SaltFree 3 days Easter Break

Easter weekend at SaltFree was fantastic, We all met up on Friday morning and went down to the platform on a cold, wet morning and began to sort the lines out and get ready for some new P.B's.

The bad weather gave way on Sat and Liv Phillips (National Record Holder) came down to do her 55mtr CWT dive which looked fantastic! Leaving us meir mortals on the 30mtr line.

Sat was a great day and saw some personal new P.B's in CWT & FIM disciplines and also some more on Sun at the end of the day.

Liv gave me all the much anticipated details for my first competition which is being held on May 31st at Camberwell which you can check out here.....
http://www.geocities.com/samdive/dreamweaversaltfree/cambcomp.htm


This is the competition i have been waiting for since last year and after sending off for my BFA Membership i can now get into some training specifically for Dynamic and Static. I have 6wks to prepare now and everyday counts so here goes....

THAT'S SOME BIG FEET!! Quack!

New Hyperglide Mono

Well i finally got my new Hyperglide mono from Leaderfins this week which http://www.9lounge.co.uk/ bought for me. I've just got to get the vinyl logo for it done now which i will get done in the next couple of weeks from Craig at http://www.vinylcreations.co.uk/

Training last night was terrible and went some thing like this...

3 x FRV holds 53sec/1min 02secs/1min 05secs
Hold 1 - 3mins 53secs
Hold 2 - 4mins 12secs
Hold 3 - 5mins 02secs (45 contractions)
The whole thing felt wrong and the contractions were painful. I then went in to try my new fin for dynamics and was rather hoping for a 125mtr performance but came up at 75mtrs feeling completely wrong.

Just didn't have my mind in it last night even though i felt so positive before hand. I have now sent off for my BFA membership which will allow me to compete this year, i have only 6wks before the great Camberwell Breath Hold event which is being held on the 31st May (Dynamic & Static)

I am now going to have to make some serious changes to my training to get anywhere in this competition although most people are saying "go along for the experience" i want to go along to be all i can be and do well. After this i have the SaltFree Double Dip in June which is CWT & FIM which i am training for this weekend for 3 days.

Well I'm off to Chepstow now and packing my bags, so here goes....

Training / News & Sponsor Info

My sponsor print has now been completed on my carbon monofin, looks great and can't wait till Easter weekend at SaltFree to give it a go. Thanks to AD2000 Services Ltd.
My training has been good this week. Week before last i had a mild chest infection after a cold (man flu!!) so i wasn't hoping for much in terms of static and dynamic training this week but i was quietly surprised.

I managed a very easy 5min 08sec on my third hold and also managed a very easy (easiest one yet) 100mtr dynamic after.

I started with three FRV holds which were 45secs / 1min / 1min 10sec and then used my normal 2/4/2 breath up for 2mins and packed.

Hold 1 4min 08secs
Hold 2 4min 35secs
Hold 3 5min 08secs

Packing extra is now helping with contractions (15-18 packs) and helping to stretch my lungs well. As i have said before i am training like this to reduce the amount of holds i do to get over 5mins and then i a few weeks time i will string 6 holds together to see what happens to my max time?

The dynamic session was soooo easy over 100mtrs, I'm still awaiting delivery for my hyperglide fin which nYne sponsored me for and i'm sure that with this i will complete a good solid 125mtrs.

A big well done to my Friend Eric van Riet Paap who competed in the AIDA Belgium competition this week and done a 8min 01sec static!! (a new N.R) Well done Eric and well deserved.

No Warm Up's Necessary!!

Well after my weekend away and the lack of training recently it was time to crack on this week. Still hard to fit training in as work is hard at present. I had a couple of bike sessions out this week.

BIKE SESSION
Ave speed 13.6mph
Dis 5.31miles
Max speed 20.5mph
Time 23mins 16sec

Slightly worse than my last session but that's what a hard head wind does to your time i guess.

Pool training on Wednesday went great on the static side but not so good on my dynamic side. I have been working on reducing the amount of warm up holds it takes to get over the 5min mark and up to about 3wks ago i had my warm ups down from 5 holds to 3 holds and last night i managed a 5min 02sec on my second hold!!

First hold was 4min 17sec
Second hold was 5min 02secs

I used the 2/4/2 breath up for both for only 2mins with 2mins rest in between. I only took 32 contractions on my last hold. The theory is that in a few weeks time i will hit 5mins on my second hold then carry on up to 5 or 6 holds and hopefully pull out a new P.B of over 6mins 08secs which i set last year. Just a theory though?

Picture of me and Jay Cluskey from our weekend at Chepstow! Jay is an accomplished freediver and taught me a few things over the weekend. more importantly Jay is the fastest driving, sword fish killing, non muesli eating lunatic i have meet in a long while (he'll understand)

Great guy and i hope we meet again @ SaltFree.



This picture is my daughter who had her second swimming lesson this week (just before my static session) I was hugely proud of her as she spend most of the lesson underwater and not on top of it (a future freediving champion?)

SaltFree March Constant Weight

A good solid dive at SaltFree last weekend (shown above). The weekend was a great experience and the platform looked amazing thanks to Dave & Sam. It was also great to meet someone who i have been e mailing for the past, god knows how long (Mr Jay Cluskey). I was also glad that he doesn't eat south African peace crisps or muesli bars!!

I am back at SaltFree at Easter time for 3 days to improve my depth part of freediving which will hopefully see me diving to some good solid depths?

I have now secured sponsorship from two people now http://www.ad2000servicesltd.co.uk/ and http://www.9lounge.co.uk/ AD2000 services sponsor me for all my training expenses now which allows me to take time off to train and fund my training needs, they are a fantastic security company who i have used for over 6yrs now as a major service provider to my day job. They operate nationally and are one of those companies that is "small enough to care & big enough to do the job" they have supported me deliver some pretty hard results in my job and employ some of the best security personnel i have ever meet.

Nyne cocktail lounge operate out of Bexley Heath and sponsor me for my equipment and is run by Pete Marshal (world champion cocktail god!!) whom without i simply could not afford the kind of products i need to compete with this year, so a massive thank you to you both for getting behind me and my love for this sport.

Back to Training....Again.

Well it took a couple of weeks off for my muscle injury to sort itself out and now I'm fighting fit again. (sorry picture is not me, i just love it so i stole it!!)

I started the week cycling together with dry statics. The dry statics have been coming on a treat. I have been working on reducing the amount of warm up holds to achieve 5mins or over. Usually it take 5-6 holds to get to this point and in dry training i have reduced this down to 3 holds.

I converted this in the pool last night and completed the following...


Hold 1 : 3mins 15sec
Hold 2 : 4min 15sec
Hold 3 : 5min 01sec

I used 2/4/2 for 2mins as my breath up which seems to be working o.k and I'm managing 15 packs now comfortably instead of my 8-10. The holds felt really comfortable and contractions seemed a lot less with the extra packing.

Dynamic training went well also and i worked for almost 40mins on technique alone. I'm hoping that when i get my new mono-fin from leaderfins from my sponsor http://www.9lounge.co.uk/ this will improve my performance greatly.

BIKE SESSION
Ave speed 14mph
Dis 5.31miles
Max speed 22.5mph
Time 22mins 36sec

Feels good to get back into training as i hate having time off but glad i did as my neck feels great now. I'm looking forward to freediving in Chepstow next weekend with SaltFree and christening the new freedive platform with Sam Kirby & the gang!