Durham's world champion rower, Nathaniel Reilly O'Donnell, continues his exclusive diary charting his preparations for the 2016 Olympics in Rio

07:00 - Wake up, take heart rate, submit a pee sample and have a blood test

07:15 – First breakfast - three bowls of cornflakes and a glass of water

07:45 – One-mile run on the full-sized running track on the roof to "warm up" - in places it's knee deep in snow!

08:15 – First session - flat pace on the erg (rowing machine)

09:40 – Second breakfast - two croissants, two glasses of fresh orange, four boiled eggs, one yoghurt and three bread buns

11:15 – Second session - weights

13:00 – Lunch - soup (unknown - looks dodgy), bread roll, spaghetti bolognese, salad, apple, pear

14:00 - Afternoon nap – yeah, you read that right, I need to recover to get through this evening's training!

16:00 - Afternoon tea - two baguette sandwiches, cereal bar and fruit juice (not really a tea drinker)

16:30 – Third session - erg

18:00 – Fourth session - straight from the erg to 45 mins of football

20:00 – Dinner - unknown soup again with bread roll, potatoes, chicken, veg, two yoghurts and a banana

21:00 - Message the missus

22:00 - Bed

THAT’S today - the last ten and next few days will be pretty much the same. Life on altitude camp is monotonous, there's no crowd to spur you on and all you want to do is grab another hour of sleep.

It's a bit of a juxtaposition that we are grinding ourselves to the bone, yet the view from the gym is of a stunning snow-capped mountain.

It's 270 days until our World Championships and Rio 2016 qualification regatta. It's during these days that our races are won and lost, not the final week or two before the competition.

I've seen a team-mate vomit on himself mid-erg and it's pretty normal to get nose bleeds for no reason. At your lowest moment, you're begging for ‘the tap’ (where the chief coach pulls you off the machine) while at the same time you just want to make it to the end and tick that ‘completed’ box.

Our team prides itself on training as hard as any other sports team out there. Our sports scientists and coaches are forever tweaking the programme to get more and more out of our bodies, right up to the point of breaking and often beyond. Pain and discomfort will equal winning; more pain, more wins. That's why we weirdly look forward to doing it.

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IT’S easy to get caught in our own bubble of extreme fatigue or the romance of striving for Olympic gold. Don't pity an athlete driving themselves into the ground, we want to be there, this is where we are made.

Seeing and sharing what we do is about showing others that you can do it too. Over Christmas, many of you will try to work off the Christmas pud; when you see them, give it a toot on the horn or a "gan on lass" as she tears past.

The North-East does grit and determination pretty well, let's cheer each other on as we enter our own personal hell.

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LOCALLY, last weekend saw over 250 crews race on the Tyne at Rutherford Head. Newcastle and Edinurgh Unis took top honours in the two divisions of racing with Durham ARC, Tyne Rowing Club and Chester-Le-Street ARC showing strength in the junior men's and women's categories.