"Looking Forward to the Olympics" and "Journey to the Podium"

I've just realised I have some catching up to do with my recent activities. A few weeks ago on Friday 29th October, I spent some time at Witham Library for the "Looking Forward to the Olympics" event which was taking place at various libraries across Essex. I really enjoyed this experience. We had several primary school children visit and in addition to answering questions I got involved in making time capsules with the children which will be opened at the time of the Olympics and Paralympics to see how much change there has been in how the children now look and how their family and school lives have changed. We coloured in drawings of the Olympic and Paralympic mascots, and made laurel wreaths. It was so good to be able to talk to children at this age because they are so receptive.

Last week I attended a private showing of the Journey to the Podium exhibition at the Gibberd Gallery in Harlow. The artist who had been assigned to me was audio artist Stuart Bowditch. He's a great chap to work with. We had several sessions at my gym, and at the Brithish Powerlifting Championship at Stoke Mandeville, where Stuart made all sorts of recordings of noises. I made in the course of training and competing. From these he composed an anthem entitled "First Flight". This title relates to the first group of athletes to lift in a competition. I'm always in the first flight because I'm in the lightest bodyweight class.

For the exhibition Stuart rigged up a weightlifting bench with earphones. Anyone lying on the bench could put the earphones over their head and listen to the anthem, which was playing continuously on a loop. Brilliant!

Apart from 'my' exhibit there were many more including those from the previous year. There was some outstanding work and it was a great experience to see the various exhibits and meet up with my fellow Team Essex Ambassadors and their artists.

Training wise I'm on fire! This has been a difficult year due to various setbacks such as ear infection, slipped disc and chest infection but now, due particularly to extra training I'm receiving at Birmingham EIS, I've just hit my January 2011 target in the gym. I've got 9 weeks left to get off a little bit of weight and maintain my strength in the run-up to the UK Open Benchpress Championship. This is an extremely important competition as I need to hit target to maintain my position in the GB Team.