I thought...wrong

Well everyone keeps saying I need to update my blog (strange/good to know that  people actually read this) so here goes...

Unfortunately we didn't qualify for the Olympics for the team event. Surprisingly I don't feel the way I predicted. I thought I'd be hiding from all the Olympic torch media and from the world in general. I also thought I might get bored and feel at a loss at what to do and very quickly get very fat. Strangely enough this hasn't been the case. Instead I got straight into a full time job - recruitment in the Oil and Gas Sector - and found that this takes up my time, almost completely. I've tried to do some longer distance running and am discovering that when you're no longer an athlete you can survive off half the food and sleep you used to be able to.

 I also thought I'd never want to pick up a sword again and, although I don't have time to train in the evenings, I am keen to keep up the competitions and maintain my national ranking.

I thought I would never want to hear the word 'fencing' again and forget it happened, but I actually look back on the whole of my fencing life often and only feel pleased and what I took on. I was also captain of the British team for the final two Olympic qualifiers which I loved and allowed me to take the lead, rather than be scared stiff to let others down. Now I'm actually excited for the Olympics to come to Great Britain and can't wait to cheer the rest of the team in all the sports on. I hope you'll join me!

Sanity Recommended

Wow, can't belive this much time has passed since I last posted anything. For a really quick update, I've been to two Olympic Qualifiers so far. In Doha I worked on the psychological side of my game concentrating on staying relaxed and enjoying it - maybe a little too relaxed and I forgot to get away from my opponents attacks. Budapest was much better and I worked really hard. Unfortunately though I am not near qualfying yet and so with two qualifyers to go I'm completely ready to put my all in.

The good news is that I've been reselected for the team event for these final competitions so I have even more opportunity to show these foreigners what I'm made of.

I've also been blogging for the o2careers website and given the odd talk letting my colleagues experience a bit of the passion and excitement I feel towards the Olympics and to spread the Olympic fever round o2. And the main parallel I find between working life at o2 and aiming to compete at the Olympics is to make sure that everything you do helps you to come out the other side 100% sane. This is fully recommended. As soon as this starts to sway and your perspective gets distorted you're heading for trouble...

A year on

As the title of this blog suggests, it's been a year on from when I first started this blog and as it predicted, there have been plenty of ups and downs. The ups have allowed me to taste what its all about and the downs have given me a hunger to give it everything I have.

This Christmas I trained hard up to Christmas Day, then went straight to the TASS (Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme) camp usually in Grantham Barracks, this year in Rome Barracks - a small difference. After a relaxing New Year I'm ready to start my training again and after just finding out I've been selected for the first two Grand Prixs of the season, it's a good start to 2012.