It is now the time of year that all rowers live for. Months of training in winter darkness pave the way for summer racing readiness. Having seen a few seasons, I know that time will just disappear if we’re not careful and if my crew is to be fast enough at the culmination of the season, we can’t let that time drift away.

The next few weeks should see a British M8+ race at the Dorney World Cup, Henley Royal Regatta and Lucerne World Cup. Whether shiny or soiled, our progress will be judged by the rowing media on results but we will always analyse our form based on other parameters. We can’t afford to let three results govern the next four weeks. We need to be searching for crew unity, rhythm, fitness and strategy during every training session in that … Read More »

2012 is behind us and London mania has slowed to a steady walking pace. Although I knew from a long time ago that I wanted to carry on rowing for the GB Rowing Team, it was important to take a break to have a deep down mental and physical rest. I crammed a lot in but managed to take some essential down time for the briefest of moments.

I’ve been back in training for a few weeks already. I came back when I was ready with a bit of helpful guidance from Jürgen. I won’t lie, I struggled with motivation for the first few weeks. Going from feeling like a rocket in August to, let’s face it, a bit soft around the edges, takes it’s toll. It didn’t take long to get back into the swing of dark & … Read More »

In recent months, enough people have been asking me the same questions about cameras for me to offer a blog to you all. I’ll leave the subject of photography for now, but instead here is my camera buying guide and I’ll keep it as simple as possible.

Before I get going, I don’t have any sponsors so this is 100% independent. I have used all of the following cameras and lenses so I’m not guessing. Also, I haven’t used every camera in the world champs – but I know that these days, they’re all at least adequate so it’s hard to go wrong. Here are my suggestions for you; these are a lot more than adequate:

Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) (Big camera that you put to your eye). Use these for real photography that you see in magazines, exhibitions, books and … Read More »

Welcome to the Olympic Games. I thought I’d pen a brief jolly this evening as I now have two full training days before our semi-final. This will be the last time I put a blog up until the regatta is complete.

What inspired me to write was a question from BBC presenter John Inverdale in our post-race interview this afternoon. He asked me about social media (Twitter) and whether or not we should be using it at the moment. If you’re reading this then I’m sure it hasn’t escaped you that I pressed “pause” on my Twitter account (@PeteReedRowing) about three weeks ago having been very active until then. I decided not to tweet, but much more importantly, not even to log in to read tweets. Everything that came in was brilliant support but from time to time, you’d encounter someone’s … Read More »

I’m winding down on social media before the Games in order to internally focus on the job we have to do in our boat. I’m feeling happy at the moment both on and off the water. As the Olympiad builds to it’s four year climax, we are starting to slowly taper which we don’t do this well at any other time in the cycle; not even the for the World Championships. We’ll be telling the BBC all about it in a few hours when they show up at the hotel for our official media day so keep an eye out for news on PeteReed.com and on the BBC.

In my spare time on camp I try to find 10 minutes each day to get my camera out to shoot the scenery, other athletes and maybe a bit of Portuguese wildlife. Until … Read More »

The great thing about Twitter is that you can only cast out 140 characters. Brilliant – I haven’t got time for much more now as I’m busy working so here are a few key points:

Our altitude camp was great. My hands are in a state. I’m naturally winding down social media before the games but please keep the support coming. I’ve put a few new photos into the 2012 Season gallery. The portraits from poker night are fun to look at… poor old George Nash.

Great to be home with my girlfriend and dog. It’s a shame it’s only for 1 day. Final prep now. I can’t wait.

It’s a good start to our training camp, but I have a bit of bad tech news for you.

Here’s the list of gear: iPad3 wifi, iPhone 4S, camera. Sadly with this kit alone, I can’t upload these nice photos I have to my gallery, so keep an eye on Twitter as that works fine. I’ll try to tweet a nice one at the end of each day.

Unless there is a well connected & generous American millionaire out there who is prepared to buy a MacBook Pro Retina and UPS it to Austria for me, that’s how we’re going to have to roll for a couple of weeks. Damn iOS5!

Not to worry. I’ll be training more than shooting anyway. At least I can blog simple text from my phone.

Three blogs rolled into one here champs as we’ve been very busy for the last week. Now we’re away on camp we finally have short chunks of rest time between sessions. You can only sleep so much, so here’s a brief update.

Munich; I said at the time, disappointed but positive looking forward. I know where we are and where we need to be and the path will be up hill but we have the right guys to make the long hike. No distractions.

Olympic kit; I hope you liked the photos I put on Twitter. Most of them feature in my 2012 Season album so check it out too. It was a really important day as it unifies Team GB. There will be some rock star athletes going through there over the next 5 weeks and we will come together to … Read More »

Welcome to my Twitter feed. @PeteReed. If you haven’t signed up to (the free and recommended) Twitter, you can follow me on my website.

I have to say, it took me a while to be convinced about it. I reluctantly started in 2011 having been persuaded by a trustworthy mate. My reservation was primarily that I really didn’t think that most people would be very interested in the ramblings of a British rower. You’ve changed my mind guys. I won’t pretend that I think everything I tweet about is interesting, most things are interesting to someone and some (rare) things are interesting to most people. I can live with that. Additionally, there are a lot of things I can tweet about without giving away the specifics of Jürgen’s daily training programme. So if you’re happy then so am I. If you … Read More »