Since arriving back in Australia from racing and training in Europe (myself in August and Ros in October) our sights have been firmly set on earning selection onto the 2012 Olympic team. For anyone who doesn’t know the story – there is one place on the Olympic canoe slalom team for an Australian woman, and there are 400% more of us than that who are capable of earning that spot. 50% of those are Lawrences. Yep, that’s right, only one of us can possibly go. Which makes for some friendly rivalry. But it is friendly – I promise!
It is now 228 days until the Olympics begin, and only 60 days until our first selection race. So for the last few months we have been:
- Training really hard.
- Making the most of the staff from the AIS and NSWIS who are helping us to gain every ounce of improvement that we can – technically, physically and mentally. Our coaches are our main support, guiding our physical and technical training. But we are also fortunate to have access to experts in strength and conditioning, physiology, sport psych, skill acquisition, recovery, and nutrition.
- Racing – there have been some small races held at the Penrith Whitewater Stadium which help us to keep improving our race strategies. Also the NSW State Champs were held on the 5-6 November at Nymboida Canoe Centre. Day 1 saw myself in the lead ahead of Ros by 0.8s. The following day Ros pipped me at the post by just 0.56s. But close racing is good racing. It pushes you to look for where you can gain every fraction of a second. And it may be fractions of a second that decides who goes to the Olympics.
- Christmas! (Merry Christmas everybody!)
- The National Championships – to be held on the Mersey River in Tasmania on 3-5 January.
- Olympic and National Team Selection, to be held at Penrith Whitewater Stadium on 10-12 and 24-26 February.
