On arrival at Avis we checked in and had lunch then we got
ready to kick of the camp. We carried
all the boats down the hill to the boat racks and rigged up ready for our session. We just had one session for the day after a
long days travelling.
Camp went in 3 day cycles so on day 1 and 2 we would have two morning sessions and a session late afternoon. Day 3 was the day we all waited for when we would do pieces and a technical session followed by an afternoon off. Down time was mainly spent napping, reading or watching films along with visits to see the physio.
For the first 2 cycles I was in a 4x coached by Robin Williams who coached the gold medal winning W2- to their victory at the London Olympics last summer. I really liked Robin’s style of coaching and he was very good at simplifying technique and each session he would do some video analysis. This enabled us to see how we had changed our technique and what still needed improving. The following two cycles I moved into a 2x with the head coach Paul Thompson. Paul coached the W2x to Olympic glory in London which saw Katherine Grainger finally getting the Gold to add to her Silver collection. The final cycle was land based on day 1 due to odd numbers with injury then on day 2 due to the weather. Day 3 was time to come home and although we should have done our pieces and technical session in the morning we ended up having to get an earlier flight home as our original one was cancelled due to snow at Heathrow Airport.
I really enjoyed being on camp with some amazing athletes and it has given me a lot to take back to training in Nottingham. I’m also really grateful to the physio for holding me together through the camp with a fair amount of tapeing. Our next water assessment is on Saturday 9th February in the lovely Boston over the 5000m course.
