Royal Ramblings

After a tremendous amount of work in December, Alison and I finally moved into our new house just in time to host dinner for twelve on Christmas Day. It was manic, but we (when I say we, I mean Alison) pulled it off despite both being a little under the weather with colds. Luckily we were over the worse by New Year and spent the night at Somerset House. At midnight we found ourselves on a terrace overlooking the Thames in full view of the amazing fireworks that ushered in 2012. Olympic year was upon us!

Because I’d been ill over Christmas, I eased myself back into training gradually. It’s obviously a huge year and the temptation is to fly into a huge block of work immediately. However, over time I’ve learned that doing too much too soon is as bad as under-preparing. My aim is to peak at the perfect time this year and planning my training correctly is a vital part of that.

That said, I certainly haven’t been taking it easy. Rhys Ingram at EIS, Lee Valley (aka The #PainFactory), has put us through some brutal conditioning sessions… Rhys, there are no hills in a game of Wheelchair Rugby! Why? I’ve also been down to Southampton Solent University to see Dr Stewart Bruce Low (aka #EvilStu), who has designed tailor made training programmes for each GB squad member. These guys are key to our London prep and I can’t thank them enough for their help.

Leading on from that nicely, you can see me undergoing a VO2 Max test on the giant treadmill in Loughborough University by following the link below to my athlete profile on the C4 Paralympics website: http://paralympics.channel4.com/the-athletes/athleteid=420/index.html#Andy%20Barrow While you’re online, remember that you can also find and follow me on Twitter by searching @AndyBarrow2012.

On the lighter side, I’ve swapped gigs for comedy this month. I’m lucky enough to have famous club, “Up The Creek” on my doorstep in Greenwich and have taken the opportunity to see big names such as Stephen K Amos, Jon Richardson and Paul Chowdhury performing live.

As a Greenwich resident I’m also proud to say that as well as being an Olympic borough, (playing host to both Olympic and Paralympic basketball, gymnastics, equestrian, shooting and archery) it is now also a royal borough! Greenwich received its royal charter last Friday (3rd Feb) as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations and is one of only four “royal” boroughs in the country.

I’ve also been doing my bit to raise awareness about the Olympics/Paralympics in Greenwich. I recently gave a talk to an audience of teachers at the “Olympic Champions Meeting”. The meeting is designed to update schools on LOCOG/local Olympic opportunities. It was an excellent morning of talks and workshops that left me extremely excited about everything surrounding the Games in London this summer. The true scale of what we are about to experience is really starting to hit home and I hope I’ll be there to tell you about all the exciting things that you can get involved in along the way… Thanks for reading.

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