SUCCESS AND FATIGUE
It is over a month since our return to Finland. Updating of the web pages has been delayed several times and for several reasons. There have been unexpected and long business trips, illness, etc., but the main reason has probably been a certain type of fatigue: the trip was a great experience, but everyone has had a post-return feeling of having given their all, and creating meaningful new text has not been all that easy. All of our free time had for long been spent with this project in one way or another, and on returning home this was easy to notice.
Now we all three are in Finland simultaneously (and all healthy). Everyone is really happy with the trip and the diving results, but especially heart-warming is the fact that the project account has received a healthy amount of donations. It was difficult to estimate beforehand how a challenge like ours would work, but almost 5000 euros' worth of donations have been made to the account and more keeps coming in little by little. Our target is to exceed 6000 euros and reaching this objective seems quite possible. The fundraising continues until the end of the year, after which the proceeds will be evenly split between our charity recipients, to be used for the development of treatment methods for multiple sclerosis and leukaemia.
Now that we have recovered from the mental and physical tiredness brought about by our long project, we have gradually returned to water. The main emphasis has been on relaxed diving and just having fun, and after a while we believe we can again orientate towards more purposeful training. For Eero a new post-project surprise was the temporarily weakening of his capacity of oxygen uptake required for “normal” sport activities (e.g. running). The adaptations required for freediving can be quite different than for cardiovascular sports, so being in great diving shape does not necessarily mean that you are in great shape for all other sports.
LESSONS LEARNED
Before the trip it was clear to us that achieving our diving targets would require lengthy training in better conditions than those we had been used to in Finland. Previously, our longest stay in corresponding conditions had been two weeks. We knew that our target of breaking all Finnish national records in depth diving was realistic, but the additional problems brought about by the long project were new and unexpected for us. When originally planning the trip we had considered even a two-month duration for the project, but this proved eventually impossible to organise. In fact, the chosen project length turned out to be quite suitable. Trying to reach greater depths would have required much more time, plus a much more relaxed pace of diving. During this trip we dived at best 4-5 days for one rest day, and we increased the number of rest days towards the end. At later stages of the project this started to get quite tough. In case of longer-lasting projects the pace must be slower, especially from the viewpoint of securing physical endurance.
We learned a lot from the trip, but Eero has already earlier summarised everything so well that there is not much to add. Eero's thoughts can be read at:
eng.dive4aid.net/posts/view/223
Successful fundraising, a fantastic trip and an unforgettable experience! To repeat, the donation account will remain open until 31.12.2008 and reaching our donation target remains our big wish. Our thanks to those who have already donated! Thanks also to all who have followed our blog and cheered us on in every way. Stay on line, we will update the blog again – with the final collection result at the very least.
|
