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Hold on...

Post 21 November 2011 By Toni Minichiello In Coach's Corner Blog

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Winter preparations have begun and the first six weeks of training have come and gone. The clocks have gone back and as nights draw in you feel the harsh reality of the winter training slog.

We see reminders on websites of the BOA and UK Sport, even in local newspapers there are countdowns to the start of the Olympics, as a coach I have my own.

In total there are 44 training weeks for Jessica to the Olympics. A total of 246 training days, taking into account all the planned rest days. That clock has now ticked down to 38 weeks, equaling 210 training days left.

Now no athlete ever wants to be reminded of the time ticking away, so I’m not quite sure why I feel compelled to remind Jessica of the remaining time. Maybe it’s the sadistic pleasure in telling them how precious the time is, in the hope that they’ll focus more and give 100% at every training session.

In fact, the opposite is true and holding Jessica back is more likely the case. The lessons of missing the 2008 Olympics are still very clear in my mind and avoiding those mistakes is 'the' major motivator to me.