Aussie in German comp

[Wal]

Hi All,
our Aussie freediver abroad - Benny went in a competition in Germany over the weekend. I got a message from him yesterday, said he came 1st in dynamic with 100m, and 2nd overall in the comp, well done mate !
Very good for a first comp, he even won some beer, how good is that. 
Sounds like it was a fun weekend, they also had world record holder Tom Sietas as a guest lecturer. 


"AIDA Germany hosts a Training - and Fun-Competition in Greene, Lower Saxony. This event is especially suited for beginners who would like to know how to compete and for all others who would like to have a little bit of fun:

http://www.freitauchen.info/Greene " - Apnea Addict, Deeper Blue Forum

[BennyB]

Thanks Wal!

I have to say I?m pretty happy with myself, given my lack of training in the last month and the amount of food and alcohol I?ve consumed over the Christmas/New Year break.

Apologies in advance for the long write up, it was a big weekend!

Well what can I say but what a fantastic bunch of people the Germans are! I was the only non-German competitor there, and the guys went out of their way to make sure Pen and I were ok the whole time. The helped out getting the hotel organised, translated the lectures during the day and would generally bend over backwards to help. One of the local guys even picked us up from the train station and gave us a tour of Einbeck and the local area for the whole of the afternoon. Really lovely people.

We flew to Hannover Thursday night and travelled by train to Kreiensen the following day, where we were picked up by Thomas, a local freediver. The comp was in Greene, which is just down the road from Kreiensen and Einbeck. The town of Einbeck goes back to the 13th century and is famous for it?s beer, which I pretty damn good. Greene was quite a small village, surrounded by mountains on one side and a flood plain on the other. When we arrived it was raining but there was still plenty of snow around. Thomas took us around the local spots until we met up with Hartmut, one of the organisers of the comp. We then decided to jump in for a small training session. I was keen on doing some small breath and a couple of small dynamics to warm up but not to fatigue my muscles too much.

All was good, sticking to the plan until they got a text message from another competitor saying he was ill and wouldn?t make it. The guys then asked me if I would substitute in their team for the German Championships on Sunday. They explained that it was basically some fun team events on Sunday, which included a dynamic relay, whereby 3 member teams raced a 25m lap with a baton, placed it on the end of the pool and the next competitor would grab it and race off, this would go for 18 laps, ie. 6 laps per team member. I agreed to fill in, then they wanted to to a practice run. 6 laps later and I was lactic as hell and could barely walk!! We hobbled back to the hotel for some well earned sleep.

The next day the legs were sore but still functioning. We arrived at the pool at 12pm for the start of the lectures. Stefan Seyer, a German AIDA trainer was happy to translate for me, which was a big relief as staring at German Powerpoint presentations for 4 hours did not appeal too much. The lectures covered many of the basic aspects of freediving and went over the competition categories, rules and penalties. Sharanne Wheeler, a member of AIDA Deutschland (and lucky for me American born and raised speaking perfect English) then did a seminar on tips and tricks of competition.

After this Tom Sietas, the guest speaker arrived and gave a presentation on some of his achievements (current dynamic world records of 212m with fins, 175m no fins, 8:58 static), some of the research he has been involved in with Dr Peter Lindholm on lung capacity and packing (including some amazing videos of x ray footage of his throat whilst packing) as well as sharing his diary of diet, exercise and training regime before a big competition. It was interesting to note that whilst a lot of the freediving world would think that Tom?s incredible performances are mostly due to his amazing ability to increase his lung capacity by packing (he packs about 80 times increasing his lung capacity from 8L to 11L) this is only one of many factors. He has a very rigorous training regime both out and in the water, and spends a lot of time focusing on relaxation. There?s no magic pill in freediving?. though the jury is still out on whether the 2 chocolate bars at 1:30am the night before one of his world records actually helped or not? .

After his lecture, he took us to the pool and showed us how he prepares for a static, demonstrating before and during the static how he goes about it. Like the rest of us mortals, Tom gets contractions, his starting around the 3m mark. Can you imagine going through 6-7 minutes of contractions??? I briefly discussed with him some of the research we had undertaken in Sydney on lung packing and he was very interested, he spends a lot of time researching this topic trying to scientifically prove the amount of time the human body can theoretically stay conscious without air. So far, with the research Dr Lindholm has performed on him they estimate this could potentially be over 15 minutes, other things being equal.

[BennyB]

We had a break after this and the comp began. The judges were Hans Putz and Katja Kedenburg. For some bizarre reason when they announced the Official Top (OT) I was first for both Static and Dynamic, not really what I was after in my first comp, particular since other people announced smaller times/distances than me. The reason I found out was so that everyone?s coach (who were also competitors) had enough time to prepare for their dive after yours was over.

I did a couple of 2 minute warm ups, after which Sharanne gave me some advice on breathing as she noted I was getting contractions way too early. Heeding this, I breathed up slowly for about 8 minutes before OT, then asked Holger my coach if he could translate the countdown, as it was announced in German. He counted me down to 15 seconds but stopped at the final 5 seconds. I got confused somewhere between Vier and Drei so started taking my final breath and packed until I realised that I had 2 seconds left before I would be penalised for a late start. I quickly ducked my head under and did a 4:35 static, which was excellent for me seeing as I only did 4min in training a week earlier. It?s also not too far from my PB of 5min. At 4:30 I lost the will to fight the contractions, even though I felt I still had some air to go. I slowly exhaled, came up, performed the surface protocol (took my mask and noseclip off, gave the ok sign and said ?I am OK? to the judges). After an incredibly long 30 seconds with 2 poker-faced judges staring at me, they pulled out the white cards and announced a successful dive. One down! Straight after I finished (and this was one of the fantastic thing about this ?learning? competition) the judges gave me advice on how I looked in the water and told me my neck looked strained the whole time. Sure enough my neck felt hot afterwards so I now know this is an area for improvement.

[BennyB]

Next up was dynamic. I was seriously thinking about doing no-fins and having another go at the Australian national record of 87m set by Nathan Watts in Hawaii last year, however my lead up prep had been pretty bad training wise, and my weights were set for fins, not no-fins. Plus I?d been dragging this big awkward monofin around half of Germany with me, damned if I wasn?t going to use it!
I think this one will be off the market after the next New Zealand comp if Wal attends, which is fair enough seeing as he owns no-fins? .

I did a little bit of stretching, breathed up slowly, and did the exact same thing with the countdown, nearly missing as I packed and dived at the count of 9. Mental note? learn to count to 10 in German!!! I took off with a bit less air than I should of and started finning down the other end. At the turn on 50m the contractions were starting to come consistently and by the time I got to 75m it was starting to get pretty uncomfortable. I turned and headed back for the 100m mark, thinking I would hit 100m, turn and do a couple more metres then surface. However this pool has a railing under the surface, I was pretty hypoxic - I didn?t trust myself not to grab it to help me up and subsequently DQ myself. So I touched the wall at 100m, turned around and surfaced, thinking I would get 101m. I don?t think my arms were long enough because they gave me 100m. Oh well, good enough! I gave the surface protocol and got my white cards from the judges.

I think I came about 5th in the static and 1st in the dynamic, giving me 2nd place in total. Afterwards we had dinner and a small awards ceremony. I received a brilliant trophy and the choice of a 5L keg of Einbecker beer or 6 Einbecker Beer mugs. After struggling for a moment I decided that customs probably wouldn?t let me back in with a keg of beer, so I took the mugs instead. The organisers had plenty of beer there anyway . We kicked on until about 1:30am eating, drinking and watching freediving clips and bits of Madagascar dubbed into German  .

[BennyB]

Sunday was the fun day of the comp with the German Championships. We arrived bleary eyed to the pool, having had 5 hours sleep and, having checked out of the hotel carried all our gear the 1km walk back to the pool. Overnight the weather had cooled down to about ?10 so everything was frozen, making for a very slippery hike. After some brekky the games began. A reporter and photographer from a local newspaper had turned up and took some snaps of us here and here.

The first event was the team static, where 3 member teams do a continuous static, as soon as the 1st person comes up the 2nd goes down, when he comes up the 3rd goes down. The total time down is your final score. Not feeling too crash hot we bummed this one. Strangely, one of the rules is that you can yell at your opponents to put them off. As I surfaced I could see people running around screaming at those doing statics?.weird! The guy next to us was doing a particularly long static, when he came up he had a pretty bad loss of motor control for about 10 seconds and then blacked out. He was out for about 30 seconds. The guys were pretty solid, holding him up until he was dragged out by someone else as the guy with the oxygen came in to administer. While all this was going on, my team mate Thomas turned to me, smiled and calmly said ?ya, this is gut, we are not last? Above the commotion of the blackout you could hear shrieks of laughter coming from our corner of the pool.

After this there was one person left in static, people started gathering around him and yelling in his ear that the blackout guy was dead and everyone else was doing 8 minute statics, it was truly bizarre but very funny. This guy didn?t have a clue what was going on while he was down.

A bit later and the heats for the dynamic baton race started. I was the 3rd starter as with the mono I was a bit quicker than the other 2. I took off pretty quickly on the first lap, then started slowing down so I would last the distance. In the end we won the first heat with a time of 4:46 I think. I was completely knackered by this stage, bright red and unable to talk without gasping. With the second heat about to start, one of the guys came up to me and asked if I would fill in for one of their missing team members. Reluctantly I agreed and headed to my lane, still gasping for air. 18 laps later and we finished with a time of 4:26, unwittingly beating my original team.

This was the end of the main events, after this they had some light stuff like backward dynamic races, whilst I was in the bathroom trying not to throw up from exhaustion. They also had this contraption which was a big ladder with weights attached, which they sank in the deep end then dived on it breathing air into lift bags attached to the frame. This was a practice tool they used in a real stunt back in December 2004, whereby a brand new Volkswagen was sunk in the pool, 2 guys strapped into the seats while the rest of them blew into the lift bags until the car floated 3min 50 secs later. This was part of a famous German TV show, which kind of makes sense once you go to Germany.

All in all it was a fantastic weekend, well worth getting out of the comfort zone and heading somewhere you would never normally think of going. Everyone involved in the weekend were incredibly kind and generous with their time, and really went out of their way to help us and put on a great show. Thanks Germany!

[Watts]

 Good one Benny sounds like you had a top time. And a great review of the comp. Excellent.

[Wal]

Sounds like you had a great time Ben. Is a good write up of the comp too, was interesting. I may have to cut & paste it up into an 'article' on the main pages... if I get your permission of course.   

[BennyB]

I had a slow day at work yesterday 

No worries Wal, do what you want with it. There is another write up posted on the official website - http://freitauchen.info/Greene/

The write up is here - http://www.freitauchen.info/Greene/BerichtvomTrainings.doc

Results here - http://www.freitauchen.info/Greene/WKGreene06.xls

Fun stuff results here - http://www.freitauchen.info/Greene/ErgebnisTeam-WK.xls

Hope your German is up to speed 

[BennyB]

I babelfish translated the web page write up - it's pretty rough but hopefully it can be understood....

Report of the training and Fun Event Greene

The match on Saturday saw a small, but balanced starter field. Above all the a risers showed respectable achievements, which also with "correct" Competions see to let to be able itself. The Australian from London, Ben Noble impressed good 100m with dynamics in his first WK and had thereby only the "old hare" Rainer Kausch with 99m and 5:07 struck to give oneself.

At the Nm it gave however only once for all theory fullly. The Aida team with Sharanne, Curt, Ulli and Katja offered a regulation discussion, safeguard references and a Tips to the participants and cheats was exchanged. Tom Sietas gave to become then views of its "secret" training planning up to the perfect nutrition around a good Freediver; -) The participants could test this then also afterwards under his eyes in the water. The winner honour and a small buffet rounded then first laaangen day off.

Test for a German Apnoe team championship was called it then on Sunday around 11.00Uhr. Six teams wanted to know it and started together in statics the team WK. The Top time reached here Siegfried Franzen, max of Reubert and Manfred Assman with 12:41 minutes.

Without large break now the team print over 18x25 followed meter. Here Ben shone as a course horse or better than a dolphin equal for 2 teams successively. With Henrik Kumlehn and Jan P. Kues he achieved the best time (4:35 min.) and into a further passage before with Hartmut Kumlehn and Thomas Nuesse Klepel the secondary best time (4:49).

Up to the winner honour, which took place already times under Germany flag, all could not dip themselves yet were tired to fins in front and at a mini bets that.? Play please.

To the clear total winner Siegfried Franzen, max of Reubert and Manfred Assman were then gekuert. On the places then Holger Fullriede, Stefan Seyer and Katja Kedenburg before Thomas Burghartz, Martin of kuesters and Silvia Beutler followed. All were not inspired and also from the weekend a team championship should a eintagsfliege remain and a firm size in the match calendar by Aida Germany become.