My first (part of a) marathon

Last weekend, I travelled to Berlin together with the danish dynamics, Rune and Jesper, to help out at the annual Long Night of Apnea (yes, helping out. not competing!). The competition was not as long as usual, but very nice. Good performances and some impressive stamina at the 16x50m.
The next day, we had gathered a little team of freedivers to join the Berlin Team Marathon! It was a sunny, beautiful day at the former Tempelhof Airport, which made for a historic background for the run.
Our team (one out of 1100 teams): The Hypoxic Runners!

Martin: 1:02:40 (12,195 km)
Steffen: 0:52:45/1:55:25 (10 km)
Anna: 0:30:08/2:25:33 (5 km)
Jesper: 1:01:45/3:27:18 (10 km)
Elisabeth: 0:29:26/3:56:43 (5km)

Final time: 3:56:43

It was a great atmosphere with all the runners and spectators, people cheering and enjoying the day. And we had a good team spirit, and I believe everybody gave their max performance. By the look of Jesper's face when we changed, he couldn't have done much more! For me, it was sort of special. It was my first time ever to cross a finishing line, but it won't be the last..

A closer look at hypoxia

Lately, my days have been occupied by less freediving and more studying. I'm still training and trying to stay in shape, but having a break from the competition rush at the moment.

I'm currently working on my bachelor project (to be finished in June 2010), which is somehow related to freediving. I will be studying how hypoxia is increasing the formation of new blood vessels in the body. A protein called hypoxia-inducible factor is responsible for activating several genes, which give us a physical response and help the body to cope with the stress.

From a freediving perspective, it's facinating to learn more about what's happening in the body when it's faced with low oxygen. There's still lots to learn.