What the fuck just happened?

Yesterday everything was perfect. 160+m perfectly controlled and easy training dive. And today total disaster at around 160m mark requiring safety diver intervention. What the fuck went wrong between those dives?

Summary of today’s events

Slept late, as planned since my OT was not due until 19:00. Did some stretching in the morning, and everything was good. I’ve never been as flexible in the morning. Ate some bananas (for HH) and rye bread (for fiber) throughout the day. No decent meal at any point.

Kept on visualizing the upcoming dive’s presumably difficult parts i.e. what happens after 100m turn. I had planned to utilize my previously successful ‘range’ philosophy for today’s dive as well. Yesterday I had set the range for 20-40 kicks past 100m mark, and surfaced at the upper limit of 40 kicks, which was about 160m. I surfaced because I had promised myself that even though I had no problems whatsoever. For today’s dive I set myself the range of 40-60 kicks past 100m mark, and I seriously thought that I would reach the 200m mark today.

Pre-warm-up preparations went well. I have never been so flexible during training, and I was able to maintain good positive mood throughout my mental visualization trainings. But after all was supposed to have been good to go, things took a turn for the worse.

I tried some packing to check for my susceptibility for packing blackouts, and almost lost consciousness on the inhale alone. Nothing dramatic: just quickly drinking more mineral water to increase blood pressure. I drank almost 1,5l of mineral water before I was able to pack at all, and by this time all my pre-acquired self confidence had disappeared: I was afraid of failing the dive before I even reached 10m mark! Anyway, off to water for warm-up dives.

The warm-up dives went completely as planned and as they had gone yesterday. The only cause for doubt s was the fact that all the 1,5l of mineral water ‘stayed in’ and I had no urge to go to toilet at all. Most likely my dehydration level was far more than 1,5l… Technically the warm-ups went completely as planned, but I still noticed myself thinking about the upcoming dive in an anxious way. I was not convinced of my abilities to reach my goals. This anxiety must have been a major cause for my excessive (hyper)ventilation that started already 4min before OT.

The start of the dive was not perfect. The packing dizziness came back, moderately, and I was forced to abort my packing at about 80% point and start the dive prematurely. After that I managed to get into a good rhythm for the 50m mark. The 50m turn was OK, and I started to anticipate the upcoming uncomfortable CO2-warnings. The warnings came and went as planned (70-90m) and I started to prepare for the 100m turn, where the ‘real’ dive and the counting of the kicks was supposed to begin. At the 100m mark all hell broke loose. My fin collided with the fin of the guy in the next lane and all my concentration, planning and self control crumbled down like a house of cards. I went into panic. I started sprinting already from 100m point on and was not able to slow myself down. I just kept counting the kicks to reach the lower limit of my ‘range’ and bail out as soon as possible. I reached the 150m turn with 30 kicks, continued for the extra 10 kicks to complete the 40 kick quota, reached for the rope and, according to team mate’s description, blacked out. At around 160m mark. With no lactic acids to speak of. A distance that should have been reachable under every disaster scenario. Apparently it wasn’t.

So, here is the post-mortem of the major fuck-ups I made:

Fuck-up #1: Range philosophy

This works well under controlled circumstances, such as training dives. The benefit of the ‘range’ philosophy is the fact that you can ignore the unpleasant feelings completely and focus on reaching the lower limit of the ‘range’ before opening up to listen to your body’s ability to operate within the ‘range’. This philosophy does not account for the fact that the premises under which the range has been set can change during the dive (such as due to panicking, for instance).

If you cannot control your mind without totally blocking the messages your body sends to you, you are not supposed to dive any further.

Fuck-up #2: Dehydration

Drink the goddamned mineral water, moron.

Fuck-up #3: Hyperventilation

Don’t start deep ventilation until 30sec before OT.

If you cannot handle the CO2-load without hyperventilation, you are not supposed to dive any further.

Fuck-up #4: Pushing the limits

In the beginning of this blog I stated that I was willing to push my limits. Now that I have gone beyond my limits once I can say that that is not the way to go. I‘ll need to develop mental strength instead to better judge my ability to proceed instead of having foolish admirations of some kamikaze-like boundary hunting (exaggerating a bit to make my point).

I don’t blame the other guy with whom I collided with least bit for my failure. Such panicking should not be triggered by any interference. If some truly important and unforeseen obstacle occurs, I should abort the dive, not just kick away panicing. The collision, or more likely the slight touch of fins, only unleashed the demons that were only barely under control at that delicate turning point, and it would have been a miracle if I had been able to perform a good dive even if I had dove in an empty pool. If I had not encountered the problems related to my diving philosophy today, I would surely have encountered them later, most likely under less secure conditions.

No shortage of lessons to be learned. Actually ‘lesson’ is too light a word to describe what needs to be modified. So, here are the major fundamental diving paradigms that need to be altered. Starting first thing tomorrow.

Paradigm change #1: Kick-and glide, one at a time

The less kicks needed, the less total work needed to cover a distance, the less energy required. And some dive-reflex stuff to promote that approach as well.

But the most important reason for changing into this approach is to regain the control to what is happening in my body throughout the dive. In every glide phase I have a lot of time to listen to myself and determine whether or not I’m capable of doing the next kick safely. This is likely to set me back for months in my pursuit for the 200m mark, but I don’t want to risk another black-out EVER in my life.

Quite interestingly all the top names, Severinsen, Molchanov and Larsen used extremely slow, but fluent kick-and-glide technique, although at least Stig and Alexey have demonstrated that they master the continuous kicking style as well. I did not count accurately, but Stig must have done less than 10 kicks per 50m, and it looked so fluent and easy that I couldn’t help myself just admiring the fluency with which he flew through the water.

Paradigm change #2: Hyperventilation is a cause for aborting the dive

If I find myself hyperventilating before the dive, I know that I am aiming higher than I believe I am capable of. If hyperventilation is detected, and OT is too soon to eradicate it’s effect, I will abort the start.

Paradigm change #3: Limits to endurance’s omnipotence

There is only so much that you can do with increased endurance. There is a reason why world’s top marathon runners, cyclists or full distance triathletes don’t have a past time hobby for breaking freediving world records. Today I did not feel physically exhausted at legs, like I do in interval running and cycling, but still I managed to black out. Judging my remaining ability to continue diving cannot be based on the feeling from my legs.

Game plan for DNF (and future DYN attempts)

One hand stroke at a time with loooong glides in between. If I find myself (1) accelerating or (2) shortening the glide phase or (3) having doubts about the next hand stroke’s safety I will abort the dive instantaneously.