We’ve been back in Canberra for 10 days after a brief break to catch up with family and friends, but most importantly seeing the nearest and dearest WAGs (I’ll be in the doghouse if I don’t say that).

The instructions from Richo (coach) and Ricey (conditioner) was to relax and re-charge the batteries (or solar panel otherwise known as a receding hairline in my case), but I kept pretty busy in Sydney catching up with people, from grandparents to employers to medics.

One thing I have learnt from my time training full-time at the AIS since 2006 is that when I do get the opportunity to head back home, I feel much more refreshed after spending time with family and mates than knocking out hours in front of the TV or sleeping.

There was no shortage of interrogations and long lines of questioning about our World Cup performance in Luzern when we finished a disappointing fourth. In the end, I reckon I had the answer well rehearsed.

The constant probing really forces you to intensely analyse your performance. It rams home the importance of being transparent and genuine with yourself and your crewmates. Anyone can see straight through smoke and mirrors.

Anyway, I’ve certainly arrived back in Canberra totally ready for the last 6 weeks of our campaign before the Beijing Olympics kick off.

We’ve more or less got back into the old routine, with all the medics and physios that have been managing us all season beating us back into shape after the heavy training cycle we had in Europe amongst the two World Cup events.

One change over the past week has been Richo’s call to split the eight up into two fours. At the moment, the middle four of the eight is in one of the fours and the stern and bow end of the eight in another four.

It gives us a break from rowing the big boat, and mixes up our schedule in case we were getting a little too comfortable and into too much of a routine rowing the eight.

The fours are more sensitive to row so you become more aware of all the small movements that may affect the boat. It’s great, direct feedback on your technique when the boat tips and drops.

It also gives our coxswain, Marty, a break. Not that he wants one; he gets withdrawal symptoms when we don’t row the eight.

What none of us will miss are the mid-winter temperatures of Canberra.

Sports bottles full of hot water and AIS ID cards have been necessary to scrape the ice off windscreens before driving down to the boat sheds in the mornings.

Bizarrely, one of the iciest parts of Canberra is indoors – the recovery pool in the state-of-the-art recovery centre.

The pool is usually set at 11-14 degrees and we alternate between the hot water spa and the cold water plunge pool to aid our recovery.

The regime is meant to be at least equal time in both, such as 2 minutes in the hot water, then 2 minutes in the cold water over four cycles to make a total of 8 minutes in each.

Doctor Shona Halson, the Senior Recovery Physiologist (or Recovery Centre Madam) instructs us on differing protocols, depending on what training we’ve had that day, as well as the training we’ve got scheduled the following day.

The icy cold water is meant to reduce inflammation and soreness, much like icing an injury, and the contrasting heat generates blood flow to the muscles, flushing out lactic acid riddled blood.

This also has the affect of firing the central nervous system. My body language and expression in the photo shows how impressed I am with all this science behind dunking my body into an icy plunge pool, but if it’s going to help me recover from the day’s training so I can train harder tomorrow, then it’s all worth the goose bumps and hard nipples.

This week we’re heading north to warmer climes – Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. We’ll be using the next three weeks up there to help our acclimatisation to the heat and humidity expected in Beijing.

Apparently the physiologists have been developing some strategies to aid this process. They haven’t detailed them to us yet, which probably means bad news such as training in long sleeve thermals.

Even worse will be if the Maroons knock over the Blues in the Origin III decider. ‘Carn the BLUES!

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