NO QUARTER GIVEN IN MY KIDS CAMP
to go home to the family and relax and play with my son or do bath time when I get home. I really enjoy that. But it’s not made a big difference.
“You spend a lot of time away but I have a very supportive wife and it’s just part of what I do. When we’re at home I train in the morning and a lot of days I can get home for lunch.”
His baby girl is only two months old. She’ll come to Rio too, maybe as the lucky charm he’s been missing in his quest to snare that elusive gold. If he needs any extra inspiration, then Katherine Grainger won’t be far away.
It was fourth-time lucky as the Scots’ rowing legend topped the podium. Definitely worth the wait. For her, it became an obsession. For Florence, it’s take it if it comes. He said: “To be honest, I won two silver medals under very di f ferent circumstances. The first one I was really pleased to get on the Olympic podium.
“It had been a dream of mine and I was close to the gold, which would have been nice.
“But mostly I was pleased to have gone to a first Olympic Games, put in what I thought was a good performance and get on to the podium.
“In London at the time, I felt disappointment to come so close to an Olympic gold and not quite get there.
“But looking back it’s really easy to see that a small margin prevented you from getting a better result.
“Of course it’s also the case that you were a small margin off getting a significantly worse result and not being in the medals. With a bit of time for reflection, I’m really pleased with both.”
Florence is not just chasing Olympic glory this time. He’s after history too in Brazil.
No-one’s ever come away from a Games with double delight in the solo and pairs. With good reason. The C-1 and C-2 sit side by side in the schedule in Rio. It’s gruelling in the extreme.
Florence said: “Having done it at a World Championships – which is arguably a harder field with three boats per class compared to one at the Olympics – there’s every chance I can do it at the Rio.”
That, in every way, would be something out of this world.
Training camp starts on Wednesday so I’ve been pushing ahead with my preparations for the new season.
Earlier this week, I did some training with Tennessee Titans kicker Ryan Succop.
He lives in Charlotte so we met up before he has to go out to Tennessee for the start of his training camp.
We kicked on a local playing field and picked each other’s brains as we talked about different aspects of our games.
My brother-in-law came along too and he got a kick out of being on the same field as two NFL stars.
Later in the week, I went to a youth camp in Pensacola, Florida, where I grew up.
It took place at the naval station where I spent a lot of time as a kid and the camp was for children who have parents in the military.
It was nice to give something back and more than 100 kids turned up every day of the camp.
Coaches had volunteered from all over the country and the kids received drills for every position in the game.
I got to teach some of them how to kick and even played quarterback in some seven-on-seven games.
Against the pre-school kids I was pretty good at quarterback.
I started quite well and was feeling pretty good about myself.
But against the high school kids I just couldn’t stop throwing interceptions.
There was this one kid who kept coming out of nowhere and intercepting everything I threw. He was like superman and so big and fast for a high school kid.
So it’s safe to say I’ll be staying a kicker in the NFL.
It was also my sixth wedding anniversary last week and I went out with Brittany after spending a day together by the lake.
It’s great to enjoy some quality time with my family before the camp starts.
Things are about to get pretty hectic and intense so it’s nice to just chill out for a few more days.