Post mortem & New hope

Competition failure

So, I did the worst possible amateur mistake possible in the competition: I tried applying some new idea that I had never tried in training. This time it was drinking lemon juice on the competition morning because I had heard that it could be useful. The result: my stomach was completely messed up for the next three days, including the competition time...
Competition static failed because my 1,5mm pool suit was not warm enough to keep me from shivering already at official top, and I bailed out at miserable 4 min mark.
Competition dynamic failed because my stomach was so upset that the dive would have been... interesting if I had went further. I bailed out at around 130m, which was the competition's longest dive but still very, very far from my 200m target. Luckily the apnea or lactic acids were no problem at all on that point, and it was purely my stomach that forced me to abort the dive.

Lesson learned: No new tricks to competition, even if it is a small regional competition!

Break

Since then I've been having an unintended break from training: first my work got too hectic, and it prevented me form training for two weeks, and right after the stress was reduced I caught some flu, and was off from pool for an additional week.


DNF PB

Since last Thursday when the fever finally disappeared I've been training almost daily. Yesterday I did my first good pool exercise (e-diving in Mäkelänrinne with Ari Kylmä, Matti Luukkonen and Matti Viherlaiho) and in the end tried some DNF, just for fun. I felt very relaxed, and decided to go for one max attempt, aiming to match my previous PB of 82m. I surfaced at 109m without any difficulties whatsoever. In fact the 109 DNF felt easier than normal 109 DYN with monofin! Kinda makes me wonder the efficiency of my monofin technique... I still had a lot of room for improvement for the DNF dive:

1. My balancing was horrible. I didn't pack fully and I still was constantly floating towards the surface.
2. I didn't have any lactic acids at all.
   
3. I had done a very hard spinning exercise the day before going to max HR on multiple occasions.
   

Perhaps I should participate in DNF as well in our national champs (The standing NR is 108m...).

So: some ideas from yesterday's success to be tried in the future for DYN as well

1. I didn't eat basically anything since lunch (11:30) and the dive was at 21:00. Usually I drink some protein 1h before pool to ensure energy supply during dynamic.
   
2. I did 1,5h of STA and long e-diving for warm-ups. Usually e-dives have resulted in very early feelings of lactic acids during dynamic.
   
3. I was feeling slightly cold before the dive.

Unfortunately I will be missing the week-end's dives due to a brief skiing trip, but after that I'm going to focus on dynamic apnea without any further excuses.