It’s been a while, but we both had such a busy schedule. Me, judging during the WC in Maribor and Sanne still working and preparing for holiday. Anyway, finally I’ve found the time to do a report about the last week of project 13 and what happened during the dynamic attempt evening.

Week 13 went almost completely as planned. Sanne really tapered down on his volume, so he would be rested for the dynamic evening on Thursday. So on the Saturday before he did his freediving/swimming schedule at the pool. Sunday was relaxing at Nemo33, Monday again pool work for 30 minutes and on Tuesday a good drywalk session. Wednesday, the day before the evening, just a simple rest day so that he would be ready on D-Day Thursday.

Thursday itself was a normal workday for both of us, so nothing special for preparation that he doesn’t do normally. The only difference was time. Where we normally hit the pool at around 19:00 hours we now had rented the pool at 22:30. So the last meal was not in the afternoon, but just when he got home. This time we didn’t make the same mistake as the last time when we rented a 25 meter pool instead of the 50 meter pool we normally train in. So besides the time difference and the empty lanes there was no difference from normal visits to the pool.

Sanne brought his girlfriend and some friends to watch his attempt, which is always a nice motivation to do your best. So at around 22:15 we walked into the pool, atmosphere was somewhat tense and everybody was very quiet. I tried to break that silence by chatting about the same nonsense and bullshit we always talk about when we are in the pool, but it was clear Sanne was tense. Too tense? Being tense with freediving is actually, for the way Sanne is training, a good thing! Sanne does not depend on mental relaxation or anything else. He just visualizes the dive and that he’s going to do it.

Anyway, warm up was minimal, as usual. Just two 50 meter dives in a special way to trigger the freediving modus. After these dives he was ready and he did his max dynamic with fins attempt. Take a look!

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So, I hoped Sanne would do 150 meters this evening, but he ends up doing 125 meters. Am I disappointed? No, for sure not! Well, of course I hoped for 150 by now, but there are some things that are very very positive. But I’ll leave that in my conclusion.

Sanne starts the dive 7 seconds after official top. Start is somewhat sloppy, it doesn’t look fluent. He covers the first 50 meters in 28 kick cycles and 40 seconds. Exactly as planned. Then he does his turn in 2 seconds, but the push off from the wall is somewhat useless. It’s an empty push, so to speak.

From 50 to 75 meters everything looks normal, but then Sanne speeds up. He does the second 50 meters also in 40 seconds, but more like 22 seconds for the first 25 meters, which is still okay, and the seconds 25 meters in 18 seconds, which is really too fast. Total kick cycles at 29.5 which is 1,5 too much, especially if you take in the fact that he also had a shitty push off at 50 and that he has to float to the edge at the end to 100 meters from 98,5 meters.

I was in the water at the 25 meter mark in the pool, buddying from 75 meters and further. For me it was very clear to see the increase in speed from 75 meters, which should have been delayed after the 100 meter turn. So he arrives at 100 meters after 1:22 minutes, which is pretty fast for someone with bi-fins, but more on that later. Again a turn in 2 seconds, at this one is somewhat better, but far from optimal. These turns cost to much energy, and speed is probably the main reason for this. They should be more relaxed. Not that this would have brought him in this dive from 125 to 150, but still every meter counts.

So he starts his 3rd lap at 1:24 minutes and after a few meters you can see him leave his line and already getting closer to the side. At this point it was clear for me that he would go for 125 meters. The start of the stairs in the water is exactly 125 meters and because 125 is his personal best it was clear that he would accept anything less then 125. In total it takes him 22 seconds to reach the surface. 15 kick cycles, which is way too much, and loosing 3,5 seconds of time at around 123 meters going up doing nothing. So total time of the dive is 1:46 minutes, which is his longest dynamic dive ever by 8 seconds.

Yes, I know, he did his surface protocol in 15,4 seconds, so he would be disqualified! But that’s just for us and not competition. If you see Sanne come up it’s clear to see that it’s not O2 that’s the problem with him, it’s the CO2 that got him out of the water. The pace from 75 meters+ was just too hard, too many kicks and still around the same speed. So he was for sure over kicking in this dive, which was not optimal at all.

By the way, not to brag about myself, but did you see my buddying skills? Right on the top he! I always amaze myself with some safety freedivers and the fact that they swim 5 meters behind the freediver and wait 5 meters away from him. Of course they are scared of touching him and thereby disqualifying him, but a little bit closer doesn’t hurt. I always try to swim slightly in front of the athlete in dynamic. If something happens below, I just do a duckdive and I’m right on him. I don’t have to swim to him and then do a duckdive. I’m just there. Of course easy to speak when you know the athlete. The same when he surfaces. I have my left knee right below his bottom. If he drops below the surface he just sits down on my knee. I raise my knee, and he’s up again. Yes, maybe I touch him, but I’m not helping him. And as you can see, Sanne doesn’t need help for sure.

After I saw Sanne come up I already knew it was a big no no to do a dynamic without fins 20 minutes after this dive. Complete lactic acid in his legs, high CO2, that’s just too much to do anything else so soon after. But the fun thing is that I didn’t tell him. It was better to let him experience this fatigue feeling in his body, so he could recognize the next time. I did tell the audience that he would probably already come up before the 50 meter mark, and indeed I was right and laughed my ass off. It’s was funny to see his face when he came out. Just a feeling of ”oh shit, what happens to me!”. Good stuff, and good learning experience.

So the conclusion of the evening. Yes, I’m happy to see him repeating his personal best. Yes, I’m sorry he did not do 150 meters, especially because I know his body is capable of much more. That’s a clear fact if we look at his complete training results of the last 13 weeks. I would say his physical limit is now at 160-165 meters. But there is a little thing up there in his head called his mind. And that’s a strange little thing! The moment I saw Sanne with all his audience I already knew he would do a safe distance and not pushing it. He doesn’t want anyone else to see him having a LMC or worse. Before he even started he knew he wasn’t going to do 150 today. He was already to much stressed and to much ”away” from where he normally is when he does personal bests.

So, why am I happy with this dive? Well, if he came up with complete blue lips, or even worse a LMC or such a thing, I knew we had reached a physical limit. But to see him come up this fresh without any low O2 signs and only high CO2 signs gave me the sign that this was for sure not a physical limit. After reviewing it’s even more clear that in the last 13 weeks priority was with getting comfortable with low O2 levels and not so much with the high CO2 or the very full lactic acid legs. Lactic acid in the legs is a very good thing and Sanne told me his legs were already filling up at 75 meters (hence, the speed and kick increase). So that is exactly what I wanted to accomplish with these dives. The problem now is that he doesn’t trust this feeling too much, it’s still a signal for him that he maybe on his end, but it’s exactly the opposite. If he would turn at 100 and still had no problem with his legs, that’s exactly the moment where he would need to start worrying.

All in all, enough data to go into the next half year of training! We start this second half with more CO2/Lactic acid training, mental prep and the monofin. I’m not to sure the monofin will be something for Sanne because of his back, but we will try for 5 months for sure, and if even then there are too many problems then we quit and completly go back to bi-fins. But we will see what happens.

Is that it? No for sure it’s not it. Sanne is now enjoying a nice holiday in the Dominican Republic, but when he gets back he still has to do his goals! The few 6:30+ statics he did before he left where promising enough that he can make the 7 minute mark, but he’s just mentally to exhausted to even push it. When you know where he gets contractions and how his heartbeat is, it’s just a big laugh! It’s all mental for Sanne. Thee 6 minute + statics with 2 minutes rest between is no problem, so do you really think that one 7 minute static with a good prep is? Don’t think so. Same with Dynamic without fins on which we had set the goal to 125 meters. For sure he can do many 110 meter dynamic without fins like we did 3 times a week in a previous training. But then there is that lactic acid and that mind saying why the hell he’s doing this.

So the big conclusion is that Project 13 is already a big success because we tuned and tweaked his body in a very good direction so that we now have a very good foundation to start really building on. We know exactly what to do to get him to new goals and we have just started to explore what’s possible for Sanne.

Sanne, just a big compliment about all the hard work you’ve put it this. Someone preparing like that deserves to reach his goals and you will see that it will happen sooner then you think! Also thanks for the blind faith in my training program I designed for you. You’re just the best pupil imaginable. No questions or ideas from someone else, just clear facts and briefings to me and blind faith execution of all the hell I put you in. Exactly what we need to do such a clear and spartan workout. There is no secret trick to great performances, there is only hard work! And for sure you’ve done that! Thanks!

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