Hyeres was quite a light week wind wise, we only had 0-6 knots each day. So we would spend the first six hours of every day just waiting and watching the weather reports to see when we could race. Me and Sarah were quite lucky however, as we had drove the Volvo down to France after all the flights were cancelled. So instead of waiting out in the cold we would get the DVD’s on and sit in the back of the car! At big events like this, you do sometimes have to prepare yourself for the fact you could be waiting a while, but on the other hand you can’t relax too much because you could be racing in half an hour!
It was a really hard week and I started off quite well, getting to 4th place after day 3. Then unfortunately it all went a bit horribly wrong. I am still not exactly where I need to be and it is frustrating not being where I want to or need to be to be competitive. The more events I compete in though the stronger I’ll become and get right back up there. I am treating all these events as training exercises before Sail for Gold later in the summer so as long as I keep building my strength up and working hard I’ll get there.
After driving back home it was straight into hard training here in Weymouth, I was really disappointed with the result in Hyeres so I pushed myself really hard this week, maybe a bit too much because I was flat out by the weekend! So to have a little bit of a calmer weekend I went cycling with my friends, this is really important for me as I can still get a good workout but have a lot of fun at the same time. This weekend though I was hanging on their back wheels all the way as I was so tired! It’s usually the other way round (Just kidding lads!)
This week we have some of the French, Dutch and Portuguese RS: X teams out here at Weymouth for training, today I went down there for some lunch and a chat with some of the guys there. There are small little social groups in the RS: X fleet so it was nice to catch up with them. With the Olympics coming to Weymouth in 2012 the foreign lads will be coming here a lot over the next few years as they try to get used to the conditions.
After two weeks of training here at home then it’s off to Holland for the Delta Lloyd regatta which is the next event in the ISAF World Cup Series. This again will be a good chance to gauge how I am coming along this season, what needs work and what areas I am improving in. Hopefully I will be knocking around the top 5 and push on from there ahead of Sail for Gold which is now just over 2 months away.
Away from the water I have ordered my new bike which I am really looking forward to getting! It will help with the training loads and of course having a brand new bike will serve as a great motivator to crack on with the training!
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