I WRITE this from the banks of the Rhine canal in far western Germany, where we are based for a two and a half week training camp.

On these sort of camps we aim to push ourselves to the edge of the cliff, but not over it; so far it's working well as I am pretty much dead on my feet!

The idea is we load on the volume of work over the next two to three weeks, then in the last week of July we will start to 'taper' – that is, to reduce the quantity of work but increase the quality and the sharpness as we get up to our racing speed.

James Cracknell, double Olympic rowing gold medallist, likened this period of the year to building the engine, then spending the final two weeks into the Games tuning it.

Out here in Germany we have a team of physiologists, doctors, physiotherapists, biomechanists and technicians to make sure that we are in the best possible condition that we can be, and exploiting the training, without crossing that fine line into exhaustion, illness and injury.

We will complete a huge quantity of endurance work both on the water and on the rowing machines; long, low intensity work to increase our endurance capacity. We'll spend a lot of time in the gym lifting weights to build strength and explosive power, to enable us to get our boats up and moving out of the start gates faster than anyone else. And finally, technically, we'll break down each part of the stroke and improve every detail of what we're doing.

When we return to the UK for our tuning camp at the end of July, we'll focus in detail on our racing strategies; but right now the emphasis is on the here and now and getting through one day at a time.

It's incredibly tough and I'm sure when I sit here in a week's time writing my column again I'll be feeling pretty war-weary!

It's tough, it's hard both mentally and physically, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling the pressure. But this is what we're here for; we're building our Olympic campaign, and it's exhilarating.