After a long successful cycle of racing and training the 2 weeks I had been waiting for had arrived I flew to Eindhoven from London and met the rest of the team at the hotel. It was great being back in Eindhoven I have always really enjoyed racing there so after a quick loosen in the pool I was feeling pretty good. I had another day of loose swimming before the meet started it was quite a high profile meet with a lot of foreign swimmers competing which immediately made it more exciting. 

The first morning I was first event with my main event the 200 b/c I usually like having a bit of time before I race to chill out after the warm-up however this was pretty rushed. I had a good heat swim though and was going into the final in 3rd place where I remained touching the wall in a best ever time in an international event only ever swimming faster in Dublin. I went a 2.12.0 and had mixed emotions about the result it was a good swim but I hadn't attacked the first 100metres like I should have, being put off at the steady pace my rival was going at beside me later to find out she negative spilt the race which is very uncommon. So all the years of being told and telling myself to concentrate on me and me alone had evaporated.

I put the swim behind me and decided to learn from it and move on quickly as I wanted to race well in my other events. It must've worked because I swam a new personal best in my 200free narrowly missing dipping under the 2 minute mark in the 200freestyle. I was so happy but also frustrated being so close yet not getting the result I had wanted. Although my motto was if at first you don't succeed try,try again which is what I plan on doing at Irish nationals at the end of February.

I finished off the weekend racing with great confidence my final individual race in the 100bc also went well so it was a very successful weekend indeed. I have struggled at some meets getting up for the race and having the confidence in myself to stand up next to my competition who are ranked higher than me however after the meet I felt I had dealt with it well and become more aggressive in my swimming which I definitely was going to take into the next meet in Poland for the European Short Course Championships.