Sky Scholar Siobhan-Marie O'Connor building up for Rio in Australia
Friday 24 March 2017 12:23, UK
Cruising around rock pools, stressing over tan lines and spending seven weeks in a swimming costume sounds like a bit of a holiday.
Try telling that to Siobhan-Marie O'Connor and you'll probably get a pair of goggles flying at you at great speed.
The Sky Academy Sports Scholar and one of GB's rising pool stars may be taking in the sights on the east coast of Australia, but this is a period of serious and brutal preparation for the world's biggest sporting stage for a swimmer. Rio is less than six months away.
Siobhan is yet to secure her place at the Olympics, with an intense schedule of qualifying races awaiting in 2016. Here are her thoughts in the first of two blogs from down under. So what is the 20-year-old from Bath really up to?
I am writing this from the beautiful Gold Coast in Australia and it really is beautiful. As a swimmer I do get to travel to some amazing places in the world and thanks to the Sky Academy Sports Scholarship programme we are here for seven weeks.
The first three weeks have gone very well. Adjusting to the time zone at the start was difficult, but my coach and I were careful to establish a routine early on, which really helped.
The main aim of this trip is to have a solid block of training away from any distractions in the UK.
It's a great opportunity to really focus on specific aspects of my training ahead of the British Olympic Trials in April.
At the end of the first week, once I'd settled into Aussie life, I raced in a fun but tough meet - the Miami Super Challenge. I was very pleased to come away with a PB in the 100m breaststroke with a time of 1 minute 7.7 seconds.
I also swam the 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke to maximise the training benefit and experience of back-to-back racing.
We're based at The Southport School (TSS), which has two open air pools on its beautiful campus. British Swimming used to run an offshore programme out of TSS for some of GB's best young swimmers, and so they have a great relationship with the coaches here.
As a result we've been able to build a good training base and it feels like home away from home.
As a group we've mimicked our UK training timetable as much as possible, starting at 7.30am each day with a morning swim session, followed by strength and conditioning and remobilisation in the gym.
In the afternoon we have another swim session until around 8pm, before I crash into bed ready for the next day.
In terms of actual training, we've spent the last few weeks in an anaerobic phase, focusing on race pace - high-intensity work. We'll then ease down slightly for a 'regeneration week' before completing another two weeks of anaerobic work before heading home.
Away from training, I've had a lot of fun so far with the team. I visited the Killarney Glen swimming hole with some of the girls, which is a rock pool shaped like a heart at the bottom of a waterfall (see pic above).
It's absolutely stunning and it's really great to see different parts of Australia. We've also been to the local beaches on our rest days and I've been working on reducing my tan lines a little!
It's not all sunshine though - we had a huge storm over us last week. Our apartments provide a fantastic view over the sea so although it was quite scary, it was also pretty cool watching the storm roll in.
In the next couple of weeks, we're hoping to visit the local water park and of course the famous Byron Bay. Fingers crossed the sunshine will make a reappearance.
WHAT'S COMING UP FOR OUR SCHOLARS...
JAN 16 - MARCH 5: Siobhan-Marie O'Connor, Australia
FEB 8-15: Sam Oldham, training camp in Portugal
FEB 13-14: Elise Christie, World Cup in Dordrecht
FEB 17: Mark English, Holly Bradshaw, Grand Prix IAAF Indoor Meeting, Stockholm
