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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.

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!

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.

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.

Rowing biography, Alex Gregory

Alex Gregory is a leading rower in the Great Britain rowing team, having recently stroked the renowned GB coxless four to gold at the 2011 World Rowing Championships. This takes him into the Olympic season as current world champion and leader in this event, a great platform from which to begin his 2012 Olympic campaign.

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.