WEEK 6
Date: September 4
Busy doing nothing in pursuit of peak performance
I have never been a fan of alarm clocks - to me they represent all that is wrong in the world.
Sleep is one of the most natural of life’s pleasures and to have it rudely interrupted by ten quid’s worth of Japanese tat seems downright nasty.
If something artificial is needed to wake you up then it must surely mean that you have not had enough sleep in the first place. After all, only a Posh Spice wannabe would ignore that extra wafer thin mint if they were still a bit peckish, and - by the same logic - only a masochist (or maybe someone with a proper job) would spurn the opportunity of an extra ten minutes in the sack.
No, alarm clocks are evil and should be destroyed.
This is particularly poignant when the Olympic Games are breathing down your neck. With the opening ceremony only a matter of days away rest becomes of paramount importance. Putting in six hours of training each day would now become detrimental. At this stage, the more you rest, the sharper you get - and so the better you race.
Hence the need for sleep. The old maxim of eight hours a night being sufficient is thrown out the window and upwards of ten becomes the norm.
Now, obviously in the real world there is simply not enough time to spend half the day in bed. I, however, am not in the real world; I am in the British Olympic Holding Camp.
Here, life is different.
Here, there is someone else to do ... well, pretty much everything for you. Your only worry is whether or not you can be bothered staying up to catch the eight o’clock showing of X-men, or whether there is enough time in your laconic day to fit in an extra game of pool.
The BOA have set up a camp on the Gold Coast that really does offer all the selected athletes the chance to focus in on the Games themselves without having to bother with the mundane things in life that would have to be attended to in Britain.
It also offers a refuge from a potentially disrupting deluge of media interest that awaits in Sydney and so is the perfect place for someone like myself to spend their last few days.
In fact, the only real problem with being here is that there is relatively little to do if you want to stay fresh.
In a country renowned for sun, sea, surf and ... sssssomething else ... it can be quite frustrating to pass up on the opportunity to go surfing and settle down with a good book instead.
That, however, is what I find myself doing, and for the next few days it is simply a case of maintaining a strict regime of doing next to nothing out of the pool and not a whole lot more in it. Aside from a few maximum-effort swims (that recreate the feeling of pain experienced in a race) the order of the day is rest, rest and rest – followed by sleep.
Boring it may be, but if it results in an Olympic medal, then it is most definitely worth it.
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Read Paul's diary for WEEK 1 ...
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