World Championship multiple medalist Lauren Boyle has been training at altitude in Sierra Nevada, Spain with Fred Vergnoux’s elite group, a tactic she employed before her breakthrough summer in 2013. This time around the height is having a negative effect that Boyle hopes will not last, “I’m still battling a bit, which is disappointing. It’s lasted longer than I thought it would,” Boyle told the New Zealand Herald.
Boyle is currently battling a sinus and chest infection which resulted in some very disappointing results at the Mare Nostrum meet in Monaco where she finished fifth in the 400 freestyle and sixth in the 200 freestyle.
“It didn’t go very well for me; it went pretty badly actually.”
Boyle, who bronze in the 400, 800 and 1500 freestyle in Barcelona last summer, has not posted a top ten time during the 2014 long course season.
“I guess I can say I’m working as hard as I can, hopefully will get better soon,” said Boyle.
Boyle will need to be prepared to face competition such as Jazz Carlin, Brittany Maclean and Jessica Ashwood at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, which is the reason why she joined Vergnoux’s group. Although she is fighting illness at the moment Vergnoux has been impressed with what the Kiwi has brought to his group’s training environment, “Both Mireia (Belmonte) and Lauren are professional athletes and training together has been really positive,” Vergnoux told the Herald.
“The day Lauren arrived the training level went one step higher, which is great for both of them, and the rest of the group.”
The plan worked to her advantage in 2013 and she is hoping that she can recover from the training and her illness so that she can experience the same, if not better results at the games which start in just over a month, “”It was really a challenge for me, a lot more work than I was used to, and different work. I wanted to do something like that this year, because I’ve really been looking for some kind of challenging environment.”
“I’m putting all my energy into preparing the best I can but I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“That’s the beauty of sport; you never really know how it’s going to go. However perfect your preparation is, it might go badly; and if you have a crap preparation sometimes it goes okay.”
taking its toil?