I managed to get off to a great start in these championships. The open water event started 2 days before the competition in the pool and i got my first British gold medal in the 17-18 age group and got 2nd place in the 17- 25 age group. I swam a really tactical race keeping just behind the lead pack of swimmers until after turning at the last buoy. The rest of the championships were really hard, there wasn’t enough time to recover from the open water so I didn’t make many personal best times at the start of the championships. However, I really surprised myself in the 400m individual medley on the last day, which was only the second time I had competed in the event in 4 years, when I got a best time and was placed 14th in Britain for the 17-18 age group.

Hi, it’s been a very busy time for me. Not really started the holidays yet!

I started the summer representing Britain in the European LEN 10k open water competition in Italy finishing in just under the 2 hour mark. I was happy with this as it was the first time I had ever attempted this distance. This was imediatly followed by an intensive open water swimming camp in the South of France and finished with an entry into the the elite race at the Great East Swim in Ipswich where I finished in 8th place. I had never really competed at open water before but found it was something I was good at. After that I had only 1 night at home before the scottish open swimming championships. Due to being away on the camp I was not able to prepare and taper my training as I normally would for a major event. However, I still managed to finish as the 3rd Scot in the 1500m free. I then had a little less than a week before a greuling scotish squad camp in Cardiff in preperation for the brittish age groups in August.

Can I say a massive thank you to all the generous shoppers at ASDA in Dunbar who kindly donated at my bag pack. The money was used to purchace a new racing suit.

Main event this month was the Scottish National age group champs at Tollecross. In the lead up to this event my stroke was not feeling at its best, my normal rhythm in my freestyle was not there due to doing less distance in the pool since christmas. However I really surprised myself as I managed to beat my best times in nearly every event getting two individual medals and two medals from the relays.

Other good swims that I wasn’t expecting were in my 100m breastroke and 200m IM where I finished 11th and 7th, which I was pleased with since this meet was only the second time I had swum these events long course. The rest of the East Lothian Swim Team swam really well too, especially in the relays, and we managed to be placed 5th best club which was amazing for such a small team.

Finally the easter holidays. Had a very hard week so far as I have had to complete a write up of a biology investigation for school as well as training. Been working on it quite late to get it finished before the holidays but still getting up at 4:30 for training which meant I got about 3 hours sleep on tuesday and 5 on wednesday, however I intend to make up for this with a long sleep after training tomorrow. In training I have started to taper down the intensity before competing at the scottish national age groups in a week which I’m looking forward to as its the first big competition of the season.