I am currently in USACO Silver but considering my CF performance I will probably ICP to gold in one contest.
This blog is directed towards people who are in USACO platinum or camping. If you are not in either then you can still comment if you have something useful to say. I'm willing to bet if your rating is below 1600 then you don't have much useful to say.
I know these advice blogs are redundant but I could not find much about this. Most advice is about to start but there's nothing when you're far beyond starting.
So here are my questions:
- What did you do to practice? Currently I am doing USACO guide gold problems I feel like doing and will eventually start doing random actual USACO gold problems. Should I be doing something more focused? Should I try oj.uz?
- How to practice implementation? The only thing I could think of is putting some pressure on myself to implement faster. Did it just come naturally from experience?
- How do you keep yourself disciplined? I often struggle with this.
- Did you do anything outside of competitive programming that helped?
- Is there a significant difference in the problem solving part of CF and OI problems? I know OI problems require more implementation, but is there a different mindset/skillset when it comes to dealing with the problem?
- Do the roaches in the dorms taste good?
- Am I asking the wrong questions? Should I just shut up and do the 30 most recent 2000 problems?
Please don't comment "solve more problems and listen to twice" I promise I'm trying (except I don't listen to twice)



