Nationals in Irland · Swimpros 🏊

Nationals in Irland

Part 1 - Ireland

100 Breast - gained some time on my PB (+1.02) but still made it to the A final, unfortunately added another 0.09 to my time and finished 8th.

50 Fly not at all happy - added 1.28 and needless to say did not make it to any final.

50 Breast swam a tiny PB -0.03 and made it to the B final, there I managed to improve again by a tiny amount 0.10.

100 Fly complete disaster. This completely shook my confidence. Nothing went right. Goggles filled with water and just nothing felt right about the race. Wanted to quit right then and there but after a bit of deep breathing I managed to work through it a little and got myself ready for the 200 IM which I generally feel I am not very good at.

200 IM - surprisingly I managed to swim a PB dropped 0.48 and made it into the A final. That unfortunately did not go as well as the prelim but I will take it.

400 Free went ok, though added a little time.

200 Breast - in prelims dropped 0.77 seconds and made it to the A final, again in the final added time again but was reasonably happy with the end result.

Last day 400 IM - Had a massive panic attack about 30 minutes before I had to go to the call room. Managed to calm myself down and relax enough to go do the race. Swam a much better race than I thought I would, gained a little time but considering where I was 45 minutes earlier I was pleased, also made it to the A final which was a great boost.

I decided not to swim the final as I was exhausted from the week, but ended on a high nevertheless and I knew I had to do it all again the following week in Switzerland, but a lot less racing.

All in all a good experience, realised I don’t really know how to race with prelims and finals as this is not really common in Switzerland except in the bigger meets. Things like how hard to race in the prelims and then still have enough in the tank (even with a rest) for finals. Also realised I have still some work to do with nerves/anxiety - first time in a long time that I had to work through such emotions.

Also want to note, had a really good year, hit a lot of my goals, but came into the season end completely exhausted and think that did have an impact on my performance so need to look at this in the coming season.

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Nationals in Irland