Different kind of mornings

Today I woke up and realized how dark it is in the mornings now. The daylight is lasting less and less as the season is changing, and it made me dream back to the summer, to the warm sun and the wonderful freediving I did in Croatia.

There we started the morning with some yoga, stretching and static training before breakfast. Then later we would go dip in the ocean. Pretty good days I'd say!

Not going to the worlds in Sharm...

I won't be going to the individual depth worldchampionship in Sharm el Sheik this autumn. It was just not working out this time, as I'm having my exams in the same time period, and money is also an issue.

It feels quite sad not being able to meet up with friends who's going there, some of which I haven't seen since the worlds in Hurghada. Thomas Grindevoll will be the only norwegian freediver competing, and I wish him the best of luck!

But there will be other championships and other competitions. My plans for the rest of the year is so far to compete in Copenhagen Open 29.-30. September and 10th Long night of apnea in Berlin 10. November.

Busy week

I'm afraid I wasn't so good at blogging last week, but still proud of myself since I did quite some good training. The weekdays are pretty busy here though. I'm at school from 8:00 to 16:00 or something, going off to training either 19:00 or 21:00, and doing some homework in between. Not so much time for writing blog posts or vacuuming... Luckily there's some weekends in between to look forward to!

My training last week was something like this:

Monday - STA training
Doing one 3 min warm-up, then 3 x 2 min fighting (so time starts when I get my first contraction, which is around 2.15-2.45).

Tuesday - Mostly swimming, total 3000m
500m warm-up, 3 x 200m (25m easy dyn with small fins/25m crawl, then repeat), 100m free, breast swim: 300m only arms , 300m only legs, freestyle: 200m puls, 8 x 50m dyn with monofin, 8 x 50m dnf, 400m free

Wednesday - spesific training
Dyn longer dives with monofin: 75m, 76m and 100m
16 x 50m, start time: 1'12 the first 14 times, then 1'10 and 1'08 = 19min in total! New pb ;)

Thursday - light technic training
Some swimming for warm-up, then 12 x 50m with monofin focusing on different styles and general technic.

Friday and saturday - on the couch, taking care of my tired legs

Sunday - spesific training
Dyn longer dives with monofin: 80m, 100m and 110m
10 x 50m (too tired and too little time to finish it), start time 1'10-1'05, varying a little after how much acid I had in my legs :S

Now it's monday again, so I'm soon off to the pool. This week I'll take a little more rest though, as I'm competing in Copenhagen Open on saturday and sunday. My shape feels okey, so we'll see what happens...

My first real 16x50m

I'm quite happy with myself today! Not only did I manage to finish all the 16 laps in the 50m pool, I also felt much stronger than I had thought I was. My main goal was to find out which level I'm on and then where I want to go.

I had put my watch on a 24min count down, giving me 1min and 30 sec for each 50+break. It was an easy number to keep track on, and not too hard work I later found out (as I finished at 22'30 instead). I'll do another try with a little less break and try to get the time below 20min atleast.

Tomorrow I bet I'll feel my legs!

Updates: Catching up

Still more coming: Check out the folders competitions and training. New posts about the world championship in Hurghada ++

The hardest part of the training

is sometimes to simply get to the swimming pool. These days it should be very simple as I live 5min walk away from it, but it still takes will power. Coming home from school, making food, doing homework and then running off to training feels exhausting sometimes. The thing to keep in mind though, is that once I slip into the water and get the monofin back on, everything is alright. It's cold and calm, and both your pulse and your shoulders drops... It's peace.

I had a very nice training monday, together with Sanne, Lars, Kurt and many more from Aarhus freediving club. I was doing some laps of regular swimming, then training the abs and back muscles with speedy dolphin kicks both uw and on the back at the surface. I also focus alot on the technic on my trainings, as this is a very important part in swimming efficiently with the monofin. And the more you do it, the better it gets!

I also started my training for the 16x50m at the Long night of apnea in Berlin in november. This is real training, high efficiency and alot of lactic acid! I'm not really a fast swimmer, so I'll have a lot to work on there. It's also crucial to have some tough muscles that can last 20-25 min with very little oxygen... I was starting off easy, didn't time the breaks etc, but even so my legs were quite stiff the next day. Wish me luck!

PS: Yes, will also need to practice my buble rings :)

The first tango in Århus

Last night I went to my first milongo in Århus since moving down, and it turned out to be a great night. I came one hour early to join the intro salon first, where alot of other new people also showed up and we where welcomed and tried out some of the beginners steps. Then the real milonga started, where you dance with alot of different people and really have fun. After having spent almost four hours on the dance floor, I simply had to go home and try to make my feet recover. Because on sunday there's a big tango happening, within the festival Aarhus Festuge, which I'll have to take a look at...

Moving from a small town to a bigger one has some advantages. One of them is that there are milongas (dance nights) here every other friday, and courses and training evenings. In Norway I had to travel to either Lillehammer or Oslo do dance argeninte tango...

Of course the scene isn't as big as the one in Berlin, where I've been dancing several times, but hopefully I'll get to dance more regularly now and learn more.