I've spent 1 year studying, 1 and a half years working and 6 months interning in order to put myself in a position to take the Bar Course. As I marked the start date of the course on my new academic calendar, I suddenly realised that this halcyon summer of freediving will soon be drawing to a close. After The 100ft Freedive Challenge, I won't be able to train at Crystal Freedivers because I will need the time to study. Similarly, I can't be traveling to Wales every month for Saltfree meets at NDAC.
I was feeling a bit down about this when an email pinged into my inbox... 'Freedivers Required for UK Film Shoot at Pinewood Studios'. "What the hell", I thought. It can't hurt to consider an alternative career as a freediving stunt double! So I've applied. I'll let you all know what happens!
Sunday was the last scheduled Saltfree meet before the 100ft Freedive Challenge on 2 October and the last chance for me to do any Constant Weight training. It was a beautiful, if cold, day on the platform and it was great to see Hannah instructing some new AIDA** divers. Here they are doing their stretching...
and at the end of the course! 
Harry, Tim, and Ryan were the regular Saltfree-ers in attendance and Chris joined us from Up North for his first trip to NDAC. 
Here's Chris with his home-made freediving rig, which looks to me to be extremely saleable! 
Ryan said that he doesn't have any pictures of himself underwater. My camera's rubbbish but I took a few snaps. They're not great, but they do convey the "cool as f***" demeanor that Ryan has ascending from a freedive, no matter the depth (and he's hitting some pretty impressive depths). 
Come to think of it, he maintains this demeanor above the water as well... 
When he wasn't being a boy racer... 
Harry was working on his no-fins, which is already very good... 
On Tim's advice, I did a full "dress rehearsal" of the dive; countdown, surface protocol, everything. The main thing that was different was having to grab a tag at the bottom of the line. The tag is attached to a carabiner with an elastic band, and the carabiner is clipped over the rope. We sent the tag down the line, holding the rope to feel the vibrations as it fell to the bottom. It seemed to take ages to get to the bottom plate, which didn't help my anxiety. I'd already been in the water a while and it was quite cold, so I was an interesting shade of blue before I even started the breathe-up!
The "dress rehearsal" went mostly to plan, except:
- with all the nerves, my duck dive left much to be desired;
- my turns at the bottom are still rubbish, when I remember to grab the rope at all - thankfully there's no-one down there to see; and
- most amusingly, I had a bit of a struggle trying to snap the elastic band which releases the tag! It was really stretchy and while wrestling with the damn thing I was giggling and thinking how funny it would be to do all this training, just to be beaten by a bit of rubber!
It wasn't really a full dress rehearsal, though, as I only yesterday received my MS Society running vest, which I'll wear over my wetsuit on the day. Here it is - what do you think?!
I've also received balloons, stickers, and posters and I'm fully intending on decorating the pontoon in bright orange on 1 October!
Since it was a cold day most of us were finished early. I think Tim started mentioning a burger even before lunchtime, although I did manage to persuade him to dive the bus, which was sunk only a couple of weeks ago. As it was Chris' first time at NDAC I couldn't let him get out of the water without showing him some of the attractions in the lake. Like me, his favourite were the containers and tubes... here he is coming out of one of the tubes...
I decided to take a quick video of the containers and tube, and was delighted to see a couple of large perch handing around the end of the container, who posed beautifully for the camera. Here they are showing off their green-gold colours.
40 minutes later, we were both exhausted, and headed up to the picnic tables, where we found the others. One of whom had nodded off...
It's a bit scary to think that I've done my last constant weight training session before the 100ft dive. I can't wait for the big day to come around and am pouring all my effort into fundraising as much as I can in the next couple of weeks. If you meant to donate but it slipped your mind, do it now! Theres a blue donations box in the top right hand corner of the blog which will take you to my Just Giving page. Thanks! Right, I'm off to training at Crystal Palace now, expect another update on Friday :).
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