YVONNE McGREGOR

© Associated Press

WEEK 5
Date: August 28

Final checks and balances add up to a will to win

3...2...1...BANG!!!

When you are so close to your ultimate sporting experience, it becomes essential to monitor closely your final preparation in order to attain your peak fitness when it matters.

This is where you work hand in hand with your coach. On the one hand, my coach, Peter Keen, has such a vast knowledge and experience of working in this field that I never doubt his faith.

Yet, no one knows the athletes better than the athletes themselves and therefore it is so important to listen to ones body and give your coach any necessary feedback of impending niggles, overtraining symptoms and the like.

As you are continually training at the top of your game it is often a very fine balance between injury and peak fitness and getting it right on the day or overstepping the mark.

In this way, all my training this year has been closely monitored by Pete, to the extent that all my bikes (Road, Track and Time-Trial) have SRM Power Cranks. This is an expensive set of cranks which has the unique ability to measure your power through every revolution of the pedal and even tells you the amount of time you have free-wheeled during a ride!

It also means there is no shirking from your workload when it is telling you in black and white just how much power you are churning out. In this way, my training has been one of gradual progression throughout the year, with the final icing on the cake about to come into operation.

This last fortnight has seen the introduction of my final countdown phase and the indications are that I am continuing to progress both in speed and power.

This works absolute wonders for one's motivation and spurs me on to get the absolute best out of every training session you have left. Training-wise, this week has been another one involving split sessions of threshold overload and power work, or in plain English - torture sessions!

Each session you are that bit less recovered than the last , but my workrate has been calculated to such an extent, that my fatigue factor still allows me to be able stretch myself that bit further. This is what is classicly known as the training response. Boy, do I look forward with relish to my recovery days!

I have really enjoyed my training and racing recently. When the going gets tough I somehow seem to revel in it.

It's strange because it has got progressively harder and more tortuous and leaves you feeling in a permanent state of semi-fatigue and yet I get immense satisfaction out of working so hard and seeing improvements.

I'm now really looking forward to getting out to Australia and gradually decreasing the workload so I'm fresh and raring to go for the big day.

I went back to my home town of Bradford this past weekend and met up with some old running friends who I have known since I was 12. It was not all play I'm afraid - it just happened that my two races at the weekend were in Yorkshire so I thought I'd kioll two birds with one stone.

My Bank Holiday weekend was never going to be a holiday at all. A time trial on Saturday followed by a 66-mile road race with the elite men on Sunday. It was a daunting prospect.

I was the only woman in the field but it was my last road race before the Olympics and gave me an excellent workout. The guys showed no mercy and I was forced to work hard and suffer in the bargain. Oh! what it takes to be fit and healthy...BUT I LOVE IT! Roll on Sydney....

Read Yvonne's diary for WEEK 1 ...

Read Yvonne's diary for WEEK 2 ...

Read Yvonne's diary for WEEK 3 ...

Read Yvonne's diary for WEEK 4 ...