From post: Peter Reed Photo GalleryIt has been a little while since I wrote my thoughts down for Jackspeak. I’ve poured all my motivation and attention into the racing season, which is now underway.
With the first World Cup in Bled, Slovenia behind us I can safely say that this years men’s coxless pair has encountered more than it’s fair share of punditry from the media.
For the last three weeks I have been training in Italy in a new pair getting ready for the final national selection trial. The training has been long and hard as usual, but I’ve had a bit of added freshness in the form of Alex Gregory. He is a young new talent to the rowing team (from the sculling team) and everything we seem to do in the boat goes well. It doesn’t always work that way in new boat due to different shapes, sizes and rowing techniques – but it turns out that we were a good match.
I’m writing this blog on my laptop looking out over one of the most spectacular natural landscapes I have even seen. I’m in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
My teammate, Andy Hodge, and I were recently invited down to the Institute of Naval Medicine to be put through our paces by the physiology staff just to see how tough we really were.
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The weeks and (couple of) months after the Olympics have been the only time in 5 years when I have really had a chance to stop and think about what I’ve been doing all this time. The sacrifice, the friendships, the training, the racing, the failure and (thankfully more often) the success. The thought of being better and faster than before is scary as I know what it is going to take to get there.
Yesterday morning on board HMS PRESIDENT, I was delighted to announce that the Royal Navy has offered to continue to sponsor me as an athlete until London 2012. With this support, it was an easy decision to continue to row for the next 4 years to aim for another gold medal at my home Olympics.
I hope you enjoyed the race! I’ve spoken to lots of people since then that have told me they were on the edge of their seats and screaming at the television, so I hope you’ve recovered from the shock and thanks for the help!
The 11 days since the race have rushed by in a whirlwind. Immediately we stepped off the medal podium the madness started and it’s barely stopped since. That night we were taken into a press conference at the Olympic Village that started at 11pm and finished about 3am. I received personal congratulations from the 1st Sea Lord, and then of course there was the interview with Gaby Logan where slow-mo footage of Hodgey telling me he loved me was played to ‘Je t’aime’ – I haven’t been allowed to forget that since.
I managed to catch some athletics at the Bird’s Nest (what a stadium!), some wrestling (where I felt small) and the modern pentathlon (where I saw our girl Heather Fell get a silver).
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I think that throughout history, every athlete at every Olympic Games will have wanted to crawl under a rock and hide until it’s all over at some point in their preparation. It is difficult not to when you know how big and important one race is. Whether it is 9.7 seconds or 2.5 hours long, you know that other people who are the best in their country, at the peak of their form, are trying to take what you want most in the world; the one thing that you have been working so hard for, for more than 4 years. 
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Hi everyone,
This is just a really quick one to let you know that I am leaving the comforts of home on Monday for 6 weeks until the Olympics is over. The first stop is a 3 week training camp high up in the Austrian Alps for some altitude training. We live in log cabins, train up to 5 times a day and eat 6000 calories and sleep for 12 hours in order to push our bodies hard enough.
