Camp, Birthday, Goldfish and Feb Trials

A lot has happened since my last blog post! I had an awesome water camp with Leander in Banyoles.  Great water, great training, great company.

We had a lovely afternoon off which a few of us spent in nearby Girona...



Katherine enjoying the hot chocolate :)

View from the top of the old part of Girona

The gym in Banyoles is basic and generally has everything you need but the leg press machine was broken on this occasion, so we had to improvise. And with competitive athletes it always leads to something more. Cue the boys creating all sorts of body weight group contortions and exercises!

The super leg press.
Three girls, one moustache.

The combined press up

Ultra heavy press up

Later on in the camp it was my birthday, I was thoroughly spoiled with presents, cake, a gorgeous day and a dip in the lake.  The junior boys really treated me too, I got lots of funny presents from them, including two goldfish! So, we are in Spain, three days to go until we leave and I have a plastic bag with two live goldfish inside. Hmm.

The options were:
1. return them to the petshop (not really feeling that. Ungrateful!)
2. Row out into the middle of the lake and set them free.  However, they would undoutably either get eaten or die from temperature shock within the first five minutes of freedom.
3. Seal them into an old empty cinnamon sticks jar, wrap them in a towel and hide them in the back of the trailer underneath riggers, blades and trestles. Cross your fingers for the 1000mile journey home through freezing conditions.

In the end, after much debate, I went with option three. I was completely expecting to find two floating goldfish when I unwrapped the jar after the trailer had arrived home but unbelievably
THEY SURVIVED! Incredible, but they must be hardy souls. They did hide at the bottom of their new tank for 10 days after arriving back so there was a severe element of shock there I think, and I would not recommend buying your fish in a different country but by jove they are alive!

Happier days

When I got home we had a birthday tea party with lots of friends and my wonderful boyfriend Graham made me the most incredible cake. It had a test run and everything. It puts me to shame!

A few days later I was moving house, so life has been stressful.  Having a million things on your mind 24/7 and being on the go all day every day for a couple weeks is not good for an athlete.  Despite having a great training camp in Spain, I was very disappointed with my performance at the recent February trials.  I can only put my underperformance down to the stress of moving. I rarely underperform, and never by so much, so it was very disappointing but the encouraging part is that even with a poor performance I was the next athlete after the GB squad girls. Rumour has it that teh top 14 finishers from Feb trials are going to Sydney for the first World Cup.  I came 15th.  Such is life, but I can now get a really solid couple of months training done in my single and look forward to Final Trials in April.

It's been great training at Leander this month because we've had a new champion in our midst. Friend and Olympic Gold Medallist in the women's 1x this summer in London, Mirka Knapkova has come to Leander to train with us for three weeks. She has done the same thing for the past couple years now so it has been lovely to watch her progress and see how she does things!

such an inspiration!