Sir Chris Hoy talking about his preparations for London 2012
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Home advantage for me isn’t just about the sports facility itself, but also the familiarity with your general surroundings.
.
Your accommodation, the language and food, no jet-lag issues and of course the support of your home crowd.
.
There’s nothing like hearing a huge cheer when your name is announced as you line up.
.
Very good for morale!
.
Since returning from our big winter training block in Perth I have been concentrating more on the high-quality training and less on the basic conditioning work that we did in Australia.
.
I’ve been putting in some of the hardest sessions I ever do, notably the lactic acid tolerance sessions on the static indoor trainer or ‘turbo trainer’, which take the body to the very limit.
.
We’re used to working hard on the track, road and gym, week in week out, but these drills on the turbo stand alone in terms of pain.
.
It’s a love-hate relationship that I have with these particular sessions.
.
We only do them at certain points in the season and there’s no two ways about it – they hurt.
.
They hurt a lot.
.
The thing is, you know the benefit they can bring and you know that the real returns only come when you push yourself right to the limit of your pain tolerances.
.
After the full set of sprints which are interspersed with very short recovery times, I usually collapse into a heap on the crash mat next to the bike.
.
The searing pain in your legs is horrible and you begin to shutdown totally as you retreat into a dark little place for a while.
.
You feel sick and indeed often are sick.
.
It can get pretty messy.
.
And every time you do it you convince yourself that you have never felt this bad before, you must be ill or something is badly wrong with you.
.
Never again.
.
And then, every time, after about 15 minutes in the foetal position the mist and pain lifts and you start feeling OK, a bit groggy and your muscles ache but basically all right.
.
So you get up and do it all again.
.
The strange thing is that counter-intuitively you actually suffer more as your conditioning improves.
.
You are able to produce more power, create a greater concentration of lactate in the blood and therefore hurt yourself more.
.
You’d think it would get easier but it most certainly doesn’t!
.
It’s very tough but I always feel reassured to complete such a block.
.
That’s money in the bank, nobody can take that away from me and it has worked very well in the past.
.
Such sessions help me feel that I am as well prepared as possible and that is where I get my confidence from.
.
Past medals and wins count for nothing when you line up against the world’s best in the here and now. It is current form and condition that matters.
.
If I am as fit and well prepared as I can be I relax and race as well as I can.
.
After that, what will happen will happen.
.
When it comes to the legacy of the London Games, I expect the velodrome and cycling facilities on the Olympic Park to be a shining example.
.
The first thing is to inspire people, especially youngsters, to use the new facilities and hopefully the excitement of the Olympics and British competitors winning medals will do that.
.
Your accommodation, the language and food, no jet-lag issues and of course the support of your home crowd.
.
There’s nothing like hearing a huge cheer when your name is announced as you line up.
.
Very good for morale!
.
Since returning from our big winter training block in Perth I have been concentrating more on the high-quality training and less on the basic conditioning work that we did in Australia.
.
I’ve been putting in some of the hardest sessions I ever do, notably the lactic acid tolerance sessions on the static indoor trainer or ‘turbo trainer’, which take the body to the very limit.
.
We’re used to working hard on the track, road and gym, week in week out, but these drills on the turbo stand alone in terms of pain.
.
It’s a love-hate relationship that I have with these particular sessions.
.
We only do them at certain points in the season and there’s no two ways about it – they hurt.
.
They hurt a lot.
.
The thing is, you know the benefit they can bring and you know that the real returns only come when you push yourself right to the limit of your pain tolerances.
.
After the full set of sprints which are interspersed with very short recovery times, I usually collapse into a heap on the crash mat next to the bike.
.
The searing pain in your legs is horrible and you begin to shutdown totally as you retreat into a dark little place for a while.
.
You feel sick and indeed often are sick.
.
It can get pretty messy.
.
And every time you do it you convince yourself that you have never felt this bad before, you must be ill or something is badly wrong with you.
.
Never again.
.
And then, every time, after about 15 minutes in the foetal position the mist and pain lifts and you start feeling OK, a bit groggy and your muscles ache but basically all right.
.
So you get up and do it all again.
.
The strange thing is that counter-intuitively you actually suffer more as your conditioning improves.
.
You are able to produce more power, create a greater concentration of lactate in the blood and therefore hurt yourself more.
.
You’d think it would get easier but it most certainly doesn’t!
.
It’s very tough but I always feel reassured to complete such a block.
.
That’s money in the bank, nobody can take that away from me and it has worked very well in the past.
.
Such sessions help me feel that I am as well prepared as possible and that is where I get my confidence from.
.
Past medals and wins count for nothing when you line up against the world’s best in the here and now. It is current form and condition that matters.
.
If I am as fit and well prepared as I can be I relax and race as well as I can.
.
After that, what will happen will happen.
.
When it comes to the legacy of the London Games, I expect the velodrome and cycling facilities on the Olympic Park to be a shining example.
.
The first thing is to inspire people, especially youngsters, to use the new facilities and hopefully the excitement of the Olympics and British competitors winning medals will do that.
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