just to get through the training. There was no growth or physical development, just purely surviving. Losing weight was so easy; if I missed a meal or didn’t quite eat enough I would feel it in the boat and see it on the scales. So many people said to me that I was lucky to have this ‘problem’, but for me it was exactly the same battle as someone desperately trying to lose weight, the difference being I was trying to put it on. I was training among Olympic champions, people at the top of their sport who were as strong and as fit as anyone can be. A good friend of mine gave me the nickname ‘stick man’, which, although very funny, also affected me. If I was thin then I wasn’t strong, so if I couldn’t pull hard enough to get the scores so I would never be good enough. There was certainly a psychological issue here and something I needed to overcome if I wanted to succeed.

2008 Beijing Olympic spares with coaches, on the night of the opening ceremony.

On returning from Beijing where I was Olympic spare, I set myself the goal of gaining 8kg of muscle, which would put me at 100kg body weight. I would be significantly stronger, hopefully post better times in the gym and on the water, and therefore have more confidence and improve overall performance. This would involve a strict weights routine but also a different approach to nutrition. I sought advice from the team nutritionist, at which point we concluded that my diet was healthy and balanced, I ate good quantities and had tried for years to increase body weight but made insignificant changes. I needed something else. As dodgy as this is beginning to sound, it was not of course. I had to go through the correct channels to ensure the supplement I was given was drug screened and suitably tested and certified. Once I was given the all clear I added a Science in Sport (GB rowing team supplier) supplement to my current daily intake. Overnight I doubled my calorific and protein intake by consuming these supplement drinks and, coupled with the strict and intense weights programme, I instantly started to see changes. My weight was rising, my strength was matching this rise, body fat held stable and within three months I had reached my 100kg target and had put on 8kg of lean muscle mass. My teammates had returned from their post-Olympic break by this time and I was already in full flow. I had taken the opportunity to catch up with them while they were resting, and suddenly found I was matching and beating those who I had always been behind. That year I was selected for the coxless four and in September 2009 I became World Champion for the first time, having been sitting on the side lines as reserve 12 months earlier in Beijing.

Seconds after crossing the line at the World Championships in Poland. First World Championship win.

This sudden change of fortune was not down to one sole factor, but I strongly believe that overcoming my nutritional issues made a huge change to my physicality as an athlete. Five years on I continue to supplement my diet with the carbohydrate protein supplements that are provided to us by Science in Sport. Some do not see it as necessary, but I feel it is an important part of my training routine. We as heavyweight men aim to consume around 6,000 calories a day, but honestly, I’m not counting. I eat five healthy meals a day, eat as much as possible in between, know when I’ve had enough, know when I haven’t and I certainly don’t rinse my cottage cheese.

My Son Jasper (age three) can’t wait to get stuck into his cake. He’s showing early signs of a chocoholic!

18Feb2013

Post-Olympics training

As if nothing had ever happened, I find myself back on the river, back in the gym and back into the routine to which I have become so well accustomed. I’m not going to lie – I haven’t found it easy. The alarm was a painful sound after three months of getting up whenever I wanted, and as someone who usually has no problem in the mornings, I found this particularly irritating. I spent the first three weeks arriving late to training and far from excited about the impending hours of sweating I was about to undertake. It was a sudden change from what had been my new normality, where the most exercise I achieved in a day was a short walk in the woods with my three-year old.

There was one particular weights circuit session in the second week of starting back that took me to my lowest point. I was a mere five minutes into a two-hour session and the sweat was already pouring off. My muscles were burning with the lactic acid and I just couldn’t comprehend finishing. I turned to the door and seriously considered walking through it and never looking back. 95% of me wanted to leave, to never come back and never have to deal with the mental strain of exerting myself in this way again. I didn’t have to. I’d achieved what I’d set out to – an Olympic gold. What’s more, it was at my home games. It doesn’t get any better than that; it can’t be beaten so why was I back there, training for what? It was a stronger 5% of me that overrode that desire and now, 10 weeks on, I am so glad it did. I would have walked away with regret, unfinished business and unease with myself because it would only have been mental weakness that took me out of those doors. I made the decision to return to rowing after the Olympics not to try to better the experience, not to improve on my result, not even at this stage to necessarily equal it, but because I enjoyed it. I enjoy training, I enjoy the camaraderie among the guys in the team and I enjoy the racing. I still feel young in the sport and I have plenty left to offer. It wasn’t my time to ‘retire’ and that knowledge is, thankfully, what has kept me going.

Motivation is a strange thing, and something I have been asked about a lot recently. What is my motivation to continue after having won gold in London? In my answer I always return to Beijing, where the turnaround in my career started. I was spare man for the team, ready to race if anyone became ill or injured, but of course no one was. I spent my time soaking up the atmosphere and watching the competitors. Although I wasn’t actually racing I felt the power of the games and what it means to families, athletes and whole nations. It was an exceptional experience for me, providing invaluable tools and new levels of motivation to change what I was doing and how I was approaching training. From the moment I stepped off the plane from China I was motivated with a clear direction of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I have no doubt it helped turn me into the athlete I am today.

This time, returning to training was on a completely different end of the spectrum. Although the words are clear – “I want to compete in Rio” – the pathway is not, and I must find the same driving force I felt after Beijing to push me through the next four years of gruelling, monotonous training.

Another question that arises regularly is whether I will be competing in the same boat in 2016. The simple answer is that there are no guarantees, and just because I have won here in London does not automatically mean I have a seat in the boat. The slate was wiped clean on the first day back into training and we now return to the cauldron of selection where it is every man for himself. There has been a large intake of young guys with the same motivation that I had four years ago, desperately intent on beating me and taking my seat. This creates pressure on me, but also provides me with some of that essential drive that I know I will need to set me up in a good position in the lead up to Rio. This will give me a good chance of making the team, and then ultimately getting selected for the boat with the best chance of gaining gold again, but that is such a long way off with many thousands of miles to complete first. My concentration now has to be solely focused on regaining my fitness, strength and consistency.

So, as the second month of the new year starts, I find the alarm marginally less irritating and the competitive drive to perform is slowly coming back. I am beginning to see a way through the winter grind; I’m sure I’ll be physically and mentally fit soon enough.

04Sep2012

Olympic regatta

It’s all over, we crossed the line in the lead to become Olympic champions on 4 August 2012. I was the first person across that line, which is the stuff of dreams. To cross the line first in an Olympic final is what I have been dreaming, working, aiming and focusing towards for the last eight years; specifically in this boat type for the last four years, so to actually fulfil your dreams is something incredibly special. It was relief, however, that was the overriding feeling in that emotional cauldron. It wasn’t until I was over the line that I realised just how much pressure there had been on us individually and as a crew. I had built a defence over the months leading up to the games where any negative thoughts about the result, any comments from external media or individuals were shot down and turned into something positive or simply blocked out. This was a challenge, especially in the days after the semi-final where we had beaten Australia to win, but only just, in the closing few hundred metres. That was a close call but was a make-or-break race for us. We really needed to psychologically dent their confidence by beating them but this also involved crossing the line and looking as though it had taken nothing out of us – as if it was easy. I think I could have got an Oscar on that day. I was hurting really badly, I needed to collapse like never before but we had agreed to sit up, move round to the warm-down lake and paddle off as if it had been a stroll in the park. The Aussies followed us round and I’m sure were doing exactly the same, but looking at their body language you could tell they were hurting and disappointed to have been beaten. I waited until we were a good distance away from them and vomited.

The pressure was on and I could feel it, but I was doing a good job at controlling it. I was racing with three other guys who had been successful in the same boat class four years earlier in Beijing. They were all going for their second gold (greedy!) and although it was never mentioned, I knew that if we were to come anywhere but first a disproportionate amount of blame would have been placed on my head. Possibly not voiced, but certainly thought. We had to win. Secondly, coach Jurgen has won a gold medal at every single Olympic games he has entered a crew in since 1972, 10 golds already to his name and going for number 11. We had to win. Thirdly, the coxless four is the flagship boat of the men’s team, we were the last boat to compete and none of the other crews had won gold in the previous days. There were two excellent bronze medals from the eight and Alan Campbell in the single but no gold, so all eyes were on us. We had to win. Finally, I simply had to win for everyone who has supported me over the 13 years since I first stepped in a boat, for all the years I have neglected my friends, missed their birthdays, holidays, get togethers and weddings. For the time I spent on the river instead of doing my degree, for the weeks and months I have been out of the country away from my family, my girlfriend and in the last three years my son Jasper. I had to win for them all. This made me nervous.

The morning of the final was tense; the hour before was horrendous. We were sitting, lying, pacing in this tiny temporary room built for the athletes at the back of the regatta course, trying desperately to stay relaxed and calm but, really, it was impossible. There isn’t much I wouldn’t have done to be given the chance to disappear right there and never come back. It was almost funny how horrible I was feeling but I don’t think I could stop grinning. I wanted it to be over immediately. Strangely I remember enjoying the feeling, this was a culmination of such a stupidly long, tough path with years and years of pain, heartache, despair and yet it was all going to boil down to a six-minute race. The whole situation was just ridiculous! The rain outside was torrential and I will never forget looking up to the glass door and seeing one of the Australian guys run past outside, shoulders hunched looking miserable. At that moment I thought yes, great, we are used to this. We are out on the water training through the winter for hours and hours in freezing wind, snow, hail, rain, home water – our conditions, our day!

The start line was eerily quiet; I have clear memories of what was going on and how I was feeling. We were stepping into the unknown, I was hating every second of it, yet I loved every second. Sitting there waiting to start, I had an out of body feeling as if I was watching what was going on but not really there. I remember saying to myself “oh god, here we go” as the buzzer went and everything was automatic after that.

The race was as perfect as we could ever have dreamed, we were ahead within the first 100 metres, which we have never done before, and we opened up on the field after that. With 500 metres to go and 30,000 people cheering us on, there was no way we were going to lose that race, the noise was just incredible, and no doubt helped us to cross that line ahead.

The experience was incredible, the memories will last forever, and now I can finally take a break and relax for the first time I can ever remember.

25Jul2012

Final preparation camp

I’m writing this with one day left to go on our final camp before the Olympics. We have been in Portugal for the last 13 days, the first week of which was to cement the technical changes we made on the previous camp in Austria. We arrived in Portugal with an improved rhythm in the boat and using the beautiful flat water. Our aim has been to develop this even further as well as start to introduce speed work.

Before every training session, we as a crew discuss our aims and expectations for the session and the main aspects we want to take from previous outings into the next. We have planned almost to the metre everything we want to achieve even before putting the boat on the water and this has given us a strong focus for each and every stroke we take. Each day for the last five weeks has been not only physically tiring but mentally draining and we have reached new levels of organisation, focus and planning in what we do. It has been an intense period, my body and mind has felt the strain, we have had many ups, a few downs, but this process is something we have had to go through to give ourselves the best opportunity to take gold in little more than two weeks now.

In the last week the mileage on the water has dropped and the intensity has risen, with race pieces, bursts and starts put into the programme. Jurgen uses the same model of training programme this year as he has any other year leading into a big event. There are no surprises, nothing to shock us, nothing different. The programme has become something to rely on, something familiar and stable in our lives, the Olympics is just another race on a lake against the same crews, the difference being there will be a few more people watching!

We are cut off from the world on training camp, we have very little appreciation of the Olympic hype building and it is great to have the ability to concentrate so single-mindedly on the job we have to do. I have nevertheless started to feel the nerves creeping in, and with less than a week until the opening ceremony, I find my mind wanders. I ask myself questions about what’s going to happen? Are we fast enough? Have the changes we made been enough? How am I going to cope on the day with the nations expectations of a gold medal on my shoulders? These questions and thoughts will no doubt intensify once we get back home and the racing starts. I will have to suppress this pressure and expectation somehow and try to transfer it into something useful. It is a great honour to be racing for Great Britain in the Olympics with the country, family and friends all expecting and pinning their hopes on me and my crew getting gold, and this brings huge pressure. I am actually looking forward to trying to deal with these nerves and hopefully overcoming them and using them to my advantage.

I was sent a video a couple of days ago made by a friend of mine from school, it was a compilation of old school mates singing a good luck song to me. It came as a huge surprise as I have hardly spoken to any of the people in the video for 10 years or more since leaving school. It shocked me as I had no idea anyone cared about what I was doing or even really knew! It is impossible to explain how much motivation and drive this kind act has given me in the last few weeks leading up to the games, and it has highlighted how much a friend’s support means to someone aiming for something special. To everyone who has shown me support and to those people in the video I will forever be grateful.

With the final training session on foreign water of this Olympiad tomorrow morning, I feel that I will be able to land at Heathrow in my Team GB tracksuit and say that we, as a coxless four, have prepared ourselves the best we can for our Olympic racing. My aim is to leave Dorney Lake on the 4th August and whatever the result be able to look at myself and say I did everything I could.

18Jul2012

World Cup final - Munich

Rarely does everything always go to plan as we discovered in Munich at the third and final World Cup regatta. Here we were beaten by Australia, our main and closest competition, ending a 15-race winning streak for me in the coxless four. We were beaten in a very tight race by a very fast, efficient crew who look good together and row very well. These Australians have a very effective rhythm that allows them to use the power they produce in their stroke to maximum benefit and lets the boat travel a great distance with each stroke. In contrast, we have a powerful stroke and put in a lot of effort but so far we haven’t been able to transfer that into maximum efficiency and boat speed. We need to be more patient with each stroke and allow the boat to move for us, flow from stroke to stroke and resist the temptation to rush the hull. There is a balance in rowing that is nearly impossible to see from the bank. It is a feeling of relaxed movement and flow, reducing the negative forces on the hull while putting every ounce of energy into the stroke. It sounds like a contradiction but to a rower makes perfect sense. So far this season we have got away with our way of rowing but coming up against a crew with such pedigree and experience as the Australians, we need to make improvements.
This result was not actually a shock and as much as we were disappointed as a crew not to maintain our winning ways, we came off the water feeling positive about the result. It was nothing but a good thing for us to get beaten, better here than in the Olympic final, and it forces us to make much-needed technical changes. It is so easy to win a race and be happy with what you have and with what you are doing but you may not be reaching your potential. I have learnt that most improvements come from the mistakes we make and so this has come at a perfect time. We have new fire in our bellies and desire to significantly improve. We are not far off where we need to be, no doubt the Australians will gain more speed in the coming weeks but I am confident that we will too. There is one thing for sure, an Olympic gold is not an easy thing to come by, and come the 4th August on Dorney Lake, there will be an almighty battle to the finish line. The important thing for me and my crew is to enjoy every second of these coming weeks, we are facing a huge challenge but it is something we relish. We now head off to Austria for a gruelling altitude training camp where the last big push in strength and fitness will be made.

12Jun2012

World Cup 2 - Lucerne

On returning from our first win in Belgrade, our confidence had risen and we started training the next day with renewed vigour. Jürgen pushes us hard in the three weeks between the World Cups and we fly out to Switzerland with heavy legs and aching bodies. Lucerne is without doubt one of my favourite places to race and luckily one World Cup is held here every year. The preparation is straightforward this time with no surprises from Jürgen, so we spend a day training, acclimatising, recovering from the journey and fuelling up for the days ahead.

On the morning of the heat we arrive at the course early for our pre-race outing with simple focuses to loosen up and prepare our bodies. The warm-up is pretty standard, the boat feels ok, it doesn’t feel better or worse than anything we have been doing in training. We have been working hard on technical points and have seen improvements but all of us agree the boat is still not yet feeling how we want it to. This doesn’t bother us, however, as we know we can still go fast and it is just the stage we are at. We come off the water and wait – it’s the waiting that’s a killer, the nerves, uncertainty, the built-up energy and adrenaline. It is hard to contain and everyone deals with it in slightly different ways.

The heat includes three crews we have not yet met this season, New Zealand, Canada and a new German crew, so we can’t simply expect to beat anyone and must race hard from the start. There was nothing different here from the start to any other race. I felt relaxed, slightly nervous, excited to get going. We could feel a strong consistent tail-breeze straight down the lake and I’m sure everyone was thinking it could turn into a fairly quick race, especially as the water wasn’t too rough. Andy turned round to me on the start and said “Alex, have a look at our time through the 1000m, if it’s quick let’s just keep going…” Andy’s words confirmed my thoughts and the adrenaline surged.

We started racing. We rowed reasonably well for the first 1000m and were ahead, but with New Zealand overlapping us. I made the call to move at the half-way marker as planned and we just took off! For the first time since getting in this boat it felt like we were really rowing together, long, loose, hard accelerated strokes. Everything we had been talking about over the last couple of weeks fell into place and the boat was finally flying. We moved way ahead of the field and just kept going. It was a dream second half to a race. With 500m to go Andy shouted “keep moving”, so I relayed it to the crew and that’s simply what we did. We pushed for the line but nothing special, no huge sprint or surge, we just maintained the good rowing we had. It’s very difficult to time yourself in rowing as markers are nearly impossible to judge accurately from the boat. We knew we had rowed a fast race but the indication just how fast only came as we rowed passed the grandstand. There was an enormous cheer as we paddled past, which was strange. The crowd is never usually so excitable for heats, there were supporters from other nations cheering for us too, really strange! Someone from the bank shouted that we had just got a world best time so we stopped, I laughed, we turned and congratulated each other, then continued our warm down as usual.

It was a really strange feeling. I remember feeling surges of emotion, I was ecstatic inside but didn’t want to show it outwardly – none of us did. Jürgen met us at the landing stage and hugged us each individually, a rare show of emotion from the tough German. We learned that we had not just beaten the 10-year-old record but broken it by nearly four seconds and 5.37.86 will be etched on my memory for years to come. That day was certainly a proud one for me.

The heat was great but it was just a time, a fast time, the fastest time in history over 2000m in a coxless four, but we were here to race and to beat crews, not times. In the second heat the Australians had been faster than us to the 1000m. Our overall time had been much quicker than theirs, but they had won their heat comfortably too and for all we knew had taken their feet off the gas before the line. The job was far from over.

Our final was not as well rowed as the heat. We planned to stay with the fast-starting Australians, not to let them get away from us then push through them in the latter stages of the race. We held on to them well but our new-found rhythm from the heat was not really there. The rowing felt short and the rate was high, not the long effective strokes we had done previously. All credit to a top-quality Australian crew – they maintained their lead for 1750m of the race until we sprinted past them in the closing 250m to cross the line ahead. It was a huge relief to win, having set a world record in the heat. We confirmed our position that weekend in Lucerne as the top coxless four despite not rowing our best and we overhauled a very fast crew in the closing stages of a tough race. It was yet another important building block in our Olympic campaign and we came away from Lucerne in a very positive position after a good weekend’s work! The job is far from over, but we are moving in the right direction.

Watch the final from Lucerne here:

http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/fisa/site/index.html

25May2012

World Cup 1 - Belgrade

It was exciting travelling east to Belgrade as it’s a venue we had never raced at before. We were met immediately with stifling heat, but coming from the terrible weather of Italy, we were certainly not complaining. After settling into the hotel we took an evening stroll through the streets of dilapidated tower blocks to work the travelling out of our legs. It’s so important to get everything right for a world cup as the change around time is tight. We arrive two days before racing starts, have one day of training and familiarisation on the lake, then have to be on top form, ready to race. Preparation is key and we have to make sure we adapt to the change, keep hydrated, eat well and stretch to be in the best physical shape possible.

Coach Jürgen surprises us the next morning as we come to the lake to rig the boats by swapping our seating order around. This is something that is not usually done weeks before a race, never mind the day before! In turn, we surprise him by putting up no resistance to his suggestion and just get on with the preparations. I figure that the boat isn’t going so well, we are far from perfect so why not, it can’t make us go worse! We take to the water, I settle into my new seat (I have never raced at bow in a four before) and have three of the best sessions we have had in this new crew so far. The boat feels amazing underneath us, it flows from stroke to stroke, the speed is far greater than we have been doing in training, everything just works. We come off the water feeling really positive knowing we can do a good job this weekend after all, and everything we have been working on in training has suddenly fallen into place.

The first race is tight but we get control early on and maintain the lead, crossing the finish line well within ourselves and a pleasing margin ahead of the following crews. It’s great to finish ahead after the uncertainty of the previous few weeks and this has given us a boost of much-needed confidence. The first race of any regatta is always tough, it’s a shock to the system. Although we prepare with racing pieces in training, the full race distance of 2000m is a different game. Immediately my racing cough starts as my lungs have been strained and I can expect this to last for well over a week. As we land the boat on the pontoon I have to stagger off to the bushes to be violently sick, which happens so regularly that my crewmates barely notice. I try to keep it hidden from my competitors as it shows them how hard I have been working in the race. In actual fact it is mainly due to my coughing and the sickness is a consequence of the strain from the cough, not necessarily the strain from the racing. We take an hour to warm down properly using the rowing machines and refuel with recovery drinks and food prepared earlier. Then it’s the short bus ride back to the hotel for a physio recovery muscle rub and hot and cold contrast showers to flush the body of remaining lactic acid. Finally a chance to lie down and relax before a crew de-brief with Jürgen, reflecting on the race positives, negatives and the plan for the next day. This post-race strategy is repeated for every race we do and is essential for us to maintain our best performance.

The regatta runs very much to plan, we improve further in the semi final and move into the final with confidence but never taking anyone for granted. We have a slower start than others but remain very focused in our own boat and settle onto our race rhythm quickly, feeling crews dropping back. We take the lead by 500m and gradually, inch by inch, extend this lead over the next 1000m, where with 500m to go we are clear water ahead of the rest of the field. This is such a good feeling and at this point you are in the knowledge that someone would have to do something very special to come through and beat you from this position. We finish a boat length ahead winning our first gold in the 2012 season.

It is very pleasing to be presented with a gold medal knowing that, although we had a good race, we were actually very lucky to have pulled together just in the nick of time and get our boat moving well at the last minute. The race was good but it was nothing more than a start and if we want to win the Olympic gold in three months’ time, we still have a long way to go. Some say that the key is to be able to win on your worst day, and I feel that in Belgrade we were far from the best we can expect and we have plenty more boat speed to find. We head home looking forward to the next couple of weeks of training leading up to the second World Cup in Lucerne.

Watch Alex’s next race this Sunday 27 May:
Red button - 0920-1045 and 1200-1355
BBC2 - 1800-1900
BBC Radio 5 live and BBC Radio 5 live Sports Extra will also be providing coverage during the three rowing World Cup regattas, with double Olympic Gold medallist James Cracknell as part of the commentary team

24May2012

Crew formation camp, Varese, Italy

Varese was a difficult training camp for many reasons. The training itself is tough, three long sessions a day on the water, miles upon miles sitting on a tiny wooden seat that cuts into your behind with every stroke. The skin is pulled from your fingers and raw flesh rubs into the wooden handle of the oar, making each stroke uncomfortable. The weather was some of the worst I have seen there in the nine years I have been visiting. Continuous, heavy, cold rain driving horizontally into you, guided by the icy wind blowing from the snow-capped peaks in the distance. But it’s the wind direction that causes the real problems. A cross-wind is a rower’s enemy, the boat is uncontrollable beneath you as it is bashed to and fro in the rough water, making balancing impossible. The technique suffers, it’s impossible to make technical changes to the stroke despite our best efforts, and each session becomes a huge battle. But this is what makes training a challenge and separates those who can from those who can’t. These are all difficulties that are simple to overcome and block out, it’s just a matter of getting on with it. The physical aspects of the sport are so straightforward, which is why I love training. The weather is something we cannot control, so there’s no point complaining – we just have to make the best of it.

The real difficulties came as we embarked on our new challenge together as the coxless four. This was the first time we had trained officially as the four, so suddenly the pressure was on. It came mostly from within the boat. We wanted everything to work straight away and to be immediately fast, for the boat to move effortlessly and to be in total control over our actions. This was hope more than anything and, in reality, we were just not where we wanted to be. We struggled for two weeks to find our feet. We worked on all aspects of the stroke to bring us together, combine our individual strengths and join us to form one efficient crew. But progress was slow. We could see and feel changes, we were heading in the right direction, but the boat was sluggish and heavy in the water. Our speeds were not easy to come by and, on comparing our practice race pieces to other boats in the team, we were way off the mark.

The beauty of being in such a strong team is that standards are so high. Every boat in the men’s team has a good chance of not just an Olympic medal but a gold, so we are comparing ourselves to some of the best in the world. However, we should be at the top of the team but, right there on the waters of Varese, we were not.

When you try so hard and feel like you are doing everything you can to make something work but the results are not showing, your mental strength is put to the test. It is my philosophy in sport to try to stay calm with everything I do. With our first public appearance looming at the World Cup in Belgrade, this was the time to test my ability to do this under pressure. I was finding it difficult, I didn’t know how to make us go faster and I knew that if we raced the way we were training, we wouldn’t win. I made certain that I was positive at all times around the other guys as I believe that is one of my strengths to bring to the boat. We discussed all our issues and worries and kept things very open between us and coach Jürgen. It was a great time and one that has set us up so well for the coming months. We have learnt a lot about each other as we pushed through our problems, and we all knew we had to persist with what we were working on, trust one another and have enough resilience to get through this difficult patch. After all, it was early days in our project and in any other year this would simply not be an issue, just the inevitable forming process of a new crew.

We ended the training camp with genuine belief that we had put everything into place to get the result we need at the first World Cup. Now it is time to put that into practice.

15May2012

Team announcement

With all the testing and trialling finally over, team announcement day is an important one in our seasonal calendar and this year it was eagerly anticipated by the whole team. In the week leading up to the announcement we were confirmed in our seats by Jürgen, the head coach, but this was to remain within the team and our daily training sessions continued. Despite athletes and coaches knowing the boat selections, announcing the crews publicly is an important marker in our preparation.

We all expected the usual close-knit crowd of rowing journalists from various papers and TV channels, but were met with a huge wall of cameras and interviewers from all sorts of news and sports stations. This was when the importance and interest of this special year really hit home. GB rowing had organised a ‘row past’ with a bank-side commentary projected through a megaphone (yes, professional outfit here) by the team manager in an attempt to surprise and excite the press with the crew line-ups. However, this plan was slightly scuppered when The Times reported a complete and accurate team list the day before this public announcement. There are spies everywhere!

I was confirmed as a member of the coxless four along with Andy Triggs-Hodge, Pete Reed and Tom James, who were all Olympic champions in the same event from Beijing 2008. Only Tom joins me from our successful World Championship crew of 2011 with the final line up moving over from the pairs event. It was an extremely proud day for me, I can finally say I am in the coxless four for the 2012 season and, illness or injury dependant, will be racing in the four for London’s Olympic Games. It is the boat I have specifically been working towards for the last four years but, truthfully, it’s been ever since I first made the decision that rowing was the sport I wanted to pursue professionally. It is the same boat that holds awe-inspiring records for my predecessors, including Sir Steve Redgrave who won his fifth and final gold medal in the four, Matthew Pinsent his third and James Cracknell his second. The history involved in the British coxless four is vast and I feel privileged to be a part of that. On this day it felt I had achieved the first major goal for the year, but the main objective is far bigger and infinitely more important. For me, the crew announcement for the 2012 season officially marked the day when I could say I have well and truly set my sight on Olympic gold.

Immediately we are seen and spoken about as the men’s lead boat, we are Jürgen’s crew and without question we are expected to win. This is just the start of the pressure we are to feel in the coming months and it is sure to build daily right up to the Olympic final. It is piled on us simply because of the boat class and the heritage that comes with it. I must relish and use this pressure and expectation as it indicates that I’m in a far higher position in the rowing world than I have ever been before. It is exactly the position I want to be in.

We leave a few days after the team announcement for our pre World-Cup training camp in Varese Italy. Here, for the first time, we will come together properly as the coxless four and start to work towards our first stage of the Olympic preparation. We have three World Cup events to prepare for – Belgrade, Lucerne and Munich – all testers and warm ups for the big event later in the summer at Dorney. I am so excited to start, get on the water and get that boat moving fast!

World Cup events:
Belgrade 4-6 May
Lucerne 25-27 May
Munich 15-17 June

Olympic Games rowing:
Dorney lake, Eton
Coxless four
Heat 30 July
Semi final 2 August
Final 4 August

30Mar2012

Illness hits

The waiting game continues as we arrive back at training the morning after the final of trials. We are back on the water immediately to keep the body moving and to keep the muscles loose and lactic acid free after the tough racing, but it is the last place I really want to be. I suffer from exercise-induced asthma that in day-to-day training is well controlled and has no effect on my body. However, after racing I get a very tight rasping cough that carries on for days, sometimes weeks. There seems to be nothing I can do about this cough, it is a lottery if it disappears quickly and generally seems to depend on the training we have after a race. With complete rest it will disappear much quicker, but in this game and under Jürgen’s watch, total rest is not an option. Along with the cough, I also start to feel the onset of a cold. This tells me that my body is really starting to get run down and I should stop training, but it is so difficult. You never want to appear frail especially at this time when your seat is up for selection and so, stupidly, I carry on training just with slightly less intensity.

As the days go on and we are still waiting to hear word of our selection, my cough is getting worse and my cold is really starting to affect me. I can no longer hold a conversation with anyone without coughing uncontrollably and I certainly struggle with rowing, where my lungs are stressed even more. There comes a point where you have to be sensible – that point for me was about five days previously, so I was well overdue being honest and telling someone I needed a break to give my lungs a chance to settle. It is the biggest frustration for me, as an athlete, when my body gives up. There is nothing I can do about it and only stopping training will help the situation. So I leave with a huge feeling of irritation having consulted with the team doctor and discussed the situation fully with the coaches.

At home, the situation worsens rather than improves and an illness takes hold of my body with full force. The following days are the worst I have had in a long time. With fever, chronic irrepressible coughing, wheezing and a full blown head cold, my body is riddled with illness. So I sit indoors, waiting, lying, missing the best weather and best water we have had for months and months in England through illness. I worry – I sit at home wondering about my place, my selection, has this affected the decision about my Olympic place? Of course it shouldn’t, I have done everything possible this year to put myself in the best position for an Olympic seat. Illness at some point is inevitable – better now than in a few months’ time, but nevertheless the mind games do their worst!

It has taken eight days of sitting at home for me to feel even the slightest bit ready to head back to training. I will test myself out on the ergo this afternoon and take things steady for a few days. It is essential that I don’t overdo the training to begin with. But with the best doctors and physiologists at hand, they will ensure I have the correct programme to get back on track as soon as possible. As Jürgen says, “your health is your business” – this has certainly been a reminder as to how important my health is to me, and never more so in the coming months.

23Mar2012

Racing at the trials

With a pleasing second place result at trials, we now play the waiting game for head coach Jürgen to make the decision on the Olympic crews.

It was incredibly important to achieve the position we did in the final as in our heat we were narrowly beaten by a crew that we really needed to defeat. There was no panic or stress about the situation as we knew we could row better and gain crucial seconds by altering small parts of our race plan, so the important thing was to not allow the pressure to get to us. This can be difficult at times – it is incredible what my mind makes up in these stressful circumstances and my imagination runs wild. I had the next day’s final running round my head on a continuous loop with different outcomes each time: I would stop, we would capsize, we would be beaten by everyone, we would win by miles, I would escape from the hotel in the night and not turn up! But with this all going on, deep down I knew I had to be confident with what we could achieve and keep a level mind on what was actually going to happen. Lo and behold, the day of the final arrived and I hadn’t made an escape, so we were definitely going to have to race this!

Our race was scheduled last and eagerly anticipated as the competition is exceedingly tight in the men’s heavyweight team. There was no question my partner and I were going out to win – to do this we had to stay focused inside our own boat and not allow the others around us to distract. Everything went to plan, simplicity is the key in my rowing and there was nothing complicated about our technique or race plan. We were leading for much of the race but just allowed the eventual winners to push out ahead of us in the closing 400m. This was not something unexpected and that well-established crew had just a little more power in those closing stages. We held on to the second position and crossed the line with a huge sense of relief and pleasure that we had coped with the pressure and put ourselves in the best position for our selection. Of course, there was disappointment at not winning – we are all in this sport to win – but that was not the sole motivation here and the winning must come later in the season against the other nations.

It was only on the warm-down loop when the blood started running freely back through my body that I noticed the crowds on the bank and the huge support that had turned up to watch us race, despite the lack of advertisement for the event. If this was an indication of the interest people have for rowing, the support at Olympics this summer is going to be extraordinary, so as I paddled back to the landing stage there were definitely a shiver of excitement for what is to come.

12Mar2012

Final trials

It is the eve of our final selection trials and I am writing this in my hotel room, which is literally a stone’s throw from the Olympic rowing course I will (hopefully) be rowing on this summer. If I look out of the window and through the trees I can just see the lake on the other side of the river, so staying and racing here this weekend is really starting to bring home the reality of how close the Olympics are now. This trial is an extremely important event and gives the selectors the final ranking of the athletes so we can then be distributed into our relevant Olympic crews. The result here is not the sole decision maker as we are judged every day through training and previous trials events this year and factors are taken into consideration at the coach’s discretion but it is extremely important that I put in a good performance this weekend.

There is no doubt that I find the build-up to this trial’s more stressful and uncomfortable than any other time of the year. It is so easy to train and prepare to race against another nation; I don’t know the guys I race in the German team, I don’t know how fast the Australians are rowing and even if an Estonian told me how fast he was going in his boat I wouldn’t understand him, so it just isn’t even worth thinking about. That is something I cannot control. In contrast, when we spend two weeks in a lovely but small hotel in Portugal where we live, row, eat, row and socialise together, we get to know everything about each person there. We are the GB heavyweight men’s team but for this period it is each man for himself. We focus on our own boats, our own speed and what will make us go fastest. It is a very selfish pursuit and something I find very difficult to come to terms with. It comes down to racing against my mates, the guys I know everything about, how well they are all rowing and exactly how fast they all rowed that 1000m piece we did the other day. We are going into battle against each other for our Olympic seats and right now there are too many people for too few places. Once these trials are over and we are selected in our crews we are then expected to come together again as a team overnight, instantly bond, gel and prepare to take on the rest of the world.

There is no question as to which boat I want to get selected into for the Olympics. It is the same boat I have raced internationally for the last three years, the boat I have become comfortable and confident in, the boat I am currently World Champion in and the boat that we as Great Britain have won three successive Olympic gold medals in. The coxless four won gold in Sydney, Athens and again in Beijing and to bring home gold for the Great British public in London in that same boat class would be a dream come true and something that has never been done before. The strength of our team, however, is so great that any boat has an excellent chance of a medal and a very good chance of gold.

To get the performance I need this weekend I have to remain calm, relaxed and focused on the small things I can achieve at this time. I can’t look towards the coming months as the task is too great to achieve in one step, I must only look towards the things I can change today. So as I move towards the racing here at Dorney Lake I need to put the Olympics out of my mind and concentrate on the job in hand. There is no question I want everyone to do well, I want everyone to get the result they want because they are my friends and they are in my team, but for this weekend I want them all to finish behind me.

02Feb2012

Sun, cycling and sweat in South Africa

It’s off to altitude again but this time I’m leaving the country with excitement and not the dread from the previous altitude camp back in December. As a team we are heading to South Africa for 17 days, aiming to find some winter sun. This is the only cross-training cycling camp we go on in the year and is meant to provide us with some time away from the pressures and strains that sitting in the rowing position gives us. Instead, the bike gives us even more pressures and strains in places we are not used to, but on the journey out there I’m happy.

We stay three hours outside Johannesburg at the amazing Crickley Hackle lodge in the small tourist town of Dullstroom. It is a mid-way point for tourists heading to the surrounding national parks and has many more miles for cycling in the surrounding country side than we could ever need! Over the years we have moved from road bikes to mountain bikes, which are more suitable for our ungainly 100kg bodies. We tended to build up a little too much speed on the down hills than is safe for our inadequate cycling skills, so a move to mountain bikes was deemed the sensible option. For us it is all about the training on the bikes, not the performance, so we head out each day and turn either left or right out of the hotel depending on the coach’s mood. The ‘left’ route is fairly flat, undulating gently with the countryside, whereas the ‘right’ is painful within 30 seconds of leaving and undulates heavily with the surrounding hills. Every day we pray for the left route but our prayers are rarely met and out of 14 rides, only three are the flatter left route. We ride out each day with the support vehicles behind warning the unpredictable African traffic to give us a wide berth, safety is the priority here especially this Olympic year. No one can afford to have an accident with risk of missing out on the Olympic Games and I take that threat very seriously. I ride with care, sitting a little further behind the back wheel of the man in front than I would normally and reducing my speed on the down hills yet still maintain good, consistent training speeds and get the benefit from each session.

The weight sessions are every other day and conducted in a small gym in the town that has just enough weight for us to complete the lifts we need. This training camp is largely focused on the aerobic side and weights here are used to maintain the strength we have gained from the heavy sessions completed back home. Nevertheless I still finish each weights session feeling strained and empty with no idea how I could get on the ergo later that day.

As usual the ergo sessions are tough. The 30 degree heat and the altitude make adapting to the activity a horrendous experience. The incredibly helpful, friendly hotel staff have allowed us to fill their conference room with 15 ergos but I’m not convinced they knew what was coming when they agreed to it. The air conditioning and three fans provided do little to cool down the room when 15 men are sweating heavily for 80 minutes and the bed sheets laid under each erg to catch the sweat are sodden within seconds. My approach is to use this extreme discomfort as a challenge, to push my body and mind through the pain, which I find makes each session that little more rewarding. I make sure I never complain or even mention the heat to anyone. I keep my scores consistent and gradually, as I start to adapt I push them on, improving as the days pass. I have learnt these are the things that chief coach Jürgen Grobler notices and this is what is going to get me to the start line of the Olympics. Despite the discomfort this is certainly one of the best camps of the year, and through sweat and blurred vision I make sure I enjoy where I am and what I’m doing.

23Jan2012

Sports Personality of the Year awards ceremony

With Christmas approaching and testing out of the way it’s time to sit back slightly and enjoy one of the benefits of gaining success in sport. Each year since 2009, when I won the world championships for the first time, I have been invited to the BBC Sports Personality of the Year awards ceremony as a guest, but until this year I have never been able to attend. It has been one of many events in life I have had to sacrifice for my sport, along with birthdays, weddings and a social life! Finally this year with much excitement I was able to take the journey in a BBC supplied car (yes that’s where your TV licence money goes) up to Manchester with a couple of other rowers to attend the much anticipated event, which this year had its fair share of controversy. We discovered on the journey up that there was going to be more than a millisecond of rowing mentioned, as Sir Steve Redgrave was to be given the Lifetime Achievement Award, which is very well deserved and great for rowing to get such recognition.

On arrival we were bundled out of our car, and into a huge spanking new BMW (the sponsor vehicle), driven no more than 20 metres around a corner (why we couldn’t have walked I have no idea), and dropped off at the foot of the red carpet! Rather red faced and avoiding the puzzled looks from the autograph hunters we entered the building and were shown into a packed room full of sports people, TV personalities and presenters, none of whom I recognised. I must admit I’m not that much of a sports fan and don’t follow or watch any sport with much intensity so most of the faces there were unknown. There was a large contingency of old generation rowers who I have come to know over the years and were there to celebrate Redgrave’s success, so at least I had some people to talk to!

I was soon shown to my seat in the studio and approached by a BBC employee who told me to watch for his signal to then go up on stage! There must be some mistake; I must be sitting in the wrong seat, so I insisted he checked his list as I would have hated to have found myself on stage standing like a lemon for absolutely no reason! Amazingly it was true – along with all the other current and ex rowers, I was to go up with Redgrave and his family to celebrate his award. As it happened I was stood right in the centre of the stage in full view of the studio audience, feeling like a lemon, but unfortunately the camera angle was such that the viewing public at home could only just see my right arm.

The event was great, incredibly well organised and rehearsed, and the presenters were immaculate in their deliveries. I shook the hand of Kriss Akabusi and I have learnt the names of a few more sports men and women. The only problem came when I was dropped at my front door at 4am and discovered I had lost my door key. With family (son and girlfriend) already away for Christmas my only option was to climb over my neighbour’s fence, in my suit, and kick down my back door as quietly as possible. Needless to say this was not quiet, but thankfully the police weren’t called and I managed to grab two hours’ sleep before heading down to the lake for the last team training session before Christmas.

We are given a training programme to follow for the week we get off over Christmas but it is less formal, to be completed at our own venues. A choice of activities, running, cycling, ergos and weights, but in all honesty I use the time as an opportunity to recover. Anyone who knows what Christmas is like with a very active two-year old boy will understand that sometimes this is training enough. Contrary to other athletes who feel the need to train on Christmas Day, I do not!

30Dec2011

Trials

With no time to recover from our altitude training camp we are straight back in the boat preparing for the first of a series of water trials to be held in two-man boats (pairs) before christmas. The first is a 5km time trial held in Boston Lincolnshire, probably not somewhere I would choose to go unless absolutely necessary and so reluctantly that is where I am headed.

With a new level of fitness gained from altitude my partner and I find we can get back in the boat and post fast training times with relative ease. We are open with each other, communicate well on and off the water and maintain a level of calm and relaxation in the boat. It is important not to let any of the inevitable distractions take our minds off our common goal. I learn to trust my partner in a very short space of time, which in rowing is essential. Confidence in our boat moving ability grows daily and so we travel three hours up to Boston in a great frame of mind, feeling fit, strong and confident that we can put together the performance we need to prove our worth within the team.

The morning of the race sees two grown men sitting in a small hotel room in silence, one on the floor stretching, the other sitting cross-legged on the bed eating a breakfast of cereal, bread and honey. There is nothing glamorous about rowing! I’m sure we both have the same nerves and apprehension about what is to come. We are both aware that this 5km time trial is a serious strain on our bodies and 3km further than the standard international race distance, so how will we hold up? How badly is this 18 minutes of racing going to hurt?

We find ourselves on the start line, fully warmed up and race ready. My heart pounds so hard in my chest I’m convinced something is wrong and I really should get out of the boat and walk back – surely that would be the sensible thing to do? No chance. Our start is strong and precise just as we have practised in training. We fly down the first 2km with great rhythm and in good shape to move on in the second part of the race. I am in the stroke seat so set the rhythm and control our pace, which is crucial for such a long race. My partner behind me steers with a wire attached to a rudder from his foot and makes the few calls he can manage between breaths. These might be technical reminders or marker points so we know how far is left. He does a great job and, as my vision darkens and I start to struggle to hold myself up and control my body, he reassures me we are going to make it and pushes us on to squeeze even more out of ourselves. It is for these moments we spend all those miserable hours in that dark gym at altitude, training ourselves to glean every last ounce of energy from deep within us.

We cross the finish line and collapse, crumple in our seats with relief spreading over us, but then something else hits a millisecond later. It’s an intense pain in every muscle of the body, my lungs feel like they are full of fluid and there’s a metallic taste of blood in my mouth. I have so little control over my body now that it’s a struggle to get back into the landing stage and carry the boat out to the trailer. I’m met by a man with a clipboard. The last thing I need right now is a drugs test, but it’s a necessary part of sport and something we learn to deal with. You quickly get over the embarrassment of the process so now it is just part of the job.

There’s not long to wait until the results are published and as my body regains feeling and my mind becomes coherent again we find we have finished a credible second behind a very experienced crew. With a slight feeling of disappointment not to have won we decide to be realistic about our race and result. It was by no means perfect and we have plenty to go away and work on, but we should be pleased with this positive outcome and decide there is no need to over-analyse our performance. As important as it is at the time, this trial is merely a stepping stone to my goal of Olympic gold in seven months’ time, and so for today I can say have done a good job.

20Dec2011

Training

I can’t tell you the relief as the bus wheels start to roll off down the mountain as we leave the Sierra Nevada training centre not to return again for at least a year. We have just spent two weeks in the impressive, purpose-built facility perched on the mountainside at an altitude of 2,320m in Southern Spain. At this altitude the training benefit is optimum, however this camp is dreaded by us all in the heavyweight men’s rowing team and is undoubtedly the most gruelling, physically demanding, mentally draining training camp we undertake throughout the year. After entering the doors at the beginning, we don’t step outside again until boarding the bus two weeks later. Everything we require is contained within the walls and thus often referred to as prison!

The training is land-based and used purely as an intense fitness, strength-building phase continuing from the long miles we have been doing on the lake in the UK. We use Ergos (rowing machines) and weights of which every score, every stroke, every single lift is monitored and recorded. It allows the coaches to build up our fitness and strength picture so accurately that they know exactly how we are preforming at this crucial time of year. The aim is then to return to the UK (and a sensible altitude) fitter, stronger and with enriched blood so the training from then can be even more beneficial, leading into the trialling period through which we must earn our seats for the Olympics.

Each day starts with a groan and a creak from my back as I swing reluctantly out of bed. The cold dry mountain air seems to dry my throat out through the night so every day I start with a sore rasping throat. I take a urine sample to the physiologist, who also takes a sample of blood from my ear to measure the urea content (more indications of our fitness and health). A wash and a protein shake later I’m down at first breakfast eating in silence, the quietest meal of the day. I then head through the maze of corridors towards the Ergo room where the silent black dreaded machines await us. I stretch in silence desperately trying to take my mind off starting this first session. 20km on the Ergo first thing in the morning at this altitude is possibly the worst way to start any day. Eventually with looser limbs I seat myself and prepare the screen to record my session. The coaches are annoyingly jubilant. They seem to take pleasure in watching us suffer and as the camp goes on and fatigue hits hard this feeling of resentment grows; I have to remind myself that I am the one choosing to be here and do this sport! At just 1km in (four mins), I can feel my body is in trouble. So far I have been sensible with the scores I have been pulling in an attempt to adapt to altitude, but as the days go on I want to show the coaches I am strong and able to cope with the training. I have been gradually improving my score, but sometimes this feels like the wrong thing to do. Questions start to ring round my head: can I hold this for another 68 minutes? Should I go lighter? Should I continue and risk having to stop? Shall I just stop and end this pain? I know that stopping is simply not an option and in our sport an unacceptable action. It is a sign of weakness, yet the mental battles continue. As the metres slowly tick past and as my legs grow numb, my arms feel like lead and my lungs burn as I break down the remaining metres into small manageable chunks. Eventually the distance has been completed and I stumble off the machine into the pool of sweat that has dripped from my skin over that last 72 minutes. Another blood sample taken, score recorded and feelings gradually return to my extremities. This is the first of four sessions today and each one is as painful as the last. This training is only possible with the correct quantities of fuel and so five meals and four protein shakes in a day allow me to continue without losing too much weight and perform at the level I need.

As I sit on the bus descending the mountain I can feel the air thicken. It is as much psychological as anything, but it seems to have a healing effect on me. I can feel my strength returning and it is a relief to be off the ‘knife edge’ of illness at least until we get back to England and return to our boats and the training resumes again, tomorrow.

19Dec2011

Rowing biography, Alex Gregory

Alex Gregory is a leading rower in the Great Britain rowing team, as part of the renowned GB coxless four that took gold at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Alex first learnt to row at Evesham Rowing club while completing his A-levels and, as a relative late starter to the sport, he made rapid progression into the British system. However, not everything was straightforward. He won his first GB vest in 2004 at the U23 World Championships in Poland, where he finished 11th in the quadruple scull. In 2005 he came fourth in the double scull, and he came eighth in the single scull the following year. These disappointing world rankings did not deter him and 2007 was his first senior season where he raced in the quadruple scull. In 2008, while Alex was injured, the crew narrowly missed out on Olympic qualification, which looked like the end of a very unsatisfying Olympiad.

However, Alex was selected as ‘spare man’ for the Games where he travelled to Beijing with the team. This turned out to be a turning point in his career and he made the decision to swap ‘sculling’ for ‘sweep’ rowing. With a new outlook on the sport, Alex took the 2009 season by storm, beginning with a win at the GB rowing senior trials in the pair. From here he gained selection into the men’s coxless four.

Alex established his place in the new GB four during the 2009 World Cup series, winning two golds and a bronze to take the overall World Cup title. The crew then went on to win the World Championships in Poland where Alex became world champion for the first time.

He then raced again in the men’s four for the 2010 season, taking gold at the World Cup race in Bled, bronze in Munich and a gold medal in Lucerne. However, the World Rowing Championships in New Zealand did not allow the crew to continue their exceptional run of medals, with course conditions scuppering their plans. The four finished a disappointing fourth place, but after the string of frustrating outcomes earlier in Alex’s rowing career this did not put him off and he came back even stronger for the 2011 season.

Alex was moved to the prestigious stroke seat of the four and this season has been by far his best to date. As an unbeaten crew throughout the season they travelled to Lake Bled in Slovenia for the World Rowing Championships, where they won gold in great style, naming Alex world champion for the second time. This could not put Alex in a better position heading into the 2012 season, and the weeks and months ahead are a very exciting time.

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Alex Gregory

Alex Gregory is a leading rower in the Great Britain rowing team, part of the renowned GB coxless four that won gold at the London 2012 Olympic Games.Read more »

Achievements

  • Gained first GB vest in 2004
  • Spare man in the 2008 Beijing Olympic team
  • 2 x Gold and 1 x Bronze in the 2009 World Cup series
  • Gold at the 2009 World Championships in Poland
  • 2 x Gold and 1 x Bronze in the 2010 World Cup series
  • 3 x Gold in the 2011 World Cup series
  • Gold at the 2011 World Championships in Slovenia
  • Gold at the London 2012 Olympic Games
  • Gold at the World Championships, Korea 2013
  • Gold at the European Championships, Belgrade 2014