The schedule for the hockey at Rio has been announced and we’ll be facing our big rivals Australia in our first pool match.

It’s a massive game and it’s going to be a great way to start our games with a bang against one of the best teams in the world.

We’ll prepare for it like any other game. It makes no difference to us if we play Australia first or last but it will make it extra exciting for our fans and the media.

The countdown to Rio is well and truly on with the recent milestone of 100 days to go. At training we didn’t really talk about the fact there was 100 days to go.

We all know the Olympics are coming; it’s not like we don’t know where they are so we don’t tend to pay too much attention to countdowns like that.

For me it was a bigger deal at the start of the year when it officially became ‘Olympic year’. 100 days to go is really just another training day as is 99 and 98 days to go and so on.

The GB kit for Rio has also been unveiled and I’ve seen a bit of it but I’ve tried not to look at much of the kit because until the squad is selected.

With Stella McCartney designing it I’m sure it will be incredible and any GB kit you get to wear is always great and it’s a huge privilege.

If I’m selected I’ll be like a kid at Christmas collecting my kits as everyone loves a bit of stash. We’re quite lucky in hockey that our kits are pretty stylish, not since I’ve been in the youth teams have I had an awful kit which has been really unflattering so we’re fortunate.

I also celebrated another pretty big milestone recently which was my dog Sally’s 10 birthday. I know it sounds a bit pathetic but it was a big deal for me as she’s hugely important in my life.

Much like family and old friends who you’ve known since you were young she’s a constant in my life. She doesn’t care if I’m happy or sad, whether I’m happy or sad or whether we’ve won or lost, she just wants attention.

She doesn’t ask any questions and doesn’t judge so she’s great at keeping my feet on the ground and giving me perspective. I mean who else in this world gets excited every single time you walk through the door, aside from your pets.

Focusing on hockey we’ve had a really busy period recently with games against Germany, Japan and India recently. The results have been positive from all of the games.

We lost one and won one game against Germany so drew the series. Against Japan we won one and drew the other. Against India we won all our matches.

We’ve also had full on training as well as the matches. Despite the weeks ticking down to Rio our training isn’t changing dramatically.

Our training has been pretty much the same for four years and that’s the beauty of our programme. A lot of countries will start to panic and think ‘Ah the Olympics are really close, we need to train more’.

But our schedule has been set out for four years so we know the position we’re in, how we’re meant to be playing and how intense it’s meant to be right now.

A couple of our big players such as Alex Danson and Lily Owsley are returning from injury which is great so the squad is almost at full strength and we’re all battling for our places.

We don’t pretend that selection isn’t happening. We’re getting to a stage now where you can’t really afford to slip up. We’ve had quite a bit of support from psychologists about how to deal with selection and how we can ultimately get the best out of the 16 players that are selected for Rio.

It’s tough because you’re surrounded by your best friends and some of your best friends won’t get selected.It’s a hard situation because you want to be there for your friends but you have to look after yourself and focus on getting the best out of yourself.

Like most women our friends' problems become our problems so whilst we have to support our friends it’s important that we keep focused on our job which is to go out to Rio and get results.

Investec, the specialist bank and asset manager, supports women’s hockey from grass-roots level through to the national team: investec.co.uk/hockey or on Twitter @Investec_Sport