thoughts

Well, this year is shaping up to be much better than last year (though it wouldn't be too hard). After three competitions I have done 12 dives, furthered 10 national records, made all the records my own and finally removed the "arguably" from in front of being NZ's top woman freediver! I've also pulled myself up the world rankings quite considerably.

I've learned a bit since the world champs last year. The first is to not set goals based on distance or what other people are doing. I need to really understand my body and listen to it throughout the dive - not giving in to the early talk in my head when the dive feels hard, and not pushing myself further than my body will allow me to go on that day. I've learned a lot about the signals that my body is giving me day to day with respect to fatigue, over training, lack of energy, as well as feeling really good, and am dealing with it by ensuring that I get enough to eat and good sleep. I've pulled back my training a lot, reminding myself of what I love about freediving and sticking to that, which means I'm enjoying myself a lot more. I'm hardly doing any specific fitness training, however I am doing a lot of max attempts and technique work. I've given myself minimums for bad days and don't let myself pull out early as the benefits must be the same. I learned how to pack and how to stretch my lungs in both directions. I learned frenzel equalisation and how to start to relax at depth. I've learned how to block contractions. I've discovered that warm ups caused me more distress than they were worth. I learned to relax more in competition and deal with the unexpected. I've found a new level of consciousness during a dive that allows me greater control mentally and physically. I've met lots of new interesting people with similar passions in life and people who I can call on to answer my questions. All this in seven months and I feel like I've barely brushed the surface of this sport! I'm quite excited about what the rest of the year will bring.

The weekend's competition went really well. Thanks to everyone who helped me out with the organisation. There were a lot of you but it makes it so much easier if we all pitch in with even the smallest of tasks. It was great to just have one session per day and be able to chill out and enjoy the afternoons with friends. We replayed the official videos (some in fast forward as some of us do have lives outside freediving) at the BBQ on Saturday afternoon with full running commentaries of everyone's thoughts. Our judges did an excellent job despite being fairly new to this. They all acted in a competent manner and had a good grasp of the rules.

I thought I'd give you a wee summary of my routine to share the knowledge. I do body stretching for about 20 mins before diving. This covers the whole body quite systematically and pretty slowly and carefully. If my muscles feel weak or shakey at this stage I eat some dried fruit to keep the energy up. I then do one or two pack stretches. Normally I get a pretty good head rush doing this, but I say better at this stage than right before the dive. I would then use the bathroom and changed, so I have a bit of time to relax before diving. Basically I ensure that I have plenty of time to get into the water and organise my equipment without hurrying but not so long that I would get cold. I don't do any fancy breathing. I actually try to not think about my breathing at all as this would start to regulate it. I try to keep my eyes closed as much as possible and avoid distractions. I run through the entire dive in my head, usually twice, keeping goals in perspective. I take my breath and go...

For dynamics I wear an Orca Apex 2 triathlon wetsuit. It keeps the chill off and is extremely flexible. It cuts down the number of strokes each length significantly thanks to the additional bouyancy (greater momentum from adding more weight - 2kg for this suit over togs) and is very streamlined and fast. I wear 4kg on my neck and 4kg on my hips to keep me absolutely level in the water. For dynamics I'm wearing a leaderfins hyper pro monofin and have to add another 1.5kg on my hips as it's very buoyant. I should note that I am definitely a floater and this much weight would sink most guys straight to the bottom (unless you're Dave Mullins with 15L lungs).

I think the Lazy Seals are doing so well at the moment because we're pretty competitive amongst ourselves and we generally feel that we should all be able to reach the same level as our best divers and are happy to help each other to get there. Improvement within the club spurs on enthusiasm for others to do better. We do not have a coach, so just work on what we know and our own independant programmes. It seems to be working as we're getting some good rankings. It does mean that our standards are pretty high and we often have to pull things back into prespective for our new divers.