Go Great Britain!
Mike Board, Dave King, Georgina Miller, Liv Philip, Sara Campbell, Dave Kent, Ed Wardle and David Tranfield are the British athletes who will be competing at the AIDA Individual Depth World Championships, which is taking place in Kalamata, Greece from 15th - 25th September 2011.
The very best of luck to all of the GB athletes! Two UK records were broken at the 4th Mediterranean World Cup, which took place in Kalamata on 12th-14th September, so I expect that there will be some fantastic performances at the World Championships too!
We'll of course also be cheering on our freediving friends from all over the world! A full list of athletes competing can be found here. For those following online, there are some exciting action shots of the World Championships 2011 taken by Fred Buyle here. By perfect and beautiful contrast, Daan's captured some thoughtful portraits of freediving athletes from all over the world on his blog here.
As for me, pool training for the 100ft Freedive Challenge for the MS Society continues...and I seem to have inadvertently enrolled myself on a no-fins Training Schedule.
No fins is the discipline that I worried I might have a lot trouble with. Although I like swimming, there's no hiding that from a technical point of view I'm rubbish; I haven't been to a swimming lesson since I was at primary school. However, I'd surprised myself with a 15m CNF repeats at NDAC and decided to see what I could manage in the pool. I did a few lengths trying to copy the right technique and asked for some tips from Daan, which got me to 50m. I then decided to just see how far I could swim and made 70m, which was a bit of a surprise!
I was dimly aware that Tim, Nick and Ed were doing some no-fins exercises at London Freedivers and asked to join them at the next session, thinking that I might learn more that way. What I didn't realise was that they had recently started out on a Training Schedule. Note the upper case - it's relevant.
I soon realised that this wasn't just experimenting with a few exercises, this was a proper Training Plan of 12 weeks, with "easy", medium and hard targets. It has so far involved pain. Pain and comradeship, though, which makes it more fun!
One of the things I like most about training with Tim is that he assumes I'll be able to achieve anything I set out to do. He's also a great teacher, knowing when to encourage, when to give pointers, when to bribe me with Green and Blacks' Maya Gold chocolate and when to tell me to shut up and grow a pair.
This is fortuntate, because when he told me that the first exercise was 10 DNF repeats of 33m leaving every 1 and a half minutes, I was pretty sure I wouldn't get past length number two. Never mind being horribly aware of the fact that everyone else in the group had done well over 100m DNF and was much better than me.
The first week I tried this exercise, I couldn't manage ten repeats despite having lots of encouragement from everyone. I had to have a break and missed out length number 4. The week after I missed out half of length 5. For some reason the middle lengths, lengths 4, 5 and 6 are the hardest, physically and psychologically, especially when you start having contractions after just a couple of strokes. The last two sessions I managed all ten repeats - it's really motivating to see the difference that even a few weeks of training can make!
We've also been doing some other exercises to improve stroke technique, such as lengths using arms only and swimming exercises using just one leg. This is quite funny to watch; I was genuinely shocked by the difference between the strong kick of my right leg and the ineffective flailing of my left. I've struggled to get my weighting right but have almost got it sorted. Even though it's not quite perfect, the number of strokes I use for each DNF length has decreased and the time it takes me has decreased by about 10 seconds.
I haven't set any targets but I'm looking forward to seeing how much I can improve over the coming weeks.
The 100ft Freedive Challenge is approaching alarmingly quickly and although I can't do any CWT training between now and the day of the 100ft dive, my pool training is helping me to remain positive and focused. The MS Society have been helping me out with fundraising for the Challenge and have even been following the blog! I've been really touched by the donations that have been made by my Mum's colleagues at Durston House School and I know that Mum has been too - thank you!
Mum's been completely supportive of my decision to raise money for the MS Society but highly disapproving of the means by which I've chosen to do so (she suggested sponsored knitting instead). However, I've noticed that Mum's initial refusal to talk about freediving (on the basis that I was going to end up dead - it's the only time in my whole life I've ever heard her swear) has recently transformed into a kind of wary acceptance. She says she's now enjoying my blog - "Hi there" if you're reading, Mum!
My Yia Yia (Greek for grandmother), Mum and Me.
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