3, (Radio) 2, 1, Dive Day!

It's now less than 24 hours before the 100ft Freedive Challenge for the MS Society and boy, have I been busy!

Tonight, I had the opportunity to talk about freediving and the 100ft Freedive Challenge on Radio 2 - the most popular radio station in the UK! I felt a little underqualified, having taken up freediving only 5 months ago. However, Matt, the presenter, explained that what they are looking for is enthusiasm for the sport - and I have that in spades! I hope that this came across and that I was able to express something of the freedom and beauty of freediving. Huge thanks to everyone who listened and contacted me to express their support. If you weren't able to listen live, you can listen to it here:



Graceonradio2 by samdive

If you're here because you listened to it, then thank you for visiting! This blog is a record of my training over the last 5 months as I have been preparing for the '100ft Freedive Challenge for the MS Society'. You can catch up with my journey to this point, less than one day before the dive, and learn loads about freediving from a beginner's point of view. If you're interested in learning to freedive, you can visit the websites of Saltfree and London Freediving, the clubs with which I train, or you can find a full list of clubs at the British Freediving Association website. Do it - you'll be amazed at what you can achieve!

Aside from writing frantic notes before the radio interview and texting pretty much everyone in my address book, I have been getting creative with my glue and marker pens to create some posters to put up around NDAC (because you're never too old for art and crafts). I also bought some disposable underwater cameras so that we can all take some silly photographs for the blog and to send to the MS Society fundraising team, who kindly telephoned me today to wish me good luck.

Mum can't make it to Wales for the freedive, but we spoke this evening and she said she'd be thinking of me and will have her fingers crossed. I have strict instructions to text her afterwards!

Saltfree are also organising a "Deepest Bikini Freedive at NDAC" competition this weekend - cross-dressing not only permitted, but encouraged! For every person that enters the competition, Saltfree will donate £5 to the MS Society. My amazing instructress, Hannah, has agreed to match whatever we raise as she sadly can't be there to watch. I'll also be missing my coach Mark, who is abroad, but I know both he and Hannah will be rooting for me :). I have a small suitcase-load of bikinis guys, so there will be no backing out with lame excuses!

It would be great if we could meet the £1000 target! This money will help the MS Society continue to fund research into treatments/a cure for MS and to provide specialist MS nurses - we've currently raised £750 and we're soooooo close! If you'd like to donate you can:

• visit my JustGiving page or



• text the code AEJE82 and the amount you want to donate, e.g. £7, to 70070

Thank you to everyone who has donated already!

Rather than dwelling on the fact that 100ft is approximately equivalent to a ten storey building, or 6 London buses stacked on top of one another, I will tonight be doing my breathing exercises and visualising the dive, step by tiny step.

There will be plenty of time to reflect on the last 5 months. I also have many people to thank, including the thousands of people who have visited this blog, and I will do so after the dive. I'm excited to see many of my freediving friends, who have given me so much support, in the morning. But right now I'm going to sleep, dreaming of the deep green and the challenge ahead...

In which I consider a career change, have a dress rehearsal and make friends with some perch.

This week I've been busy preparing for the start of my Bar Course; doing work experience, trying (and failing) to do some revision and painstakingly sorting out the mounds of paper balanced precariously on my desk.

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 :).