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Thursday 5^th May

9am fight out of Perth on our way to Brisbane. I met up with Jackson and Kates at the airport and we new we had a long day ahead of us considering that we had to stop via Melbourne for an hour and there were no exits seats available- which meant cramming into those tiny airplane seats. A sore back and a few cramps later we met up with Cliff and Sullivan who waited patiently for 3 hours. A stop at the pool for a quick swim and then to the Japanese restaurant for an all you can eat banquet complements of Australian Swimming.  The hotel was fantastic, top line luxury with in room spas and everything.

Friday 6^th May

Early start to the day with a buffet breakfast at 7 which couldn’t be capitalized on due to training at 8. The rest of the team arrived, where we were all kitted out with our Telstra Dolphins gear and believe it or not a selection of brand new swim suits skins. The arvo was the first session of the invitation meet at Chandler Pool were the World Champs Team and the rest of the boys on the camp thrashed it out for some not so competitive times. My first event was the 100 free, 53.04, which definitely showed my last 5 weeks out of the water when it felt as though I was going is slow motion in the dying meters of the race. 50 fly was next, it seem to be a good effort until with great disappointment the timing pads stuffed up which meant no times. But not to worry trusty coach Dion clocked me with a 0.5 pb at 26.2- so Kimbo you better watch out because there is some more “chop-chop” coming your way! Back to the hotel for all you can eat Chinese where efforts mimicked the night before.

Warm-ups during the Grand Prix

Saturday 7^th May

Today was the final session of the meet - the true test of form – 50 free. 24.07 and if have another look at my swim it was more like a plough through the water rather then a sprint. Mmmmm, well I think I have a fair bit of work ahead of me to return to form but hey that’s what the camp is for. We ended the meet with a talk from Jodi Henry’s coach, Shannon Rollanson where he talked about “raising the bar” and how the men’s swimming team has gone backwards since Sydney 2000. After some confronting and constructive incites from Shannon and finding out that my party life is taking up too much of my swim programme we were of to the Gold Coast. We turned into Palm Meadows and arrived at our luxury Radisson Resort with its own golf course, pool, gym and what ever else you can think of, which made me contemplate whether we were here for a holiday or a training camp. (I’ve got to go on these camps more often!!) I just settled into my room ready for a rest after the comp and knowing I had a training session that night when my phone rang. It was Dion deciding that we would go for a quick workout in the gym before training. Great!!! Training was a just an introductory swim through, back to the resort, dinner, talk and bed.    

Sunday 8^th  May

We all got the morning off training to sleep in but Dion must have thought that I didn’t deserve to, and decided that we would go for a run before breakfast at 8. The idea was to run to the beach and back which would be a 10 km run but neither of us knew the way and after some wrong turns and no through roads it was more like 14km which is probably the longest run I have ever been on. After breakfast was at trip to the beach for a leisurely swim however it was a miserable day so half of the team settled for a game of touch. The game got messy with lots of huffing and puffing, a heap of cramps and getting covered in sand so a swim in the ocean was inevitable. We were all dreading the swim session for the night after pulling up sore from touch until to our saviour, training was cancelled due to poor weather. But hey no reason for Steve to get the night off, it was off to the gym with Brett Hawke where he showed me the kind of things that he worked on in dry land training. I learnt that the exercises that I do should be specific to my swimming- that I should adapt the way I lift weights as if I was in the water. (which makes a lot sense). That night Brett Hawke gave the whole team a talk about the attitudes towards training we should employ and how it is important to take charge of your own swimming career.

Me and Brett Hawke during one of the many workouts

Monday 9^th May

When I woke up in the morning I could barely get out of bed, not because I was tired but because I had so many aches and pains from the run, touch and the gym from the day before. This was when I realized that this camp was no holiday. The morning set was drills and skills in preparation for the sprint session in the arvo. Back at the resort Hawkie and I were back in the gym doing one of his core body workouts. (I sure do have a lot of work ahead of me, his set was pretty tough). During lunch we reviewed race footage from pasted Olympic and World champ events working on race strategies and plans. Off to the pool for the big sprint set, it was 1 of 3 for the week and we were all expected to perform, and this was the case. The set comprised of 25s where everyone was swimming pretty fast. It was important to focus on consistency across the set so our hard work would be reflected in a real race. Back at the resort was dinner and an inspirational talk from Ashley Callus. Ashley discussed the events of winning gold in the legendary 4 by 100m free relay in Sydney 2000 where they “smashed the Americans like guitars!” and believe me if you hear his story you will be inspired to be part of something like what he experienced!!, it gave me goose bumps just listening to it. He talked about his highs and lows in the sport and how he dealt with them. After nearly breaking the 100m free world record Ashley’s swimming went down hill. He said that it was a very difficult time for him were he received a lot of criticism and sponsors left him. But now Ashley is back, and ready to do better then he has ever done before.

Here’s me contemplating warm-ups

Tuesday 10^th May

This morning’s set was a recovery set where I taught the boys how to make whirlpools while sculling - they could barely get it. Today I went to the gym with Ashley Callus so he could show me the areas he works on in the gym.  His set was more my kind of set were we lifted more weights. In contrast to Hawkie’s set it was different but it was interesting to see that Ashley also works on exercises specific to swimming and body position. It was good to work with Ashley to see how an Australian champion trains and the attitudes he has towards his swimming, which gives you an incite of the kind of commitment and professionalism it takes to reach a similar level. It’s very motivational!!  The swim session for the arvo was quite tough being an aerobic set and our guest speaker for the night was Bernard Savage from the Victorian Institute of sport. He educated us on the importance of a correct diet, drugs in the sport and the use of supplements in both training and competition.

Wednesday 11^th May

We had a cruisey swim in the morning and a pretty relaxing day so we were nice and rested for the big set in the arvo.  Everyone worked really hard in the afternoon swim. At one stage I nearly partied with my lunch, and some of the other boys did. I had my lactate up at 14.7 where my lactate in the set on Monday only got up to 7.9. The set was designed to show us how important it is to remove lactic acid, but it just hurt like hell.

That night Australia’s Head coach Allen Thompson gave us an inspirational talk on the goals for the future. It was a secret plan devised for Men’s sprinting and I can’t go into any more detail, sorry.

Some of the boys before warm-ups

Thursday 12^th May

Today was media practice. We all took turns in being in a mock panel of 3 or 4 were Ian Hanson, the media official for Australian swimming, and other from the crowed fired questions at us so we had a little practice on how to get out of sticky situation if ever we were confronted by an aggressive media. It was important, no matter how negative the question is, to have positive response. Media interviews are about promoting yourself, you always need to portray the right image because you never know who is watching… maybe a potential sponsor?? The arvo’s training session was quite easy, well for 4 of us in the true sprinting lane. There were a few games focusing of certain skills like classic catches and reaction times where Dion had red frogs for winners. Kates no matter how hard he tried couldn’t manage to win any frogs; which was very amusing for the rest of us. The Guest speaker for the night was psychologist Matt Burgin from WAIS who discussed motivation in the camp and how to keep it up when we return to out usual programme back home.

Stretching with some of the other sprinters on the camp

Friday 13^th May

Friday morning, the 3^rd last session of the camp and the last of the 3 hard ones. And believe me it was hard. The set was focused around backend speed where we tried to mimic the last 50 of 100m race. Back at the resort was we had a little rest before lunch and then off to our second phase of our Pilates programme. Its was very challenging for those who were weak through the core body – which was pretty much all of us. That afternoon we had free time where most of us went to the mall and others to the movies.

Saturday 14^th May

A bit of fun for the last session where we were divide in to relay teams and had a few sprint races. Of course our team comprising of Brenton Rickard, Glenn Piper, Michael Jackson and myself were victorious in both the medley and freestyle 4 by 50m relays. It was during this session where I realized that I had really got a lot out of this camp. It is quite amazing that in the right frame of mind and the right environment how much you can achieve in one week. I started the week where I had just come from a 5 week break, was sluggish in the water and struggling to keep up with the others. Now one week later I have returned to form, swimming training pbs’ and am focused and motivated to take up the challenges of the new season and work hard towards achieve my future goals!