Faster than ever before - and that feels good

I'm in a good mood. I've just finished a tough couple of days at the velodrome, and it's all been excellent news - two personal bests on the flying 200 metres.

At the same time, I'm hurting. On Tuesday I did the last part of my interval session at my lactic tolerance threshold, and if I'm honest it felt pretty grim.

My numbers were great - my power readings are up - but it still felt horrible. There's nothing pleasant about those sorts of sessions.

PBs do wonders for your morale, though. To be at the absolute top of my form just days before Beijing is a wonderful feeling.

And we're all doing it, too. I can't say that one member of the GB squad is looking better than anyone else because every one of us - the team pursuiters, the women, the sprinters - is at such a high level.

The strange thing is how used to success we are now.

On Tuesday I went under 10 seconds for a 200m sprint for the first time in my life, but it just felt like a normal day. The standards in the squad are so high that it didn't feel like I'd done anything remarkable.

In some ways you'd expect to be at your best right now. The training load has changed - we're now getting more rest than at other times of the year, and with the Olympics so close motivation is at its absolute peak.

The quality of every single effort I put in on the track is now vital. You have to be hitting the right numbers of every lap - there's simply no room for cruising.

We've been working towards this for four years, and we're right at the sharp end of things now - you just give it everything in training.

We've also brought in a dress rehearsal feel to training, using our race wheels in training, silk tyres on the track, wearing the race kit.

That feels good in many ways - you know you're so close to the big day - but at the same time it piles on the pressure.

If you're not hitting your marks, not making the times you should be making, you've got almost no time to try to sort things out.

Everything we've achieved in the last four years - those PBs, World Championship gold medals - now feels like a stepping-stone to this moment.

This is the top of the mountain for us. And if we're as strong in Beijing as we should be, it'll take an outstanding performance to beat us.

Chris Hoy was speaking to BBC Sport's Tom Fordyce

Chris Hoy is a British track cyclist aiming for his second Olympic gold in Beijing. Our FAQs should answer any questions you have.