Sloooooooooow training
I seem to recall the words "winter is over" being mentioned in my previous post. Well, no such thing when I arrived in Sharm El Sheikh! It was simply freezing, 21° in the water, 21° outside the water, watercolour: green, visibility: six meters. I might as well have stayed at home and gone diving in the lake!
The only thing to cheer me up was being back in the water with my Italians. They quickly separated themselves into their designated roles: evil coach and angel coach. Angel coach is always looking to make sure I find "the good feeling" whereas evil coach might say things such as: "This may be uncomfortable. I don't care. It's your problem." Charming! He locked me into the classroom one day and made me do dry equalization and breathing skills. Now we all know that I suck at these, so I had successfully hidden from him up to that point. After ten minutes, he started throwing things at me. The result of the session: yet again it remains a mystery how I ever made it beyond 20m. My excuse is, there is limited space on the blond hard drive and all freediving skills have been replaced by full carving layouts in the winter. Sorry, coach!
Over the next few days we did repetitive sprints to 40m, first wearing 6kg (imagine the beautiful descent, sinking from five meters!) - then wearing no weights at all, which had me bobbing in the green sea like a cork. I was not sure I would leave the surface, but I made it to the bottom with contractions starting in about 25m on the way down, which is simply ugly. Angel coach did not come to my rescue, and I am beginning to suspect they are just doing their good cop - bad cop routine. Thanks to all those spinning classes, I held up fine so far! I have even set up my slingtrainer - see my outdoor gym below:
Training is moving along, but going awfully, terribly, slowly. Today I discovered that my equalization has moved backwards (upwards?) by twenty meters from last year, which is exactly the same as every year but still drives me nuts. Why? Why? I want to dive deep NOW! Sniff. This slow progression business makes me really nervous as I always feel that I don't have enough time! Less than two weeks left now, and then I have to go home and then to Siegburg and then to Munich and then to Zurich and then to London and then it's summer and then it's Christmas...aaaaaargh...
I guess I should go do my mouthfill exercises. And no, boys, it's not what you think - it's perfectly innocent. Promise!
The only thing to cheer me up was being back in the water with my Italians. They quickly separated themselves into their designated roles: evil coach and angel coach. Angel coach is always looking to make sure I find "the good feeling" whereas evil coach might say things such as: "This may be uncomfortable. I don't care. It's your problem." Charming! He locked me into the classroom one day and made me do dry equalization and breathing skills. Now we all know that I suck at these, so I had successfully hidden from him up to that point. After ten minutes, he started throwing things at me. The result of the session: yet again it remains a mystery how I ever made it beyond 20m. My excuse is, there is limited space on the blond hard drive and all freediving skills have been replaced by full carving layouts in the winter. Sorry, coach!
Over the next few days we did repetitive sprints to 40m, first wearing 6kg (imagine the beautiful descent, sinking from five meters!) - then wearing no weights at all, which had me bobbing in the green sea like a cork. I was not sure I would leave the surface, but I made it to the bottom with contractions starting in about 25m on the way down, which is simply ugly. Angel coach did not come to my rescue, and I am beginning to suspect they are just doing their good cop - bad cop routine. Thanks to all those spinning classes, I held up fine so far! I have even set up my slingtrainer - see my outdoor gym below:
Training is moving along, but going awfully, terribly, slowly. Today I discovered that my equalization has moved backwards (upwards?) by twenty meters from last year, which is exactly the same as every year but still drives me nuts. Why? Why? I want to dive deep NOW! Sniff. This slow progression business makes me really nervous as I always feel that I don't have enough time! Less than two weeks left now, and then I have to go home and then to Siegburg and then to Munich and then to Zurich and then to London and then it's summer and then it's Christmas...aaaaaargh...
I guess I should go do my mouthfill exercises. And no, boys, it's not what you think - it's perfectly innocent. Promise!
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