"My second week of training here in Flagstaff was just as hard as the first. Our coach Vince Raleigh increased the intensity in our sessions compared to the first week.

I travelled 70km in the pool, a little less than last week, but there was much more focus on speed and threshold pace swimming rather than endurance aerobic swimming.

I was glad to get through the week and we had plenty of time over the weekend to rest and recover.

Our training is now easing off slightly in preparation for our first meet over here in Tuscon at the end of this week.

At Tuscon I will be racing my main events the 200m and 400m freestyle, as well as the 50m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 100m butterfly races.

The aim is to try and gain some speed before going to California to race in the Santa Clara International which will feature many of the biggest names in swimming including Michael Phelps.

I will race some longer distances in Santa Clara.

I'm looking forward to my next couple of weeks of racing, especially this weekend in Tuscon where we will come back down to sea level, and, according to some of the other boys who have experienced high altitude training before, during the first few days at sea level it feels really easy to breathe and the body feels great in the water.

The Tuscon meet should be a good warm-up for Santa Clara the following weekend. It will take us about 4 hours or so to to reach Tuscon travelling via Phoenix.

I'll let you know how the Tuscon meet goes."