Depth training for the World Championship

For us freedivers, training in the pool is all very well, but there is nothing which can compare with the ocean. I hadn't been deep diving since Dahab in April 2009, which made me feel like a fish on land. But, three weeks ago, I finally got to satisfy my longing for deep waters. Anna von Boetticher had invited a small bunch of freedivers for depth training in Nice, freediving heaven. And boy did we have a great time!

Anna and I got straight to business after arriving Thursday 20th May in the afternoon. We took the dingy out for a session just outside Nice harbour, which was our base for the first few days. I felt at home in the water almost right away, warming up with some frc's and dipping down to 42m.

The next morning Liv Phillip arrived, and we girls went training again: 45 and 46m for me :) Equalizing was fine, my legs were fine and I didn't even feel any tightness in the chest. This was very promissing! In the afternoon, Martin and Andy (friend of Anna) arrived, and we measured our training rope properly. 100m should be good for this time...

Saturday morning started with stretching, followed by a very nice dive session. My warm-up hang was getting longer, and I felt ready for a deeper dive. With Martin safetying, I went down to 50m and came up with a big smile. Afterwards, we had breakfast, lifted the anchor and sailed away. The weather was only too good, blue sky and sunshine. Not really enough wind, but I guess you can't have it all.


In the afternoon I tried variable weight for the first time, hanging on to the bottom weight down to 54m and swimming up. It felt SO easy! More like a rollercoaster ride, as I was getting pretty fast, both down and up again. It was so much fun!

Sunday 23.May was my birthday, and it turned out to be the best one I've ever had: Morning dive to 60m, loving every bit of it. This is why I freedive... Blueberry pancakes for breakfast followed by some sunbathing. Afternoon variable weight to 60m having fun! Then birthday cake, champagne, presents and wonderful company. Thank you guys!

On Monday I was too tired to do a proper dive and I turned early at 52m (going for 64m). As a final treat, I got to climb the mast and enjoy a wonderful view. In the afternoon, Martin and I had to say goodbye and got dropped off in Cannes.

Hopefully I will manage to stay in shape up to Okinawa and I'm looking forward to going down into the deep sea soon.

Diving at Nemo 33

A week ago, I was travelling to Brussel to attend a research meeting, and I managed to put in a few extra days. The plan was very simple: see the city and go diving! Now most people think of a little peeing boy or chocolate when talking about Brussel, but the city also has a special pool, that is worth a visit.

Nemo 33 is the name of the worlds deepest diving pool, built especially to attract scubadives with a 35m deep pitch and several caves. It is also a perfect spot to practice skills or just enjoy, with 33 degree water and endless visibility. Unfortunatly, they are not allowing freedivers in the deep part, which sort of spoil the fun. Without a tank, you're only allowed in the 5 and 10m deep parts, and there's an instructor watching closely if you follow the rules :(

So, I had to sign up for a scuba dive, as I did want to touch bottom in this special pool. Luckily I found a group of friendly british divers which let me join then. The scubadive also included 10min of "snorkling" before gearing up, which I enjoyed!



Next time, I think I have to bring a freediving buddy, my own mask and fins, and try to bribe those guards. It would be a wonderful place to train during the winter!

Coupe des Dauphins 24.-25. January

Right after my last exam, I travelled together with Martin to Switzerland and to the beautiful city of Geneva for the first time. I was going to compete in the pool competition "Coupe des Dauphins" and Martin judge. We were really lucky to get to stay at the appartment of Christian Maldame, who's not only the team freediving world champion for 2008 (French team), but also a very nice guy! Jarmila Slovencikova from Czech Republic was also staying there, and the four of us had a great time, especially after the competition.

Picture: Wikipedia

I had signed up for the competition maybe mostly for the trip itself, and also to have an easy nice start of the competition year 2009. In DNF on saturday I did a very easy 83m dive. I was very happy to see that I can still do something, even without any training or the perfect shape (I had been sick only a week before). I must have overdone the lung strecthing this day though, because the next day I had pain and discomfort on the right side of the ribcage. I went into the water for the other diciplins, static and dynamic, but it didn't work at all to hold a full breath or having contractions. Well well, next time!

The competition saw some nice performances. Ilka Michaelis did a new national record for Germany with 99m. Both Jarmila and Christian made three good performances and won the overall ranking for the women and men respectivly. All the nice freediviers, the well-running organisation and the good pool made the competition a very pleasant one. I'd love to come back next year...


On monday after the competition, we had maybe the best time of the whole trip. Christian took us to a sauna/bath at the harbour of Geneva. Him and Jarmila got to do some freediving in the lake, cruising through and even under the big fountain! I stayed out because of the ribs, but will sure try this next time.

After spending several hours in the sauna, the turkish bath, the hammam and a dip in the lake (4-5 degrees!), we had a good lunch and headed back to catch the plain home. It was a really great experience and big thanks to our host, Christian!

1.place at the 4th Dutch Apnea Open, 23. Nov

I hadn't really thought I'd get the chance to compete in the 4th Dutch Apnea Open, as I had just been in Berlin the weekend before. But on wednesday 19th I got to know there was a free spot in a car with the danish freedivers driving down to Eindhoven, and I decided to join. And I'm very happy I did!

After the dissapointment at the competition in Lignano Sabbiadoro, I didn't really feel like competing or training much. But after watching the Long Night of Apnea in Berlin from the sideline, I felt something was missing. I was ready to dive again...

I went to Eindhoven with no expectations or goals, only to have fun and enjoy the diving. The only thing I had promised myself was to not quit.

With so many nice people around, a beautiful pool and a good athmosphere, I enjoyed it from the start. I did a 5 min static which I was quite happy with. Contractions at 2.30, fighting hard from 4 min, but not quiting. Big thanks to Martin (who took a detour to say hi) for the coaching here!

I had enough time before the dynamic to eat a little and relax, which was good, as the long drive the day before had drained alot of energy. I went into the water 20min before top to check out the depth, the turns and the markings on the bottom, then sat on the side relaxing and keeping warm. When the dive started, I was in a happy state, not at all stressed or nervous as in Lignano. I managed to keep the good spirit and when I turned at 100m, I knew I had broken that barrier from before. My legs were tired though, and I came up at 136m to a white card.

The rest of the day I kept smiling. Winning the 1st price overall was a great plus to top the whole thing. I've found some of the joy of competing again. Now I'm eager to train and to do more next time, and break down some other barriers. See you in Geneva in January?

Europe Evolution Cup 4.-5. october

Martin and I travelled to Venice on the 2. of october to spend one day in the city before taking the train to Lignano Sabbiadoro, the site of a somehow special competition. The Europe Evolution Cup was going to host both an AIDA and a CMAS competition alongside each other, for the first time in history. It didn't mean much of a difference to the competition itself. AIDA and CMAS competitors were to compete at seperate times with different judges and rules, but it ment that the two families of freedivers would get to know each other a little better. One problem though, most of the CMAS freedivers were italian and therefore only spoke italian.


The whole competition was ment to attract alot of the great names and stars of our sport, but this might have scared alot of the average freediver away. This was a real pitty as the AIDA competition only counted 12-13 names. It was still a well organized competition, a nice pool and some good results (two WR!).

I was happy to do a 5min 4sek dive in static, because the contractions came early (2min) and I had to do a little fighting to get there. Things didn't go so well in dynamic unfortunatly, even though this diciplin had been my biggest focus. The count down got messed up. The 2 min mark came at the wrong time, no 1'30, no 20sek. I kicked off with a bad feeling and alot of nerves, which made me come up already at 75m.

The judges (Pim and Bill) gave me a restart, along with Barbara, but it was just not my day. I came up after doing my announced performance at 110m.

It was very inspiring to watch Natalja Molchanova swim 214m (WR), and then her son, Alexey, doing his first world record with 250m. I got to chat with her during the doping test and got a few "secrect" training exercises. I'll have to try it out and see where it takes me...

The last day: 61m CWT NR!

Yesterday my stomach was giving me some troubles and I didn’t do much climbing. Luckily, today I was feeling almost 100% again, only a little tired. That didn’t keep me from having another wonderful dive, breaking the 60m mark with a new pb and record to 61m! It really feels like I’ve broken down some barriers in my deep diving now, and I’m really really happy :-)

The dive went as planned, with the usual number of kicks down to about 33m, getting the mouth fill ok and then just falling, falling, falling. I’m so much more relaxed in the sink faze now, and the discomfort and stress I used to have at the bottom is nearly gone. Two meters ahead of the turn I must have done something strange and lost part of the air in my mouth, but still could equalize enough to get to the bottom plate and grab a tag.

The way up again it was going through my mind: “You did it! Now just get to the surface and you’ve done all you wanted to do.” It was a great feeling, and after a strong surface protocol I was going “JIIHAA!” These three dives, 57m, 55m and 61m, gave me the first place in total points. We even finished off the day with going horse riding on the beach, so that’s close to a perfect day…

Bizzy with training

For once the bits and pieces seems to fall into place and I'm getting deeper and more comfortable every day. Yesterday I was out diving with Alex from Lituania, Weine, Klara and Ingela, as Martin was sick. Today he was better luckily, and we had a really good day at Blue Hole.


We started off with a training session, where I did a couple of frc-dives (breathing out before diving) to prepare for a deep dive. Then I breathed up, Klara did my count down and off I went. The equalisation went well, I had air left in the mouthfill and felt good. But at 50m the rope was completely hooked up on the wall of the Blue Hole, and I had to turn around...

After a little rest and helping out the other divers at the bouy, I made another try to go deeper. I reached 55m, still comfortable and with air left, and came up again very strong. This is equal to my pb, so I was very satisfied. I'll take a break off tomorrow and then it's Tuesday and first competition day!

Bizzy Blue Hole: tuning in

I'm finally back in Dahab, Egypt, for training some deep freediving and attending a competition during the event Bizzy Blue Hole. Dahab is a center for freediving, but these days it's especially busy ere, more than 40 freediver will be in town for the event! Martin and I arrived on Tuesday, and by now we've got into "Dahab mode", which means freediving and more freediving...

Our days here start with an early hour of yoga to prepare the body for the training, then a little breakfast and packing the bags to go out to Blue Hole. I've had some good trainings on Wednesday (30m), Thursday (40m) and today (41m), slowly adapting my body to the pressure and the physical work of diving deep. Today we also had a 4 hour long yoga workshop with world recordholer and yoga teacher Sara Campbell which gave a lot of inspiration!

Dahab is full of camels, goats, beduin kids selling bracelets, good atmosphere and genuine egyptian life. Everything goes a bit slower than in Europe and you can let your shoulders drop down. And when you add great blue water, a 90m deep training spot and beautiful fish, what more can you want?

More pictures, updates about trainings and competition are soon to come :)

Living off a suitcase (diving bag)

Sometimes I feel like I don't get my bags unpacked before I'm going off again, which is great when it means travelling to nice places. Here I've just spent a week with Martin in Berlin. Picture is taken from Ostbahnhof waiting for the "direct" train going to Århus (due to some work on the lines, it still took me 8 hours to get home....). Now I will be in Denmark untill Monday, when I'm taking the train back to Berlin, and on Tuesday we'll be flying to Egypt!!!

Video from the diving tank

Georgios from Oslo Freediving Club put together this video clip from Håkonsvern

Diving at Håkonsvern, 14.-16. March

Every freediver’s dream is to have a deep pool in the back yard to go training, even when the sea is too cold. The 18m deep tank located at the diving school of the Norwegian Navy in Håkonsvern, Bergen, is exactly this kind of place.

This is where I had my first monofin experience two years ago. Last weekend, I and 5 other freedivers from Oslo Freediving Club, went back to Håkonsvern for some fun diving and training in the wonderfully deep pool.

It’s not every day that civilians gain entry to Håkonsvern and especially not to go diving in the tank, but with the help and good connections of Trond Klimek, a freediver and teacher at the diving school, we were set up with two diving sessions both Saturday and Sunday.

After a briefing about the tank and the training that goes on there, we got the swim suits on and went to jump into the 33 degree hot water. Then silence fell, only interrupted by breathing sounds and fins breaking the water.

I used the chance to practice some frc dives (breathing out), equalization and “no-fins” diving. I realized that in order to do some proper breast strokes, I will have to use my nose clip instead of the mask and maybe get a pair of fluid googles. Good experiences in preparation for the deep diving in Dahab in April!

My sinuses were giving me some problems equalizing both the last session on Saturday and on the first one on Sunday. But still, just being in the nice, blue water, blowing air rings from 7m or hanging around at 10m was making me very happy.

Of course on a club trip like this, we were chatting about techniques and training, equipment and gossip. We watched the extended edition of The Big Blue and had a big portion of Italian pasta. All in all a very nice weekend and a big thanks to those who make it happen (Steinar? Gordon? Noen andre?) and to Trond of course J Hope to see the Oslo freedivers again soon!

Plans for 2008

After last years very good progress in the pool disiplins, I now wish to prioritate developing in the depth disiplins, especially constant weight with fins. I will keep up the pool training and attend a few pool competitions, but try to schedual as much time in open water as possible. After all, that's definatly the best part of freediving!

So far, my competition/travelling calendar looks like this:

• 23rd of February, German Championship, Berlin, pool competition

• 7th-20th of April, Bizzy Blue Hole, Dahab, Egypt, depth training + competition

• 1st-4th of May, Hemmoor, Germany, depth training

• 13th-14th of June, Aarhus Triple Challenge, Denmark, pool competition

• 27th-29th of June, Apnea Happening, Hemmoor, Germany, depth training
  

• 18th-20th of July, German Championship, Wildschütz, depth competition

• 16th -24th of August, Nordic Deep, Lysekil, Sweeden, depth and pool competition

The dates for the AIDA Team World Championship of the year is not ready yet, and neither is it decided where it will be. I'm hoping it will fit my exam schedual, because then I'm going!

Three freediving moments from 2007

Here's some of my best freediving memories from 2007:

Freediving through the Canyon in Dahab, Egypt. This is a video of Peter Pedersen, not me, but it shows some of the beauty of the place. I was there in the easter and I'm aching to go back this year. Read more from the trip here.

Before the world championship in Slovenia, I travelled to Croatia for some freediving. One of the best days was on the wreck Baron Gautch, which you see a picture from above. I was also diving through some tunnels there and having a great time!
You can see some videos here or read some more about the diving here.


One of the things I will not forget, is how it felt comming up after 174m in the dynamic finals in Slovenia. To win a silver medal in a world championship was one of the biggest experiences in 2007. Here's the video of the finals.

Time off in Berlin

After a couple of very intensive days of studying and finally the exam, I had a week of holiday! So I packed the tango shoes and the monofin and took the bus to Berlin and Martin.

Although we took it nice and relaxed, I got to do some nice training, both running and technic training with the previous coatch of the german finswimmer team. That was fun!

I also got a guided tour in Potsdam by Siri, a friend of mine who moved down there for half a year.

All in all it was a very nice week and I was not so happy to go home. There's things to look forward too though, like going back to Berlin next weekend for the freediving competition Long night of apnea :)

Training weekend in Hemmoor 3.-5. august

It was just wonderful to be able to take my wetsuit and monofin and travel to the lake in Hemmoor, Germany, for some training towards Nordic Deep. We dipped in the water already friday night, and twice on saturday and sunday.

Here's Johannes, me and Martin after a nice session.

The lake is simply a playground, with a sailboat, truck, plane and underwater forest. The water has a beautiful green blueish color and the visibility is very good.

There is also a dive platform with lines and counterballast system, everything you need to do a real training. I had a few nice dives around 40-46m, but I did feel it had been a while since last time I did deep diving (easter...).

The weather was great with sun and blue sky, and we made a wonderful barbeque after all the diving.

Stair apnea?

Today's freediving training and preparation for Nordic Deep was a 530 step walk all the way from ground level to the golden gallery of St. Paul's Cathedral. And what a great view! Though I must admit I much prefere depth for hights, and my stumack was not too excited...

We also went to see Tower of London, Tower bridge etc. and tomorrow we'll probably check out some more museums. I'm pretty sure all this walking around is gonna give me legs of steel, so Natalia should better watch out soon. 200m, here I come!

A new way of traveling

On my way to the airport, I get the feeling of something missing. Check for my passport, it's there. And my wallet too. Even my sun glasses. My beloved speedo bag/suitcase is packed with clothes, good walking shoes and the bikini just in case. Hmmm.... MY MONOFIN!!!

When my parents asked if I wanted to join then for a week in London on their expence, it wasn't a too hard question. The only thing that worried me was going somewhere without my monofin and without some plans that inclueded freediving. Afterall, I hadn't done this kind of "normal vacation" since may 2006...

These first two days have been okey. London is really packed with people, really really packed. The tube is hot, the weather is wet, the shops are expencive. But hey! It's a new place and new things to see. That makes up for alot of things. Still miss deep water though:)

World championship dynamic A finals, 174m!

Swimming next to Natalia Avseenko, Natalia Molchanova, Eva Johnsen and all the other girls I felt both strong and very small. But hey, it worked out fine! 174m and a silver medal... (the first one in norwegian freediving history)

Video from Croatia

More videos on http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=NitramRellim&p=r

Freediving in Pula, Croatia

Holiday or training? Both please!

My coach and boyfriend Martin and I travelled to Zagreb and then Pula one week before the world championship in Maribor to do some freediving. The water in this area is not much deeper than 40 meters, but that’s plenty for some fun diving, which was the main objective.

The ocean was warm, blue and beautiful. Even if there was not too many big fish, there were plenty of tunnels, caves and wrecks to explore. From our hotel apartment at the Horizon, we walked 50m to get to the swimming pool. From the swimming pool, we could walk straight down to the ocean and go diving, which we did a couple of times (at night actually!). What more can you ask for?

The place was just perfect for what we wanted: yoga, stretching and static in the mornings, breakfast on the veranda, a walk in the city or a boat trip to the wrecks. Then a nice dinner at the restaurant with fresh fish from the sea. I think we’re going back!

In Pula we were diving with Oscar, Marco and the other guys at Orca Divecenter . After giving our monofins a few weird looks, they helped us out with weights and took us along for some wreck diving. We can highly recommend these nice people. They even came along to try a little freediving, not bad!