Great Northern Comp

A much better comp for me this year than last year, last year i finished early with a black out on my static performance and this year finally got round to seeing a very rare two white cards out of three. Saturday was dynamic no fins day and i felt okay for a P.B. The dive itself felt good and i turned at 75mtrs to go for the 100mtrs i set myself. I missed counted the strokes and ended up headbutting the wall at 100mtrs, before i could turn and push off for the last time the safety diver grabbed me and pulled me to the surface, i knew the dive was over and a red card was coming but went through my surface protocol to show i was still fine. The red card was shown as the safety diver had touch me and that was that. An unfortunate end to a fairly good dive but i was happy to do a new P.B after just 9wks of training. Safety divers have to make a decision in a split second and although i showed him i wasn't happy at first i soon shook his hand and apologised as its not an easy job for them.

Day two went well after a restless and busy night at the hotel due to party goers making ridiculous amounts of noise which took some intervention from me at 04:30am!! Static top time was nice and early in the day as I'd announced low, the 4 warm up holds went fine at 2min, 2min, 3mins, 3.30min and an empty lung at 1.15min. I moved into the comp zone and breathed up for just short of 10mins. Contractions kicked in about where i thought they would and i surfaced after just 20 contractions and played it safe with a below standard 4min 24sec hold, white card was shown and i was happy to see it. Later on it was dynamic with fins and my official top was 17.23hrs, i carried on with my no warm up approach as it keeps the old legs fresher. Jay Cluskey kept me held against the wall as i took my last breath and went. The dive didn't feel great and i got my first contraction just past 50mtrs, turns felt awkward and i surfaced at 124mtrs, another below standard dive but the white card felt good to get once again.

Points for dynamic - 62
Points for static - 52.8

This gave me a total of 114.8 vs. 121.7 in my 1st comp but really happy with the white cards after so many reds. Stars of the day were Dave King with a new NR in dynamic at 226mtrs and Liv Phillip (worlds absolute freediver 2010) with another new NR in dynamic no fins, passing her old record by 5mtrs to 111mtrs. Big respect to both of them, amazing athletes!