Part 1: Nordic Deep 16.-20. August 2006

I was driving down to Lysekil on Monday 14. August, all the way from Gjøvik. The driving itself was okey, but I must admit I had some problems finding the big white house called Lysestrand. It took me several trips up and down and around, maybe doe to few directions from a very busy Sebastian and my own orientation knowledge, but I finally made it.



More people arrived the next day and the fun started. Weather was nice, the fjord and the ocean were just beautiful and we had a good training, checking weights and testing the strength in cnf.



Wednesday was the first day of the competition, and like the following days it started with a yoga session in the morning. I was competing in constant weight without fins for the first time and had announced 25m, which went fine. I got a white card and a new national record:)



Sebastian’s mother, Mia, had come to cook healthy vegetarian food for us freedivers, both breakfast and dinner. It was just fantastic to come back from long day of competing and diving to a warm, delicious meal. Big thanks to Mia! And of course another thanks to Sebastian and his little helpers (Hanli, Annelie, Rahel, Emil and several others) for making competing being smooth and fun.

5th German Championship, Hemmoor, Germany, 28.-30. July 2006

With the help of some new contacts and friends from Aarhus, I found my way to the first deep competition in the wonderful waters of Hemmoor. I met up with Eva again, who was a fellow beginner in Aarhus and we also run into some strange dutch/russian guys, Daan, Kars and Igor, which happened to dish up some nice food over the weekend.

I had spent two weeks in Dahab, Egypt, just beforehand, training constant weight with Lotta and Linda at Freedive Dahab. There I had gone from 25m to 45m in depth, a huge jump for me! But the dark, cold European water frightened me a little, and it took a lot of pep talk from Daan to convince me to announce 40m for the competition. But when the day came, I did my dive, coming up with a tag and a big smile :)

The dynamic discipline was taking place in the lake, going straight ahead and following a rope, which was a new experience for most people. I went into the water in only my swimming suit, as cold water is famous to help increase the dive reflex. Breathing up therefore included some shivering, but once I started swimming, it was rather okey. After loosing track of the tennis ball which marked the different distances, I thought I’d better get up. I ended up at 127m, which was the longest distance among the women.

The last thing on the program on Sunday was static. Eva and I had arranged our announced times so we could coach each other. She went first and made a very nice dive past 5 minutes. Then I started preparing for my own dive, doing some very nice warm-ups and feeling good. But when the count down started, I realised I had been in the water for too long already, and I was starting to shiver. I started the dive, trying to relax the muscles, but it was impossible. When I came up at 4.13, I was a little on the edge even though I wasn’t close to my PB at all. My body had simply spent too much oxygen trying to keep warm, so that was a mistake and lesson to learn from.

I ended up on second place overall and a national record, which I was very happy with.

Aarhus Triple Challenge, Denmark, 9.-11. June 2006

I was invited and convinced to join my first competition by Stig after a successful course in Gothenburg (date). It turned out to be the thing that really got me hooked on the competitive part of freediving. It was also a very pleasant way of getting started. The competition was relaxed, the people very friendly and I even got some decent results without falling into too many beginners traps.

This first day I did dynamic without fins, and surprised myself with a new PB after swimming 75m.

On Saturday we had both static and dynamic with fins, and both of them went okey, but not as good as I had hoped for. In static I came up after 4 minutes, having a little problem motivating myself. The same thing happened for dynamic as well, where I surfaced at 100m, 14m short of my PB.

Then came the last day and the last chances to kick ass, and this must have worked for me. With some help from coach Peter, I managed 4:36 in static after getting my contractions at 1:30…

At the course in Gothenburg, I had got the chance to try out some techniques inspired by Sebastian Murat. Since I didn’t have so much competition, I thought I’d might as well try the same thing here. So I slipped into the water just before OT, took deep breath and then laid face down in the water. I waited for about 40 seconds for the first little urge to breath and then started swimming. This meant that I got my contractions after 25m, lots of lactic acid building up in my legs, but enough oxygen for the brain to be perfectly clear at the end of the dive. I did 133m with my plastic bifins and I was very happy!

As I am the only Norwegian girl who’s ever competed in an official AIDA competition, any competition bests I make is a national record. Even so, it felt good to end up with 5 national records after my first competition!