Athletics: Tom Walsh update Jun 22

Tom Walsh in the IAAF World Indoor Championships at Oregon Convention Center. Photo / Getty Images

Hi guys

So, it's already been 2 weeks since Eugene Diamond League - time flies when you're having fun!

After that I went to my base in Athens, Georgia, which is where I was based last year. I'll be based there right through until I leave for Rio. It's a lot easier to go back to a place you've been before, you know where everything is and it feels familiar - almost like a second home.

I'm really very lucky that I have a great support staff there who look after me really well, with physio, massage and some great places to train, which is sometimes hard to find when you're on the road.

After Eugene, my coach Dale came over for two and a half weeks before the Stockholm Diamond League, and when I left for Stockholm he headed back home for a bit. We had a good few weeks of training, and a few of the technique problems I had in Eugene were
starting to get ironed out. Every day the throwing was getting better, so I was really looking forward to Stockholm. We did a wee bit of a freshen?up for Stockholm, so I knew I would be in the best shape I'd been in since World Indoors, and with throwing coming along well it was looking good.

You might wonder what we do in our free time over here - well, both Dale and I are keen golfers, so we got out for a few rounds. It's good to take your mind of athletics for a bit, especially when you're on tour and living and breathing it full?time, and golf seems to do that. We also have turn?about at cooking, so that makes for some interesting meals. Because we have more time than we do back home, we tend to give more new things a try - sometimes they work, sometimes they don't!

So before we knew it, the two weeks was up and I was off. I was starting to throw pretty well, so was getting excited about the comp. I managed to win the event, and had a really good series of throws - all of them were above 20.90 and within about a 20cm range, apart from one foul. I was happy about the consistency but I felt like I had more in the tank, and was just not quite lining the throws up right.

Nothing to worry about though, we have plenty of time until Rio and the fresher I get, the easier it is to get it right.

As I'm writing this, I'm on my way back to Athens. Angus Ross, my strength & conditioning coach, will be there for two weeks, and then my girlfriend Dana will be over for a bit too, which will be good. And of course there will be plenty of training and a wee bit of golf - next comp is the Diamond League event in London in the middle of July.

Hopefully the NZ winter isn't being too hard on you guys - thanks for all the support.

Cheers,
Tom Walsh