Tuesday 16 October 2007

a new era!!!

The last week has been quite eventful in my freediving life. Firstly, Phil managed to finally get me to suck in air with my tongue, so after years of sucking through straws trying to learn to pack I finally can - I keep practising to to check I can still do it... On Saturday I did a pb for dynamics with fins: 124m, no warm up. It was a horrid dive. My technique was terrible: 4/10, I had contractions from about 30m, everything hurt, but my head was really clear at the end, probably a 7/10 push. Looking forward to the new fin arriving (it's a soft one with a glide angle - hopefully much more enjoyable, and the reduced stiffness will hopefully help my technique). Didn't really pack for this dive as was still sorting out how to. This evening I did a 5:19s static, no warm up (other than stretching about 15mins before and I did a couple of full breaths just before leaving home, so about 45mins before) - no fancy exhales or breathing beforehand, just one big breath. I did 8 packs as I promised I wouldn't push it too much to begin with. First contraction was 2:38. Head was clear when I stood up, about 8/10 - plenty left. Did another shorter one later with about twice as many packs and didn't have a contraction until about 3 mins. I'll keep working on it and see what happens.

Training at the moment consists of very little fitness work. I've been working quite long hours so haven't been managing the lunchtime swims or yoga. I have to try to do at least one a week as my shoulders and back get too sore if I don't (and I'm putting on weight, and the christmas rush of high calorie delicacies hasn't even started yet!). I'm trying to take it a bit easier at the moment since I have nothing to work towards. I'm trying to do a long DYN, DNF & STA once a week each at the start of a session (even if I don't feel up to it - it's just a long one on a different scale), then working on technique after. I'm going to try to stretch my lungs out a bit with packing and stretching daily (ie about 5 or 6 full breths over about half an hour - no real holds).

I really want to hit my 6mins soon... I feel it's in me and not too far away. Time will tell. Thanks Phil for giving me the extra bit of air (pretty good of you since we're pretty close competition - different rankings list though eh!).

I'd really like any feedback you guys can give me re training and hints of things to try. Please feel free to comment!

Sunday 14 October 2007

comp photos

Here are a couple of photos of me from our recent freediving competition:

Photos: Colin Gans (c) 2007

For more photos from the comp got to: http://www.underwaterdisplay.net/Apnea/Wellington0709/

Colin has also taken a lot of really beautiful underwater shots: www.gans.co.nz

Wednesday 10 October 2007

training log

Trying a few new things at the moment. Doing a lot of no warm up dives just to create a lot of strain. I'm teaming up with Chris as we have similar results, so we're going to push each other up to the 6 minute mark. I've been doing between 4 and 4:30 (only 3:23 for the first one tonight, then 4:32 after about a 10-15 min break) with absolutely no warm up or time to chill out beforehand. The second one may be better due to lung stretching - might have to try a few deep breaths prior to starting. I'm trying to do more in-water statics as I was getting to the point where I was doing better dry and feeling pretty uncomfortable in the water. Would like to get it up to 5 straight up. I'm currently having a little trouble fitting in my lunchtime swims so have to re-organise a little to swim on the weekend (with summer coming this might be replaced with real diving!) and have a rest day or two during the week. Have done yoga since we left and my back and shoulders are really suffering, so need to factor that back in. I have also been wearing my monofin. We did some filming on the weekend and my arms are way too high (kind of undulating from what should be the mid point upwards) and moving up and down a lot. Have to keep working on it. I've ordered a new soft fin with blade angle, so hopefully that will help. Any comments re training ideas/techniques are most welcome/encouraged!

PHOTOS!!!

I have finally uploaded trip photos! I gave up on blogger as it took too long, and have put up some albums on facebook. Just follow the link below, click on the picture to see the album, then there's a link at the top called "back to Kathryn's photos" which will take you to the rest of them...

Enjoy (sorry there are so many - these are truely just the highlights)!

http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=603676027&k=4YE6P2V5QYTBXAGHVA42