8th August 2008

  
Hi
 
Well, I’m finally here in Macau staying at the Team GB preparation camp – and it was an eventful journey!
 
Long Journeys

The flight went pretty well, I was able to get a good five hours sleep after a bite to eat and a movie – the food was great but the movie wasn’t up to much! However when we got to Hong Kong we weren’t able to travel on to Macau – which takes about 50 minutes on the ferry – because there was a typhoon.
 
I know from my teammates already here that they pretty much closed up the hotel and sat it out whilst it was going on. In Hong Kong it didn’t seem that bad but then we weren’t as close to the action.
 
On the good side it meant that we had to stay in a hotel on Wednesday night at Hong Kong airport, which actually helped to break the journey up and meant we could recover from the flight – I was travelling with a couple of team members – Steve Lewis, Jade Johnson and my coach Mark Roberson amongst others.
 
The hotel was ok as it had a swimming pool and sauna so didn’t mean we were sitting around doing nothing, and probably aided recovery from the journey.
 
We travelled across to Macau on Thursday morning, and it was much better – although the sea was admittedly a little choppy. I spent the day settling in and did a light circuit session with some cardio work, weights and some plyometrics in the afternoon.

On Training
 
My training is all set to go again tomorrow, I have a session tomorrow, more work over the weekend, then on Monday I’ll be doing a competition format session. This is where we will replicate competition conditions such as the time I’ll be competing and other things that help you prepare in more detail.

The sessions have gone really well, and I’ve been close to and matching my maximum weights in my conditioning work.
 
I’ve also done a lot more delivery work this year and it’s really showing with my throws in training. I have increased my training personal best by three and half metres – making it one of my best ever throws.
 
Familiar Territory

It’s good to be back here as we used Macau as our preparation for Osaka last year, and going somewhere you are familiar with where the facilities are so good really makes a difference.
 
Anyway, that’s all for now – I’m travelling to Beijing at the end of next week and I compete on the following Tuesday morning, I’ll be in touch once more before then to let you know how it’s going
 
Goldie