6 mins wasn't a fluke

I did it again last night: 6:03s. Felt pretty well inflated. Did about 35 packs and it took about 35s to inhale. First contraction at 3:10s! I was pretty blue but clean and again felt light headed about 30s after coming up. Did about 4 full packing stretching breaths in the hour beforehand.

The on-going smashing of PBs...

I've had another happy week!

On Thursday evening after working too much and feeling a bit tired I did 121m no fins dynamic at Freyberg Pool (33m and very annoyingly shallow at one end). It felt pretty good and was a new PB. I did one very bad turn and was getting a bit bouyant (feet coming up on the glide) and I think I was a little off balance as my feet were swinging around a little on the glide (not sure if this is from my weighting or the general flow of water from swimmers/pool water circulation).

This morning I made it to 134m at Porirua pool (I love this pool, it's 25m and about 1.3m minimum so shallow enough to stand in at the shallow end but deep enough to not really upset you with the pressure changes, and goes down to about 2.3m). I still felt quite conservative as Braedon was my buddy and was on the side a lane over. Had to come up on lane ropes and B threw some flutter boards at me: the wave they created mostly ended up in my mouth, but I was absolutely fine, so there should be a bit more yet... I added another .5kg to my belt and did about 30 packs. Did four full packing breaths in the hour or so beforehand, the last one was about two minutes before my dive. I'm currently gliding to the count of 5 from the wall, 4 from a pull and 3 from a kick, so I've sped up a bit. Had a lot of ugly contractions from about 20m and all through the second length, but they subsided a little after about 65m. I managed to keep a good consistent pace and didn't ease up on my technique (sometimes I get sloppy near the end). Only had a little bit of lactic build up in arms and legs.

Come on 150! :)

Static excitment

I did 6 minutes!!! I'm now bouncing off the walls! I'm trying to record all the pre-dive variables, so here goes:
Yesterday I worked until I could no longer think then took the dog for a walk before dinner until I really had no energy left. Last night I ate a big steak and had a glass of red wine, and didn't train. Today I worked at my desk for 10 hours, got a bit late for training so was rushing around. Did one stretching packing breath just before leaving work around 6:45pm. Walked home from work and drove to the pool. Arrived at pool at 7:15. Did 5 mins of stretching trying to relax a bit. Got dressed. Got in. Did one more packing breath. Two minute countdown. Took a breath and held it for 6! Yay. It took 30s to inhale and I did about 25 packs. Stood up and jumped around. Felt a little light headed after jumping around for 30s immediately after the dive, but not too bad. I think there might be more in me... :) I have now officially achieved my statics goal for the year, will have to set a new one: I reckon 6:30 is a good next step.

training, or lack of...

This week's been quite good. Did a 5:23s no-warm up static followed by CO2 training of 8 x 1:30s with one breath in between. I also pulled off a 139m dynamic, and it feels like there's still a lot of room for improvement. I'm pleased to be finally making some advancements in this area. My fancy new fin is going to arrive in a couple of weeks, and I'd like to hit the end of the pool (150m) by then so I can see if it's the fin that really makes a difference or not. Haven't done much fitness work at all and have been drinking wine pretty regularly, which really won't change before the end of the year as work is hectic and the social calendar has been blown out of all proportion. Very excited that Will Trubridge is going to come and run a course or two over here for us. We feel a bit isolated over here in NZ sometimes.