Tonight I will be performing 2 max attempts for my dynamic goals in project 13 in the Tongelreep in Eindhoven. I’ve been training for this with a lot of dedication and tonight I’ll be able to show myself and my supporters if I’ll be able to reach the set goals for project 13.

All of the training results look promising and that is also my confidence in doing a solid performance. My drywalks and freediving specific training have thought me a few valuable things: No matter what the circumstance; the performance can be all I want it to be. The moment I doubt about it, should trigger a few dejavu’s in proving this theory to myself.

The plan for tonight is to start with my dynamic with fins performance, after that I will put the dynamic without fins to the test.

I’m looking forward to doing these max attempts, as I’ve done a fair share of training for it.

Let’s hit the water…!

It’s clear that the weeks of hard training are paying of, but that we are also slowly reaching a certain breaking point. Not so much physical as well mental. All the weeks of serious dedication and training to some clear and well defined goals can be very hard work. And all in all, not even counting the progress in performance, it’s already been some very good 12 weeks. New insights and theories are proved and can help us further in the 2nd half of this year and further to even make a better schedule about how to train.

So, what is going on currently? Slowly Sanne is tapering down. We do this by decreasing the volume of work only. Intensity keeps the same and in some aspects it’s even a little bit higher. The last 2 weeks of the schedule, weight training is completely out and not important anymore. More and more concentrating on the more specific freediving exercises like dry statics, dry walks and the pool schedules.

Also we’ve added some outdoor training again, to get the fun factor into the game. Panheel is visited every week again with great joy. This weekend it’s time to go to Nemo33. Not for freediving, but to see if we still got our scuba skills. Sanne and his girlfriend are going on vacation soon, so it never hurts to do an update and give confidence to yourself that all is good.

Next week is the last week, with Thursday the main day. Dynamic is on Thursday, with and without fins. Next day is rest, and Sanne’s birthday (you can leave him a message on the site… From Saturday Sanne will start his end goal of doing a 7 minute static. Maybe it takes only 1 time and maybe it will take several days. We will see! Training results are in such shape that I’ve got big confidence that he will make it soon.

This week has been quite busy when it comes to the job…as there are some changes going on. Making me a bit tired now and then, but never the less it has no impact on my training and performances. I’d expected that my performances would be lower and I wouldn’t be able to train with the same intensity.

But, as it turns out, the training sessions we set out this week progressed according plan. I also put my RS400 to use now and this brings an extra information stream back to Jorg. For instance my drywalks get a new perspective, I’ve posted a result from one of the drywalk sessions from this week (see image). The Polar Training Software generates a nice graph and puts in the lap-points along the HR-line, so I can easily look back at my training and retrieve all the information about my HR.

Drywalk training
The training-session layout for this one is:

0 » 1: 2 minutes preparation
1 » 2: Drywalk (empty lungs)
2 » 3: Walking back to start point
4 » 5: 2 minutes preparation
5 » 6: Drywalk (full lungs)
6 » 7: Recovering

Empty lungs drywalk (1 » 2) felt relaxed and at ease, hitting the “lap” button from my RS400 at 59s. After that I walked back to my starting point and start preparing for the full lungs drywalk.

With my full lungs drywalk (4 » 5) I usually walk along the same route, this helps me in knowing how far I still need to go and how the drywalk is progressing. As I like to put some extra pressure to it, I added 10m extra to my starting point. So now already know in advance that this drywalk is going to be a 2+ minute drywalk. Starting with confidence and passing by some people and cyclists, “No distraction and focus..” I say to myself. I continue for about 1 minute where first contractions kick in. At this point it’s good to have inspiring music (Godsmack) and a strong mental side, as this is the point my mind tries to convince me that taking a breathe is so nice :P. This also is the point where I enter the 2nd part of the drywalk which is also clear in the graph, where my Heart Rate goes down. Eventually dropping below 60 bpm for the last part of the drywalk. I can already see the end-point from which I know it normally means 2 minutes, but as I had 10m’s extra, it meant I hit the “Lap” button at 2:09 @ 52bpm. A good training and I recover on my way back home…

Freediving specific training
Last Friday we went to Tongelreep again for another specific training. With a very promising and challenging training, which I write down on my slate, to keep track of where I am during my training.

A nice side-note is to see the many swimmers with whom I’m sharing the lane during my training sessions, grab the slate and don’t quite understand what I’m doing. A few weeks back I forgot to bring home my slate from the pool and when we arrived next time they actually thought it was one of Jacco Verhaeren’s (Pieter van den Hoogenband’s coach) training schedule’s, so they took to liberty of wiping the slate clean for me… Luckily I brought Jorg along so he could tell me what to do.

The training started promising and progressed as we planned, until a certain point where I got the cramps in my toes Normally when I stretch a bit, it will go away but now it stayed so Jorg and I decided to end the training as we were almost at the end of the training. A very good and intense training, which I’ll try to monitor with my RS400 next time.

So after the test in week 9 it was very clear were to work on an that the general direction in which everything was going, was going very well! Except of the human errors that we made in executing the test as I mentioned in the last article. Oh well, points to learn from.

Four weeks to go and it’s the last phase of project 13. Preparation is done and the shift has been made to more freediving specific exercises and a more intense, lower volume of training. Last week went very good and showed some interesting developments including some heartbeat graph’s that made a lot more interesting to take another look.

Next week will be more of the same, but again a small shift to specific stuff. The heart beat sensor Sanne has bought will play a more crucial role in his trainings. Even so much, that I wonder how we could have done it until now. More on that later!

Yes, I know! I always tell everybody not to do it, and now I’ve done it myself. As you can read from Sanne his post, Sanne made it partially to get to all his goals. I blame the partially part somewhat to myself because I changed so many variables during this test. Besides the added pressure I always give to Sanne, to give him somewhat of a competition feeling, I maybe changed to much of the winning combination. Normally we always train in a 50 meter pool, we did the test in a 25 meter pool. Our normal training pool is 2,20 meters deep, we set this pool to 1,40 meters (for safety reasons). And maybe even the temperature made a difference, 2 degrees higher in the test pool.

I calculated that it would inflict the performance, but never guessed it would be such a difference. First of all Sanne started with his DNF 105 meter test drive. Right in the first lap I could see that the technique for such short laps was not there. Sanne completely changed his pace and the turns were too rushed. All in all it resulted in a small LMC from which he could recover by himself at 101 meters. So strange to see him come up at this distance with some trouble! All in all, 2 minutes for a 101 meter dive is way too much. So next time we stay in the 50 meter pool.

And after the small LMC we decided it was better to not do a max attempt anymore. So Sanne set the goal for the dynamic with fins to 100 meters. Besides the problem with his body positioning because of the shallow water, it still looked as a very easy dive. And I’m sure that if he had started with this one, the 125 meters would be done with amazing ease. Oh well, one can just wonder what would bring this the next time in the 50 meter pool.

All in all it’s just good to learn the hard way during training then to learn from it when it matters during competitions. It’s the first thing that doesn’t go exactly as planned in project 13 and I’m glad it happens in week 9 and not week 13! The thing is that I expected much more problems with his 6:20 static he had to do, but to my amazement that was no problem at all.

So what’s next? Only 4 weeks to go and the final is getting closer and closer. Focus for the last 4 weeks is no completly on relaxation and technique. So no more high intensity schedules were Sanne need to catch a breath between laps, but only the fine and easy feeling of burning legs and those nice low oxygen levels and blue lips.

Monday is the first day of the 8 schedules that will take Sanne from where he is now to a 7 minute static, a 125 meter dynamic without fins and a 150 meter dynamic with fins. And I have no doubt that he will make it! His physic has been trained, his mind is programmed, let’s get it on!