ACCORDING to the travel guides the former spa resort of Castleconnell, five miles outside Limerick, is a sleepy village where holidaymakers are supposed to stay for the leisurely mornings, countryside walks and a spot of fishing.

7.30 a.m. weigh in. After two weeks, Castleconnell's recuperative charms seem to have passed the visiting contingent of rowers by. For each of the 14 man squad though, the early starts and long hours of training holds out the promise of a seat on Lake Lanier, Atlanta in July.

Making the Olympic cut also preoccupies their coaching team. And at the moment only two are certain of a starting place.

At the World Championships in Finland, the Commercial/Neptune combination of Emmet O'Brien and Brendan Dolan scraped a double scull into Atlanta but a steering problem during a repechage race means that the coxless four has to take its chances at the Lucerne qualifying regatta in early June along with single sculler, Mary Hussey.

Since both of the men's events are lightweight the day starts on the scales. The target is an average crew weight of 70 kg with an individual limit of 72.5 kg.

9.30 a.m endurance work. The three kilometre run to the boathouse is just the warm up, there's another 16 kilometres to go on water. Given that last minute considerations of injury and weight may determine the final crew selection, the training is intended to make for an interchangable line up.

Sam Lynch from St Michael's Club was a member of the World Championship four and is now one of eight sweep oarsmen in the squad.

12.00p.m. weights session. Already this year the squad have attended two warm weather training camps in Spain and as the Olympics approach, training has become a full time occupation. In a sport that remains amateur, even at this level, it has meant that squad members have had to give up work and look elsewhere for financial support.

One of John Holland's unofficial duties as coach is to ferry international athletes down to the Limerick dole office. There are a few with sympathetic employers willing to give them long periods of leave, some are students and others, from outside Dublin, are helped out by their local clubs.

2.00 p.m coach's talk. Thor Nilsen has been coaching international crews since the mid 70's and has built his reputation on turning out some of the top European boats to win Olympic and Worlds honours.

He starts the daily squad talk with a review of the previous day's work at the national sport science labs in Limerick. In his hand is a pile of step up charts, an exercise where split times on the ergometer are reduced every few minutes to gauge the rowers' anaerobic threshold.

Neal Byrne, a sculler from Commercial, comes out on top with a scarcely believable oxygen efficiency.

The emphasis during the winter on developing the squad's strength has produced it's own problems. Extra muscle had effectively added the weight of a cox to the two boats.

Nilsen urges his rowers to reduce their food intake sensibly but the 35 hour training schedule is taking its toll. The usual knocks and strains appear on the sick list.

"As a group we have been doing a programme that is almost to the maximum and for some it is too much," Nilsen says.

3.15p.m. short distance work. Nilsen has come up with 24 kilometres of warm ups and six minute exercises for "controlled technique" but one of the veterans of the squad, Neville Maxwell, believes the more professional approach is producing better results.

"When I started, the aim was to get into a championship final. Now, the minimum standard has gone up and we'd expect to come away with a medal."

For the next few weeks at Nilsen's home on the Swedish coast, the training will include three high intensity sessions a day. Eight sweep rowers and six scullers will make the journey - Hussey choosing to prepare for Lucerne with her British counterpart, Guim Batten.

Nilsen has an international regatta in Cologne early next month to try out some of his ideas, but it won't be until after Duisberg in the middle of May that the final crews for the Olympic lightweight double and four will be known.