Nation on Trial Blog: Drink while you're winning (From Surrey Comet)

Nation on Trial Blog: Drink while you're winning

3:05pm Friday 10th February 2012 in Sport By Stuart Amos

I don't and never have professed to be much of an athlete, but I'm feeling at least 80 per cent of one at the moment.

After a weekend of binge drinking I still managed to recover in time to post seven minutes 38 seconds for my first 2km trial this week.

That is 80 per cent of the target time or approximately 1:30 adrift of the mark, imagine what might have been.

I may not have lived like an Olympian this weekend, but I certainly drank like one.

Four days in to my Nation on Trial training and it happened to be the start of the Six Nations, which resulted in an England win.

On top of that, my rugby club - Weybridge Vandals - enjoyed a clean sweep of wins for its first, second and third teams - a rare occurrence.

While I completed my training on Saturday - a one hour 30 minute cycle - the excesses that followed completely wrote off Sunday.

Cricket nets was about all I could muster instead of a 20 minute session on the rowing machine.

I'm pretty sure the likes of Greg Searle or Sir Matthew Pinsent will not have made the same mistake.

Monday represented a fresh start, but my Nuffield Health Twickenham MOT health check does not make completely inspiring reading and was full of contradictions.

Body Mass Index (26.9) says I'm a little overweight, yet cholesterol levels and blood sugar levels suggest I eat particularly healthily.

Resting heart rate is 46 beats-per-minute, but my blood pressure seems bizarrely high despite having never had a problem with it before.

Have vowed to cut down on coffee to see if that makes a difference.

On the agenda this week is a significant increase in the intensity of training and significantly more rowing.

At the same time it is my birthday and there will be a few drinks consumed on Friday and Saturday night. That could be interesting.

For details on the GB rowing team's Nation on Trial initiative visit nationontrial.org