My confidence was one of the problems. I started feeling uncomfortable and uncapable of doing what I wanted to do (which was always more and more). This led me into quiting the dives and feeling the failiure again and again.
After doing some wonderful deep diving at Bizzy Blue Hole, I felt strong and confident in my freediving again, but still afraid it wouldn't work when I got to the pool. In the period after coming home, I started training with a goal of getting comfortable with long dynamic dives again. Working my way from 100m up to 155m in training, I was moving forward step by step.
Yesterday I finally got what I was longing for: a good competition dive in DYN. I did 161m in a mini AIDA competition here in Århus, arranged by Aarhus Freediving Club. Martin took a nice video of the whole dive (which lasted almost 3 min!!!) and it will be up here soon.
The competition, Dolphin One & Two, gathered about 8 competitors, AIDA judges Christian Engelbrecht, Maria Livbjerg Eriksen and Martin Müller, and Stig Severinsen as safety freediver. Thanks for a great day everybody!
Hi Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteI've had this before too - where after a comp I would have contractions in statics after about a minute and everything felt incredibly hard and you pull out. This can be an indication that you need a break (eg a couple of weeks off and some extra sleep). I've started doing a lot of max attempts (1-3/wk) in training and not letting myself pull out (mostly - I beat myself up if I do). It's quite good as there are less nerves once you get to competition and long swims (which are our ultimate goal) become quite normal so there are less mental barriers associated with doing them sine they're normal. Also having goals helps, whether they're personal bests, competition performances, new records, beating someone else (I'm quite happy to take you on to see who can get to 200 first if that will potentially help with motivation - will mean sharing result a little though) or even a slightly reduced goal for training if you've had a tough day before getting in. Don't let yourself ever pull out though - it becomes too easy with time.
Hey Kathryn,
ReplyDeleteit's good to hear that others have had the same problems. I get great inspiration from both you, danish Eva and other "rivals", and think it helps alot to have somebody to compete against on a friendly level.
I felt that competitive burst especially well at the dyn final at the worlds 2007, where I was swimming side by side with Natalja M. and so on... But of course you need to build up your mental strenght on beforehand to be able to use it, I think.
I'll keep on training, and will write about how it goes. And I'll keep an eye on your bog too ;)