Sick period

So I've been sick for last week. I did friday pool over a week ago and on the saturday I felt cold coming. After that I've had to drop all training all together until today. I did my regular sunday pool training. I still feel it in the lungs so I did easy 60mins with few 50m's just to try it out. I've come back technique wise pretty much and I keep hitting my knees at the bottom of the pool and the relaxation is pretty much gone. I do hope to get back on track soon as possible, but I already know that getting back too hard after being sick is not a good idea.

We had nice weekend just now doing some pretty intensive yardwork. We installed some drain pipes and started building yatsuhashi-style board walk at the backyard. We had some friends over to help with the work and we did some intensive cooking together. I've been studying the ramblings of David Chang and his Momofuku style. We tried some chicharron, pork belly buns, ribs slathered with honey sesame dressing, ginger-scallion noodles and some shabu-shabu. If this wasn't enough, we baked some sourdough bread at wood heated oven. I don't know which was more work: the heavy yardstuff or the cooking. I was dead tired after the day. Everybody had good time and that's what's most important.

Well, having flu is thing of autumn. You get sick two, three times a year and you just have to deal with it. I hope I can jump back to training track. It's getting pretty cold evenings, so I am thinking of including some weightlifting to the training regiment instead of running.

Cold waters

It's been while since updating the blog. I did normal training last weekend with the exception of sunday. First time in couple months I was out for night with friends on saturday. So on sunday I felt suprisingly weak and quezy. On sunday I tested my new Sommap Flow mask and it was pretty horrible on pool. I had very disthorted vision and it was difficult to do any dives. I ended up doing just 5x50m + some 25m's.

This week I had work trip to Germany for three days It was pretty exhausting. I arrived back home last night 2.30am. Today we headed for Kuorinka for pretty cold water diving. Weather was windy but we enjoyed nice sunset. My 3mm gloves are too thin (and broken) for this kinda of +8c waters. Otherwise everything was fine. There were no fish this time either...

Tomorrow I am heading again for friday pool practice.

I hurt myself today...

... to see if I still feel. This describes my running training today. First 10mins were nice and slow warmup, after this I saw some fellow runners behind me and decided to lose them. It's strange how you can motivate yourself to sprint when you think you're in competition, even if an imaginary one. Last 5mins of the run were pretty painful, but again I learned something new: you always have some adrenaline reserves and you can call upon them in the time of need. Some aggressive music from your favorite trash metal band helps :) I ended up with 30mins and 7 sec time for just over 6km length with avg hr of 167 and max hr 189. I felt I still had room to spare. Few years back I remember pushing with circuit training my max hr to 202 . That was tough exercise.

Yesterday I had yoga session, which was pretty good. At the end on the toughest part my legs were beaten to pulp or so I felt.

Tomorrow I will be waking up at 04:55 to catch a train to Helsinki. It's gonna be rough 14hr workday tomorrow. Oh, yeah, my Trygons nose clip arrived and some other gear. Sommap Flow mask looks pretty cool. I will test these this weekend. Now I am just too tired to try any max statics...

Self management

In every sport, progression is important. You set goals which are reachable and progressively train to get them. At some point you hit the wall: you cant progress any more. At this point you would begin the question all of it. Does it make any sense to train so hard and gain so little. Personally I would think that one should maximize the time of progression. This way you would actually maximize the duration of time where you can enjoy your increased performance and progression. Slow and steady it goes.

I've had few off days. Friday I had to skip the pool session as we headed to visit grandma's and pa's. First time for our baby girl. I also had opportunity to go hunting which I find time way too little. It's basically once a year occasion. Visiting nature and seeing wildlife is something I was born with. It's in my blood. While living in city for many years, it's been the little nagging voice in the back of your head telling you're missing on some great things. The trip was success and we got some game. I have pretty awesome recipe for hare fricassee, so we're enjoying that tomorrow.

I had the two hour training at the pool today. I did no-warmup dynamic for the first time. It felt okay, and I decided before starting that I would go 75m+ with few kicks more. I ended up at 84m. Slow and steady it goes. I did total 61x25m. More tougher set was 10x50m, which I did at the end (actually had time only for 9 times). I watched the video from the last time and figured, that I was going way too slow. My 50m time was 61sec and I did 10+ kicks for 25m. I've trained two kicks and glide style. So today I concentrated on the glide and more powerful kick. Of course this took out some relaxation and I think I got more bent in the knees. At the end, I could do quite easy 50m with just 14 kicks total. Overall feeling was good and I got nice workout out of it.

Feeling lazy

I intented to do yoga today. I haven't found real motivation to do it recently. Last week I missed it and again today did not feel like doing it. Instead I went for a run. I hoped to have easy and relaxing run. After 5mins my hr was again 160+. I tried to relax and slow down, but to no avail. I ended up the run with avg hr of 165 and max 178. It felt bad. I might've been dehydrated also.

I looked up information about pool swimskins today. There are few options: Blueseventy Nero 10k (99eur on discount), Aqua Sphere Winter Skin (145eur on scubastore) and Cressi Neptune (179eur on sukellustukku). All these suits are similar with exception of Nero 10k, which has no sleeves. I am looking for suit, which would have scs-coating for pool, but also would be protective suit for warm waters ie. Dahab :). I don't get cold at 22c pool after two hours, so 0,5mm or 1mm suit is fine for me.

I also found nice second hand Orca suit which fits my wife. This would be perfect for all-around open water activities. She did PADI OWD with me, but haven't been so keen on the freediving yet. Let's hope this enthusiasm is contagious.

Some static & Dahab

Just sent confirmation of reservation for a hotel in Dahab. All is coming together. We are going for a week at the end of the year to Dahab. This is very exciting as Dahab is well known diver's and freediver's paradise. We now have flights, transportation and hotels reserved. Next I have to figure out where I should go for some freediving lessons and training.

Yesterday I did just simple co2 table dry. My Trygons noseclip is yet to be arrive. I did pretty simple 8x75sec hold with 5sec decrease starting from 50sec rest period ending with 15sec rest. This felt unusually tight. Well last four holds were done with some active work as I was wiggling my baby girl on my legs. Don't worry, even if I BO'd she would had been fine and secure on my lap :)

Today I did just max static attempt. Three warmups and go. Warmups felt fine and no contractions at 2:30 hold. I had 4mins rest and breath-up for max hold. I did breath-up with 3 slow deep breaths and 2 purges. This did not go well as soon as the hold started I started to get dizzy feeling. This happened once before also. While eyes closed, the room starts to turn and I feel like being swung around. It feels like you just spun your head really fast. I had to move my head around and try to focus not letting the dizziness go too bad. This took relaxation out of the hold and I think my contractions started around 2mins. I decided to fight it and hold for 50 contractions. It felt okay and I checked the stopwatch which showed 3:45. I sat up and decided to hold for over 4mins. After 4mins I had difficulty holding the air in and had to release. I felt slightly disoriented, but did not feel any symptoms of hand tingling or tunnel vision like doing the walking apnea before. Ending time for the hold was 4:08.

Some progress

I've been training according to the plan. Friday was pool day and I did just 15*25m's and concentrated on relaxation. After this I did some relaxation exercises in deep pool. I tried "the frog flow" few times and actually managed to extend my comfortable dive time to 1m30s+. This is the first for me. I have to try this again with no mask when my Trygons clip arrives. Yes I did some shopping. I've also been looking at some swimskins and pool wetsuits, but haven't really found one in my price range yet. There's some Blueseventy Nero 10k's on sale (~99€), but I don't know how well they're suited for open water in warm waters.

Saturday I headed again for Kuorinka to look for whitefish. Water is now around +10c, but fish are still deeper. I did very comfortable dives around 1min and some even exceeding it. I never felt any discomfort. I think I need new gloves as my current 3mm are getting cold (and torn!).

Today was once again longer pool session. Today's overall was just 60x25, including one longer co2 serie. 2x50m, which was videotaped to show my technique (or lack of it). I also did 80m, which is again pb. 100m is reachable already, but I think my strategy of increasing the max by just few meters a time will yield best results in long rung. I saw a glimpse of the video and as I expected, I do look like diving walrus. It did not look so bad, quite relaxed actually. Still there's many things to fix.